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The anger has melted from his features, and there’s a softness in his eyes as he looks back at me. “You should get dressed,” he says gently as I glance back to where Arlo was. “You can go find him later. We’re still helping him get home, but preferably with you clothed.” I look at Kylian.

“Why did you pay off his debt to the Crown? I saw the papers in your office.”

Kylian sighs and wanders over to me, clamping his hands on either side of my face. “For you, I’d do anything,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to my forehead.

CHAPTER 62

• Alessia •

NERVOUSNESS FILLS ME as we walk along the edge of the small town toward the piers.

We pass the well at the crossroads and the larger warehouses where food stores are kept. A smile tugs at my lips as I watch children fill buckets and race each other back toward the cottages in the town square, water sloshing bright and clear over the rims.

I remember when that same well ran the color of rust. Now a girl no taller than my hip drinks straight from the ladle and laughs at whatever her brother says. The fields on the rise beside the council walls have been cut and cut again, gold stubble left behind where the second harvest already came in. Past them, the orchard Eagan swore would never fruit is heavy enough that the branches bow.

It does not look like a place that was dying.

The fields beyond the castle where my magic first took hold became the island’s heartbeat, and the power I injected into the soil has now flooded the island’s veins, breathing life back into the land from shore to shore.

Life here is flourishing. I heard birds this morning, actual living birds, singing in the treetops the same way the children squeal as they play along the beach.

As I approach the ship, I see Arlo standing near the loading ramp with Eagan and two of the ship’s hands. His sleeves are shoved up to his elbows as he helps lift a crate from the dock and passes it up into waiting hands.

For a moment, I pause on the gangway, because seeing him work beside Eagan with that much sorrow written on his face makes last night feel fresh all over again.

He glances at me, then looks away, but I force myself to keep walking. When I reach him, I tuck my hands into the sleeves of my coat to stop myself from reaching.

“Arlo.”

He sighs heavily and lowers a crate onto the deck, wipes his hands on his trousers, and reaches for another without meeting my eyes.

“We’re leaving soon,” he states.

“I know.”

He gives the crate a hard shove toward one of the ship’s hands, then steps around me as if I am just another thing in his way.

“I need to finish helping prepare the ship.”

My chest tightens as I follow him. “Can we talk for one moment?”

He stops but doesn’t face me fully, and the muscle tightens in his jaw.

“I asked you for one thing, Ali,” he says, his voice low, though I know Eagan and Kylian will be listening anyway. “Help me get home to my sister because, right now, that is the only thing I can still ask of you.”

I swallow hard, nodding even though he still isn’t looking at me.

“Of course.”

His gaze finally moves to mine, and the hurt there is still raw enough to make me wish I hadn’t said anything at all.

He steps past me, his shoulder brushing mine like he can’t stand being near me a moment longer.

I just stand there, caught between the urge to follow him and the knowledge that doing so will only make him hate me more.

“Alessia,” Kylian calls, and I turn, finding him standing near the rail with one hand resting on the dark wood.

I move to him, feeling foolish for how relieved I am that he doesn’t look pleased about any of this.