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He smiles, just a little. “That’s the point. The trial knows you dislike being out of the driver’s seat.”

The last few steps are the worst. The tiles shrink, the space between them is almost nothing, and the blue light under my feet pulses like a heartbeat. I reach the central circle and step onto it. The moment I do, every tile in the room lights up at once, and the dome overhead goes from silver to deep, endless black.

From the darkness, a figure emerges—Lady Morana. Still in the same midnight gown, still with the same cold, unsmiling eyes, but very real.

She claps her hands once. “Congratulations,” she says, and her voice echoes from every surface. “Very few make it to the end of this trial.”

Revelin tenses as he squints at her. “What’s the catch? This can’t be the end without another epic battle or something. It’s too easy.”

She shakes her head, smiling smugly. “There is no catch. The test is over, and you are free to go.”

Tiernan bristles at her casual treatment of this nightmare. “What about those who fail? Your people just let them die in this place?”

Morana looks him dead in the eye, not an ounce of regret in her expression. “They become part of the walls.”

There’s a silence so complete I can hear my heart pounding. She just admitted that Midnight allows their heirs without the ability to survive physical and mental torture to fade into ghosts whose purpose is to torture the next contestants.

Gruesome and definitely something I’m going to put a goddamn stop to if I have to run this place.

Dezi and Morana lock eyes. There’s a long moment, heavy with secrets the ancients decline to share with us, before she turns away. Gesturing at the wall at the far end of the dome, she watches as it dissolves into starlit night. Real air rushes in, sharp and cold and full of life, and I breathe it in thankfully.

“Go,” she says. “You have earned it.”

We walk out, battered and silent, ending up in the castle’s gardens. The mark on my palm is different now. The crescent is gone, replaced by a perfect circle—a full moon. It must represent the metaphor of completing the trial successfully, but it only makes my heart ache when I remember the ghost representing my sister.

Fucking Fae sadists.

For a long time, nobody speaks as we finally move. Sticking together even as the paths split and the garden opens up, I keep track of the various statues and features. Some part of me wants to run, to scream, to destroy every pretty thing in this place, but the logical part knows we want to explore this area later, anyway. Remembering how we got out is important for later.

So I keep walking, feeling the weight of every memory, every ghost permanently imprinted in my brain. My mind isn’t any lighter for the knowledge, but it’s something I have to live with if I’m seeking the truth.

As long as I don’t have to live with it alone, I’ll be okay.

Twenty-Four

KHOL

Have you ever tried to walk with dignity after a supernatural trial strips off half your skin?

It’s a trick—especially with other people around. Every time I move, there’s this dry, hissing sound signaling my scales flaking off. It’s followed by a shimmer of translucent green that catches the light and leaves the evidence behind. I could probably reconstruct a full-length Khol out of what I’ve left on the black marble path, if I had a few years worth of patience.

Fiadh notices that it’s getting worse first. Of course she does—Sassy’s eyes miss nothing normally, but she’s on the edge here. She sidles up next to me, boots crunching over a carpet of shed scales, and gives me a once-over so obvious it’s basically a pat-down.

“You know you’re still shedding, right?” she says, voice still raw from the screaming but already loaded for sarcasm.

Reaching up, my mate plucks a ragged oval from my cheekbone, and holds it up between two fingers like it’s a rare coin. “If we ever lose you, we can just follow the trail of DNA evidence.” She grins, her expression wicked and tired but beautiful, and flicks the scale at my forehead. It sticks for a second before drifting off into the undergrowth, joining a hundred others on the haunted garden floor.

Embarrassing.

“No shit,” I mutter. The itching is a thousand ants crawling under my skin, and I’d rip it all off if I thought it would grow back before the next crisis. “If I stopped every time I dropped a piece of myself, we’d still be at the starting line. This usually happens in private and not on the move.”

Rev makes a strangled sound that’s either a laugh or a leftover rasp from our travails in the stupid ass Fae test. “Most snakes wait until spring, Khol. Is this a protest of our treatment or just poor self-control?”

I ignore him, rolling my eyes. Basilisk aren’t simply ‘snakes’ and this started because of the fucking ghosts in that nightmare. Plus, he’s still riding the high from making it out of the trial alive, so he’s bound to be a shit. I smirk when I notice that his hair’s sticking up, and his fancy jacket is torn in three places. Despite it all, the prince still walks like he’s on a runway and not half a minute out of a deathtrap.

I guess they teach that to assholes who are going to wear a crown.

“I’d tell you to shed your attitude,” I say, “but it’s probably so ingrained that you don’t know any other way to be, jackass.”