“Amanda, I—” he starts again, another apology already forming.
“Don’t,” I cut him off, the single word a door slamming.
If I let him keep going, I might break, and I’ve already done enough of that in front of him. Hissorrydoesn’t unmake his choices. It doesn’t pull out the knife after it’s already sunk deep.
“You’ve spent your whole life chasing the version of you your parents decided was worth keeping. Always selling. Always winning. Always putting on the perfect show.” I let my gaze drag over him, slow and cold. “Grow up, Declan. Stop worrying about how Daddy sees you and whether your mommy is happy. Maybe then you’ll figure out love isn’t something you can close like a deal. And if it were, you just lost mine.”
There’s a heat in my chest that has nothing to do with the Tower or this kingdom’s magick, a sharp sting that settles in places I don’t dare touch. It feels hauntingly familiar. Pieces of my life playing out the same way over and over again. But everything I think is real is always just another performance.
I shove the ache down deep, sealing it inside the container I know best. The one I can always reach for. The one that’s never failed me. The one labeledI’m fine.
I turn my back to Declan, brush sand from my skirt, flick grit from my lashes, and sweep sticky strands of hair from my temples. Behind me, the Tower’s rim gapes. The columns glow slate gray, casting strange shadows across the curved sand walls. Below, dunes roll away like a black ocean under the half moon. The kingdom’s torches stitch a line of fire across the horizon. Farther down the ridge, the guards’ torches bob like angry stars.
Figures I’d end the night on the verge of being arrested. The cherry on top of this shitstorm of a sundae.
“Ahead!” Dav’s voice booms up the ridge as theguards break into a run, boots kicking up arcs of silver-dusted sand.
The feeling in my chest hits harder. This time I know it’s otherworldly, the magickal thread that’s attached to my heart, and right now it’s knotting around my lungs, squeezing them tight. “I can’t let the guards find the Tower.”
Declan clears his throat, the cool, disconnected edge from our first meet up back in his voice. “Why can’t they see it? Wouldn’t the kingdom finding out it’s here—knowing it’s real—help you do what Fortune said you were brought here to do? To heal it?”
For a second I’m furious in a way that feels embarrassingly small. Declan should know better than to question me right now. The Tower is mine, the kingdom revealed its magick to me, and I don’t want anyone else messing with it or taking it from me. I want something I can keep. Something I can believe in.
I drop my hand to my sternum, fingers flat against the hot, steady thrum there. I breathe into it, let the rhythm steady my breath. The sharp, broken edge softens. When I actually listen—not to the frantic voice in my head that keeps me stuck but to the Tower’s magick under my ribs—the meaning shifts. This isn’t a warning to hide. The wheel is turning. Change is coming.
Declan’s expression hardens. “What will they do to us if they drag us back? That’s the more dangerous question.” He glances down the slope, then back at me, shoulders squaring. The set of his jaw says he’s about to do something reckless and chivalrous, and I don’t need or want any grand gestures that prove how he feels.
“You’re not seriously thinking of fighting them.”
He doesn’t answer, which is its own answer.
Dav’s voice thunders up the dune. “By command of the Kingdom of Wands, halt and yield your weapons!”
I lift my hands. “Dav, we don’t have any weapons.”
“Then yield your designs!” he calls, stopping a few feet below us and drawing his sword with a flourish. “Confess you were sent to spy upon our great kingdom for Cups. Skulking off before your report is due, are you not?”
“This again?” Exasperated, I shake my head and toss a glance back at Declan. His arms are crossed, jaw set, teeth grinding like he’s chewing rocks. Heat flares in my cheeks. He doesn’t get to be angry. He’s the one who lied.
Tarek jogs the rest of the way up the ridge to meet Dav, panting, his hair plastered to his sweaty forehead. Three more guards are at his heels, palms resting on the hilts of their swords. He wipes his brow with the back of his hand and grins. “Accusing them of espionage again, are you?” he pants, bent over and breathless. “Like I said, I gave Thorne directions to the Everspring. They deserve a bit of a respite as much as the rest of us.”
Dav’s blade glitters in the moonlight. “They are not at the Everspring, Tarek. They are here—in the dunes—attempting to flee.”
“Well, perhaps,” Tarek says breezily. “But I’ve shared many words with Thorne. They will not escape to Cups. They have no route and scarce provisions. They’ve merely…” He shrugs. “I don’t know…gotten lost. One wrong turn is all it takes. Out here, the dunes look the same until the caravan fires show the way.”
Dav narrows his eyes. “Do you listen to yourself?”
“I do, actually.” Tarek replies, chin lifted. “I find myself charming. My mother often says—”
“Your mother is a cur,” Dav snaps.
Tarek straightens to his full height, which is admittedly not that impressive, but he pulls it off with the indignant stance of someone six inches taller. “Take that back.”
Dav lifts his chin. “Make me.”
The guards behind them shift, trade knowing glances, then collectively take a half step down the slope.
“Can you two just shut up?” I press my fingers to my temples. “It’s been a really long night, and I would love to get whatever this is over with. Tarek’s right. We weren’t skulking off to Cups or committing treason. We were—”
