When I step back over the boundary between the town of Briarsmoor and the rest of the world, dark falls in an instant—a clear, chilly winter afternoon dissolving into a cold night just on the edge of a cold dawn. For a moment, I sway on my feet, the sudden change making me dizzy. Human beings weren’t supposed to move through time like this, and a wave of nausea passes over me. But as my eyes adjust to the dark, I make out the shape of the mare still waiting for me, tied to a fence down the road.
The horse whickers gratefully when I turn her around and urge her back toward Everless, the way we came. I wish I could share in her simple, high-stepping happiness.
Rinn’s words echo in my head. Her blood stains my dress, blood she’s been spilling over and over for seventeen years. After I regained my voice, I pleaded with her to come with me, thinking that I could pull her from the snag in time that she seemed to be caught in—but as soon as she reached the threshold of her house, her eyes became misty with confusion. When I tried to pull her outside, she started to scream, and only stopped when I let go of her wrists and walked away.
Dying and dying and dying, over and over again. I was a fool to think I could save her from such powerful magic. Grief tears at my heart for Rinn, for this town. For a family I’ve never known, now ashes.
But above all else, my thoughts are consumed by the truth slowly but surely taking shape before me. My mind continually circles back to Ezra Morse—the man who slowed time when he was happy. And when his wife gave birth, time stopped entirely, just as it did around me, when Caro was in danger yesterday.
Pehr—Papa—was my uncle. The Morses must have been my birth parents, my birth father a stranger who appeared in Briarsmoor out of nowhere. A man scornful of the Sorceress, who nevertheless had a statue of her near his home, and was rumored to experiment with magic. If I was the baby who was saved, was I the baby who stopped time? And Ina Gold . . .
My sister? My twin?
Impossible. And Roan . . .
My sister is marrying Roan Gerling. My sister will be crowned queen. My sister who doesn’t know who I am, who doesn’t know about the night of blood and magic and death that bore us.
The riddle of it all pounds through my mind: Papa died to keep me from the Queen. He warned me the very day he died not to let the Queen see me.
But why? And what does it have to do with the Sorceress, who keeps appearing in my dreams, her palms open as I run toward her, knife in hand. . . .
What does the Queen have to do with any of the stories Rinn told me? Why would she have wanted a child born in Briarsmoor—a child whose birth stopped time?
Unless the Queen . . . is the Sorceress.
The thought stings, blindingly hot then cold. I tell myself it’s the air, only the air whipping against my face.
For some reason, the Queen wanted the child who could stop time.
I was saved. Wrenched away from Ina, who was left to be taken by the Queen. Does this mean that I am the only one with a hidden power coursing through my blood?
If the Queen is the Sorceress, I’ve walked right into her path, and left havoc and destruction in my wake. But what would she want with me anyhow? The Queen may be cold and cruel, but she has never harmed my sister. If the Queen thought that Ina was the child born with the stone, is she still to discover her mistake?
And, of course, there is the equally pressing question making my head burn in pain from the enormity of it: Who am I? Why would my birth have stopped time? Why did my time harden and lodge in Caro’s throat, unable to be taken in by anyone else but me?
And finally, another, far more sickening thought clouds out all the rest like a plume of black, stifling smoke, so heavy it makes my eyes tear and run. I think back to the stories I wrote as a child, how Fox and Snake’s innocent games slowly darkened and changed until Snake was curling around Fox’s heart, stealing the life from her. What if the Queen is not the one to be feared at all?
What if the person to be feared is me?
Papa is buried in an anonymous grave somewhere in the woods. He would still be alive if I had never gone to Everless. He would still be alive if seventeen years ago, he had allowed me to die in Briarsmoor with Naomi Morse.
I stare down at my shaking, blood-and-mava-stained hands, the mare thundering over the ground below me. I can’t go back there. I must leave. I must go far, far away from here. But how can I travel without money—and where will I go?
Quickly, the plan forms in my mind. I’ll return to Everless, but only long enough to gather my belongings and clothes that are not covered in blood. I wish I could get the book too, but I expect the Gerlings will have posted a guard outside the vault, so I put that thought out of my mind. I’ll have to leave without it, slip away and escape through the servants’ entrance. With any luck, I’ll be far away before I’m even missed among the servants.
