Andrei sat heavily, hand over his eyes.
“I have Violet’s memories,” I said steadily. “And what she showed me convinced me that you know more than anyone else still livingabout Starfire. Someone made you forget, but it’s still in there. It has to be.”
He stared at me like I was crazy, and maybe I was.
Taking Finn’s notebook from his hand, I sat down across from my grandfather and pushed the completed prophecy in front of him. But he ignored it and continued to stare directly at me.
“How do you have Violet’s memories?”
“I went back in time. Now look—” I pointed at the page.
“You didwhat?” His voice rose to a shout as he shot to his feet. His eyes flickered between me, Andrei, and Finn, who was trying to stifle a laugh, unsuccessfully.
“I went back in time,” I explained quickly. “I met Violet. Anyway?—”
“This is what you meant.” He rounded on Andrei, who had a pained expression on his face. “When you said she was doing plenty that I would never understand to try to protect this kingdom.”
Andrei exhaled heavily, closing his eyes. “I told you there were things happening that you weren’t privy to. You didn’t believe me.”
“And you, both of you”—he whirled back on me—“kept this from me? Why?”
“Because you’re so easy to talk to and care about what I’m doing,” I muttered. I tapped Finn’s notebook. “Now, this is what I’ve pieced together from Violet’s memories.”
He settled down in his chair, still looking at me like he was seeing me for the first time. I pointed at the notebook once more and he turned his attention to it. As Zachariah read, his brow furrowed and I saw the moment he understood what he was reading. In a rare moment of something akin to tenderness, his cold, turquoise eyes softened enough to almost call them warm. “You are so much like her,” he said softly.
For the first time, I felt myself softening toward my grandfather.
He read it again, rubbing between his eyes. “The crown… something about the crown…”
“‘When bearer’s head, the crown does lay, light of the kingdomwill have the say,’” Finn quoted. “‘Light of the kingdom’? Could that be Starfire?”
“The crown binds the wearer to the land,” I mused. “But the crown’s been lost for decades.” Could that be one of the three bonds that Finn had theorized were necessary to access Starfire?
“Not lost,” Zachariah countered. “Waiting. Biding its time for someone worthy.”
Great. Now I had to convince a missing, mystical artifact that I was worthy for it to reappear. In the midst of a war for our kingdom.
No big deal.
Chapter
Forty-One
The dreams are getting stronger. That can mean only one thing. He approaches.
—From the journal of Violet Andrever
Iwas in the field of tulips before the waterfall that hid the cottage. The colors were so vivid they were unreal, the blue of the waterfall misting in the distance. My fingertips drifted over the silky petals as I wandered. And there he was, standing before me, strangely missing his swords. He didn’t go anywhere without them these days.
He turned as I ran to him, catching me in his arms with a laugh.
“I missed you,” I said as I brushed kisses over his face. He captured my lips with his.
“I’m here now,” he breathed against my mouth.
I had no idea how long we stood there embracing, but the soft morning light began to bleed away. I thought the sun had gone behind a cloud, but the darkness kept coming, swallowing the sky, devouring every trace of light until the world plunged into unnatural night.
The joy that had blazed through my veins at finding Griff here shuttered and was replaced with ice water as I watched the tulips curl inward as if in agony, the vibrant reds and yellows draining to asickly gray, then black. The waterfall stopped moving as it turned to ash and crumbled away grain by grain, the wind carrying the dust of my paradise into nothingness.
