“I don’t need more information.”
“You might.” Henry’s grin turns wicked, and dread prickles the skin at the back of my neck. “Would you rather give up the throne, or give up your marriage?”
Theo’s expression is hard to read in the dying light. “What?”
“It’s just a hypothetical. Wren, or the throne?”
Theo’s eyes dart to me, and I feel like I’m sinking, like I might never breathe again.
I wrench my eyes away. “What if he doesn’t want either?” I quip. My attempt to relieve the awkward tension only makes things worse. Brooke’s expression fills with a sympathy that makes me want to catapult myself off the island.
“You’re a prick. I’m not answering that,” Theo says.
Henry smirks in delight. “Are you pulling rank, Your Majesty?”
“Yes.” Theo looks at me. “My question’s for Wheeler. Would you rather—”
“Get rescued right now or stop playing this game? It’s a toss-up.”
“Game over.” Brooke lifts her hands.
“No, it’s okay. I’m not too scared to answer,” I say. The truth is, I’m dying to know what question he’ll ask.
“Would you rather go back in time three months, or jump three months into the future?”
“That’s too easy!” Henry protests. “In three months, we’ll be rescued—”
“Or dead,” Victoria adds helpfully. She tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear with trembling fingers.
“But if she goes back in time, she can get on her plane in London and avoid meeting me completely, which means she never would have been on the plane that crashed in the first place,” Theo says, never taking his eyes off mine.
The stakes are spelled out for everyone. He’s calling my bluff. He wants to know if I really regret meeting him, and everything that came after. The wedding. The heartbreak. The three months of feeling like I’ve been caught in a current, unable to do anything but gasp for breath and wait for the ocean to spit me onto shore, tired and bruised and too scared to try again.
My chest burns as I meet his unflinching gaze. I’m tempted to fall back into old habits: to avoid my feelings and bury them under ten layers of sarcasm. It never worked on him before, but there’s so much strange, distant tension between us that it might this time. We’re under the same sky, but I’m starting to wonder if we’re the same people we used to be.
Steam curls over the water, and maybe it’s the heat going to my head, or the way the starlight glints off Theo’s bare shoulders, but if the comet taught me anything, it’s that I can’t pretend away my feelings. Hiding them never got me anywhere I wanted to go.
“I’d go back in time.”
He doesn’t flinch.
“I don’t feel good,” Victoria says suddenly. She vomits on the shore and then slumps against the side of the hot spring.
“Get out of the water,” Theo commands, already swimming toward her.
I reach her first and help her boost herself out on trembling arms.
“My head… I’m dizzy.” She sounds like she’s out of breath. She shakes me off and stands on her own, but then she stumbles forward.
“Wait. Let me help you.” Theo scrambles out of the water, his feet and hands slipping against the muddy ground. He lunges for his sister, but he’s too late.
We all watch in horror as Victoria’s knees buckle.
CHAPTER24
Time slows down, and I feel frozen in shock as Victoria collapses.
“No!” a voice screams (maybe mine), and time speeds back up.