The thought of not saying good-bye to my friends at the estate—Lora and Hinton, who propped me up in the depths of my grief, and Ina—my sister—is like a knife between my ribs. Caro’s face flits through my mind, too—but so do her unmarked hands, clean of the stain of the vault. Her arms, free of bloodletting incisions. Ivan lied for her. She lied to me.
Maybe once I’m away from Everless, I can untangle the mystery to be free of it, so I can someday return.
Fantasy.
I urge the horse forward.
The trip back to Everless passes in a blur, and soon I’m through the gates, hurrying along the servants’ corridors, and into the dormitory, which is mercifully empty, everyone in the midst of their daily chores and activities. It doesn’t take long to gather my things, and I stand for a moment over my narrow bed—hard and unwelcoming and yet, for a brief time, my home. In the quiet of the dorms, I change my dress, shoving the bloodstained one in the hearth, and slip the soft pair of gloves Ina gave me over my still-stained hands. And then I’m hurrying through the back entrance. I do my best to shut everything out except for my next goal: this doorway, that staircase, the door leading outside. It’s only someone calling my name—the voice male, velvety, familiar—that infiltrates the fog in my mind, and I stop in my tracks. I turn around.
For the first time since leaving the dormitory, I notice my surroundings: I’ve walked straight into the beautiful royal gardens, no less stunning for being locked in snow and ice. Except for the walking paths that wind through the garden, the blanket of snow on the ground is immaculate, blindingly white. And in the midst of it all is Roan Gerling in his green hunting cloak, his cheeks flushed, snowflakes caught in his hair and eyelashes.
I have scarcely seen Roan in days. But seeing him now before me, all rich color against the white and black and gray of the garden, brings my feelings rushing back in a wave. He holds an elegant bronze-handled rifle casually in one hand, and with his other sweeps his hair out of his face.
“Jules,” he says again, his smile far more dazzling than the weak morning sun above us. “Where have you been?”
I almost laugh, thinking of the tavern, the time lender’s alley, the vault, the abandoned town. I have an urge to tell him everything, his eyes the color of the summer sky promising comfort and understanding. After all, he’s known me longer than anyone else here. But I bite my tongue at the last moment. “I’ve been busy with chores, Lord Gerling,” I say, avoiding his eyes. “And besides, you’ve been away. With Lady Gold.” The words are cold in my throat. As I say them, I realize that Ina and the Queen must have returned to Everless as well if Roan is here. I should leave now, before we cross paths. I’m not sure if I could look into Ina’s face without blurting out the truth about us. And the Queen . . .
But my thoughts dissipate when Roan tilts his head, his usual smile absent. His gaze turns serious. He steps closer, and in spite of myself, my grip tightens on my bag.
“Jules.” My name in Roan’s mouth is softer now, his gaze heavy on me. “Are you all right?”
In a flash, I see him as a child, reaching down from his perch in the oak tree to help me up beside him. My words rise in an unstoppable rush. “Do you love her?”
Roan stops where he is, one hand half extended toward me. His brow creases. “What?”
Shame and fear crash down on me, leaving me small, hollowed out. But I’m leaving, I’ll never see Roan Gerling again after today, so—“Ina,” I say again. “Do you love her?”
Roan blinks. Swallows. He takes a step closer to me, close enough that I can smell the scent of pine that clings to his skin. No trace of either lavender or rosewater today. He takes a deep breath that has the hint of a shudder in it.
“No,” he says finally. “I don’t.”
I’m frozen, stunned. I can’t move, not even when Roan reaches out and closes my hand in his.
“You’re here,” he says haltingly. “You’re here, and I missed you, and I . . . I can’t see Ina anymore, not like I used to. Not when I know you’re at Everless.” He steps even closer. I can feel the heat of him, his breath stirring my hair.
“Roan . . .” I’m not sure what I’m going to say—tell him it’s all right, or that he’s a coward for knowing this and marrying Ina anyway, or ask him to let me go, or to come closer.
Roan, the boy who smells of different perfumes, depending on the day.
