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So of course, I curse him behind the wrap of his shadows. He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “All right, you talk. You know better than anyone the information passed from the front, what they’re saying meets the armies of Gault when they cross the Imaelhain border. What is it?” His shadows uncurl from my mouth.

But my lips are sealed tight as the terrible, terrible truth dawns on me—so earth-shattering, so unthinkable that I’d never considered the possibility.

“You’ve heard what they call me before,” he whispers. The shattered pieces of my heart seize. “Van Asten told you about it earlier tonight.”

I can’t say it. I won’t. He’s betrayed Gault, betrayed my godfather, betrayed me. Sensing my reluctance, Lonan smiles. He leans in till his lips graze the shell of my ear. “You know who I am.”

The truth sinks into my heart like ice. I can barely say the words as his shadows slither up my legs, licking my arms, cooling my skin. They threaten to surround me, to swallow me whole. When he whispers the words, it’s like the slammed lid of a coffin, the final ring of the clock-tower bell.

“The Great Nightmare.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Traitor. Heretic. Snake. I look up into Lonan’s Saints-damned beautiful face, shadows cutting deep into his sleepless eyes, and it makes too much sense. His charm, his deception, his lust for the Dark.

I want to kick myself for not putting it together—the Great Nightmare, a force that can flatten villages and decimate armies.

What could be more deadly than Lonan’s shadows?

I’ve only ever seen him kill one or two people at once, and only ever on my godfather’s orders. I assumed that was the worst he was capable of. I was so, so wrong. I’ve seen how quickly they strike, how they’re deadly with a mere touch. I just didn’t imagine . . .

Saints, the blood on his hands. The evil he’s done. It’s unthinkable.

My mind flickers like a tongue of flame through memory after memory, questioning every move Lonan has ever made, every word he’s ever spoken. I knew not to trust him, but I should have been so much more guarded.

We started training in the Dark together, at the mere age of eleven. When did Lonan start using it for Imaelhain . . . and was it before or after my father died?

“Vesper,” Lonan says, “before you do something rash—”

I headbutt him in the mouth.

He reels back, groaning.

Lonan turns to me, pulling his hand away to a reveal a bloody lip, crimson dripping down his chin. My stomach lurches. Because, Saints, he looks so much like Galvin, with blood in his mouth and rage in his eyes.

“Act first, think later, isn’t that right, Fontaine?”

“Fuck you,” I seethe, weaving as much hate into the words as I can.

“Eloquently put. I’m guessing you’re not going to cooperate with me from here on, then. I’ll have to find a new solution for you. Locking you in a haunted clocktower clearly didn’t work.”

I struggle uselessly against the bonds of his shadows. Lonan sheathes his sword to grab me by both arms and lift me into a standing position. “I suppose I can’t convince you to behave for the sake of our friends.”

“They’re my friends. They’re your nothing.”

He offers a flat smile and tilts his head. “Come on now. We’ve been a cohort for years. You don’t really think I’d want them hurt.”

“You left Poppy to rot in the dungeon!”

That makes more sense now too—the way he was able to give up so easily, how he could coldly dismiss Hugo’s heartbreak.

I have to get out of this. I can’t let him hide me away when no one else knows what he is, what side of this he is on. Somehow, I have to fight off his shadows.

He scans me thoughtfully, gripping my arms. “I suppose I could lock you in your dormitory. I didn’t take your scythe or your timepiece before. Foolish of me, but I wanted you to have something to defend yourself . . . Now, I have a feeling I know the answer to this, but will you walk willingly, or will I have to once again throw you over my shoulder like a fresh kill?”

“Interesting choice of words, traitor.”

“Over the shoulder it is.”