I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, the salt-iron tang coating my tongue.
I see Elva’s hands – streaks of red across her porcelain skin. I hear Caius Castellion’s voice in my head, telling me the story of the three sisters, telling me about Syla.
Power belonged to her. It ran through her veins.
‘Remember when I told you that the Eyes are drawn together?’ Fox says in a voice one might use to calm a wounded animal. ‘You could’ve emerged from any of the Ridge tunnels, yet you stumbled right into my arms. In Brava, you felt pulled towards something, only it was me you found in that cliff pool. Or rather, the talisman roundmy neck. Do you see? The Eyes can sense when another is near.That’swhy you were drawn to me.’
His words pierce my heart.
I don’t realize I’ve dropped the Eye of the Past until it hits the ground, bouncing twice before rolling to a stop at Fox’s feet.
‘Blaze,’ he says, but I shake my head, backing away.
Flint moves forward but Sheen places a cautionary hand on his chest.
The forest grows darker with each staggering step I take from the bonfire.
Fox’s footsteps make no sound as he follows me through the trees. ‘Blaze.’
I ignore him.
‘Please. Just talk to me.’
His hand brushes my shoulder. I shrug it off roughly and whirl round to face him. ‘I bet you knew this whole time, didn’t you?’
He flinches as if I’ve struck him. Then he composes himself and meets my gaze, holding it carefully as he says, ‘Iswearto you, I didn’t.’
But the problem is I don’t know whether to believe him. He’s hidden so much from me in the past. Does his pledge of honesty still stand? Or is he lying to cover his back?
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I should’ve pieced it together the day we arrived here, when …’ His eyes shutter. ‘Like Flint, I thought it must’ve been me. That I’d done it subconsciously.’
‘Done what?’
But he doesn’t need to respond. I see them in my mind, sprouting through floorboards, blooming brightly all around us.
Foxgloves.
Heat prickles, blurring my vision. The rain is light at first but grows heavier with every painful thud of my heart.
Was it all a lie? This.Us.Everything he said. Everything we felt. Were we really only drawn to one another because of the Eyes?
I always knew we were a bad idea. I was so reluctant to trust him, right up until the moment I surrendered my heart. Perhaps it was not my trust in Fox I should have questioned but the connection we shared. The intimacy, theintensityof it.
I used to struggle with my emotions. I used to bottle them up, bury them deep – until I learned to control them. But my feelings for Fox were never something I could control, no matter how hard I tried. What if this is why?
The thought rips me to shreds.
My throat is tight, my voice abrasive. ‘It wasn’t real, was it?’
Confusion clouds his features. ‘What wasn’t?’
I don’t answer him. I don’t trust myself to speak. The heartbreak from Hal’s betrayal was nothing –nothing– compared to this.
How could I ever be with Fox now, when I have no way of telling whether the way I feel about him, the way he feels about me, is true? I’d be living a lie.
‘Blaze, you’re not thinking clearly. Calm down, and then we’ll –’
‘No.’
