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Arlo steps closer again, always inserting himself where he doesn’t belong. “You’re shaking,” he says quietly.

“I’m fine,” she snaps.

“You’re not fine,” he insists, reaching out as if to steady her, and the surge of possessive rage that floods through me is immediate.

“I said I’m fine,” she repeats, stepping back from his touch, and the small rejection of him does nothing to calm the predator stirring beneath my skin.

My jaw tightens, my teeth grinding. “Remove him,” I snap. “He is distracting her.”

There is a pause. A beat of silence that stretches just long enough to be insulting.

“No. You do not get to command me through a link when you refuse to stand in the same space as her,” Eagan continues, his tone sharpening in a way I rarely hear directed at me. “If you want him gone, come down here and remove him yourself because, right now, her fear of hurting him is the only reason she hasn’t hurt me by accident.”

“I am occupied,” I say, though we both know it’s a lie.

“You are avoiding her,” he counters without hesitation. “There is a significant difference, though I suspect you already know that.”

I have been avoiding her for weeks, except when I need her blood. Yet I can’t stand being near her when all I can smell is his scent on her clothes and skin.

“I am exercising restraint by not killing him,” I correct, putting emphasis on each word.

“Then perhaps exercise it where it matters, because she is deteriorating while you’re pretending not to see it. She never struggled with her magic before. She conjured a damn forest for a vegetable garden, and now she can’t conjure a damn thing.”

My grip tightens against the stone window edge until it creaks faintly beneath my fingers. Below, Alessia attempts another spell, and this time, nothing happens at all. Not even a flicker.

“I am not responsible for her inability to use her powers.”

“No,” Eagan says, quieter now, but no less firm, “you are responsible for the bond you share and are denying her.” He pauses. “You use her like a blood bag while denying the bond and then get angry when she seeks Arlo.”

Below, Alessia lowers her hands again, her shoulders sagging slightly as exhaustion begins to win over stubbornness, and for a moment she turns, her gaze lifting toward the castle. As if the bond is pulling her attention the same way it pulls mine.

I step back from the window.

“Bring her back to her room. It will be dark soon,” I say, severing the link before Eagan can respond.

I move away from the window, choosing to get lost in work rather than in my bond. Just as I’m pulling out the most recent inventory of supplies, a rumble like thunder rolls through the window. But there was no storm on the horizon. My head tilts as the rumble turns into a tremor that I can feel beneath my boots.

Another island tremor, marking the slow descent of our kingdom into the sea. A reminder that, despite the life Alessia has coaxed from the soil, the curse still has roots here.

The light above my head sways, slow at first then violently, and the low vibration quickly swells into a bone-rattling rumble. I stagger toward the window as the castle shakes around me, the stones groaning and creaking under the strain.

Outside, Alessia is still standing in the center of the field, palms facing up, with bolts of blue electricity sparking from her fingertips. The sky churns, gray and wild, and the wind twists around her body like a living thing.

Eagan shifts closer, trying to steady her with a calm voice, but Alessia’s power spirals out of control, and a jagged halo of energy crackles around her.

Arlo closes the distance too fast, his voice high and panicked. “Alessia, you need to calm down.”

I’m moving straight out of the window before I can tell myself not to. Her head flies back, opaque eyes widening. My stomach churns as Arlo reaches for her. The moment his fingers brush her arm, I feel the bond react from within her.

My feet in the ground beneath the window just as a crack of raw power explodes outward. Arlo is hurled backward, slamming into the masonry with a grunt. Alessia’s eyes clear for a moment, but the electricity around her only sharpens.

“Arlo!” she cries, reaching for him against the waves of unruly magic like she’s reaching through quicksand. Another blue bolt erupts from her palm like a mistle, striking a tree only inches from Arlo. The trunk explodes, bark and splinters of wood flying in every direction.

“Get Arlo out of there now before she kills him.” I mindlink Eagan, meeting his gaze across the distance. Raw panic flickers across Alessia’s face as she battles to harness the storm roiling inside her. She can’t hone her power; the energy refuses to be bent to her will, and her fear is only making it worse.

“Kylian, I can’t stop her.” Eagan’s voice comes through the link, taut with urgency, but I am already in motion. As much as I would love for her unruly magic to kill the human, I cannot stand by and watch her slip into the abyss of her own power. Not when I know she’ll never forgive herself if she hurts or kills him.

I sense the bond tighten as my surroundings blur in long streaks. Arlo is suddenly back on his feet with absolutely no sense of self-preservation. I can see the moment he decides he’s going to try again.