Kaden shook his head, eyes shining with joy. “I don’t know.”
A horrible thought occurred to me then, chilling me to the bone. “You’re not . . . Oh, gods. Are youdead?”
“I don’t think so,” he murmured, though a faint line creased his brows. “Strange things happen in the in-between. It’s a place where physical distance doesn’t seem to matter as much.”
But I found I didn’t carehowhe was there — only that he was. His chest was warm and solid beneath my palm, and I could feel the steady thump of his heart.
Not dead, then.
“I’m sorry,” I rasped, pressing my forehead against his chest and breathing in his familiar, masculine scent. “I amsosorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Kaden murmured, tucking an errant strand of hair behind my ear.
“Morta’s hands,” I choked. “They were at Mirabella’s all along. I should’ve remembered —”
“Stop,” he whispered, running his thumb over my quivering bottom lip. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
“W-what do you mean?”
Kaden jerked his head around as if he were being followed, but all I saw was the thrashing sea.
“You’re not really here.” The realization felt like a knife to the gut, and my knees nearly gave way.
Kaden shook his head, frowning slightly as he leaned in and pressed a kiss to my lips.
Tears burned my throat as devastation clawed its way up my chest. He felt so real — his flesh warm and inviting, muscles tightening beneath my touch. His spicy charred-cedar scent wrapped around me, and his kiss tasted like mint and smoke.
But this wasn’t real. At least, he wasn’there. I was in the in-between, and Kaden was locked in some cell in Dorthus.
Desperation tore through me as I clung to his damp shirt, as if I could physically tug him through space and time to bring him to this beach.
Then I heard it — someone calling my name.
“Sorsha,” I murmured. “She’s looking for me.”
Kaden nodded, but the look of grief that stole across his face made my stomach plummet. Wherever he was, whatever he was enduring, there was a part of him that thought this might be the last time he saw me.
“What are they doing to you?” I whispered, not sure I even wanted to know.
He shook his head. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
But there was a hardness to his features that made my heart stutter.
“We’re coming for you,” I promised him.
“Lyra—”
“Just hold on a bit longer,” I pleaded, my desperation mounting as I sensed our time drawing to a close.
“You don’t understand,” he growled softly, rough hands cradling my face. “You can’t come for me. That’s what he’s counting on.”
“Well, I figured we’d lost the element of surprise.”
“Stay away, Lyra. Forget about me. My father, he . . .” Kaden’s eyes darkened. “All he wants is you.”
I opened my mouth to tell him he didn’t know me at all if he thought I’d abandon him to Semphrys. But that far-off voice was growing more insistent. I could feel it tugging me back to the present, away from Kaden, no matter how hard I clutched him to me.
I awoke with a start against the damp wall of the sea hut just as the door slammed. It took a moment for my vision to adjust to the low light . . . and to realize where I was.