Roan, the boy who once chased me, head tipped back in laughter, through fields of wildflowers. The boy who grew up to love nothing more than Everless, its pudding and roasted birds, its flutes of sparkling liquor, its garden parties in the middle of winter.
Words tumble in my gut, a tangle of confused memory and feeling.
It turns out not to matter, because Roan has already made the decision. He leans down, closing the distance between us, and before I can move, before I can even think, his lips find mine.
I gasp against his mouth. For a moment, I’m frozen, stiff—then a private war erupts across every cell in my body, starting from my chest and moving outward, until every part of me is screaming simultaneously to pull away and to press closer. And the latter side is winning, rapidly. Roan threads his fingers through my hair, tilting my face back to meet his; and in response, as if of their own accord, my arms come up around his waist, and I pull him against me. The desire—not just for Roan himself but to be wanted, to be loved the way I loved him when I was young, to belong, for some wholeness in my childhood to be restored, to be true—rushes through me, carrying away all the dark discoveries of the night.
Roan trails a hand down my cheek, cups the side of my neck, his touch sending off waves of chills all over my body. Someone’s pulse is fluttering where his hand rests on my neck—I can’t tell if it’s his or mine. Everything is riotous, hands and breath and lips. It’s only when we pause to draw breath that I realize that everything has fallen silent.
I hadn’t really heard the sounds of the garden until they vanished—now, their absence rings much louder than the sounds themselves. The world is silent around us.
No.
Roan has felt me stiffen. He pulls back, looks questioningly into my eyes, a slight smile on his mouth. Then the absence of sound seems to register for him too. He glances around, and his brow furrows.
I can tell exactly what he’s thinking, because I see now what’s happened. Nothing looks wrong—but complete stillness is more conspicuous to the eye than gentle motion, and I see the confusion on Roan’s face as he realizes the tree branches aren’t swaying, that two birds bathing in a nearby fountain have frozen midsplash, that the thin clouds aren’t scudding across the sky, but hanging in place like in a painting.
I’ve frozen time again. And this time, another person is here with me. Roan looks down at me, and I watch the expression in his blue eyes turn slowly from confusion to fear. Hurt stabs through me.
The stretched-out instant doesn’t last long. The silence is split by the bang of a slamming door—someone from outside the stillness I had cast over the garden—and a shouted oath. “There she is!” a man yells.
The sounds of the garden, returning, are immediately drowned out by heavy, running footsteps. I step away from Roan, and we both turn to see three Everless guards sprinting toward us. I’m too shocked to move, as the fastest of them seizes me by the arm.
“What—what’s the meaning of this?” Roan sounds weakly. He looks pale, badly shaken. Then his eyes widen. “Liam!”
I whip back around to see Liam striding into the garden, a black cloak swirling behind him, all ice and sharp angles where Roan is color and life.
“Step back, Roan,” Liam says coolly, as if he’s not surprised at all to see his brother here next to me. “Miss Ember’s arrest doesn’t concern you.”
My breath catches in my throat, while Roan takes a step forward, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “Arrest? What could possibly warrant that?”
But the words die in the air around us as a guard pulls off my gloves—exposing my hands, stained a deep, wine-dark red. He has his answer.
Liam cuts his eyes toward me, and my heart turns to ice. He is all malice, his mouth a cruel slash and his eyes bottomlessly dark, unreadable. He gestures fluidly to his guards. “Take her away.”
Roan stands motionless as the guards drag me from the gardens, two of them gripping my forearms with bruising strength. I stare at him, willing him to say something, to stop this, but he doesn’t. He just watches them pull me away. Disappointment makes my mouth taste bitter—disappointment not so much at Roan as at myself, for pouring so many dreams into the hands of a boy who can’t even open his mouth to save me.
Liam walks apace with the guards, his stride easy and his eyes forward.
“Don’t scream,” he says to me.
I grit my teeth in rage as we emerge from the gardens into an empty courtyard, where a nondescript, windowless carriage is waiting, its back doors hanging open.
Unceremoniously, the guards heave me up and inside, and I land heavily on my back. I scramble upright, grabbing at the wall for balance, but it’s too late—the doors are already closing, locking me in darkness. The last thing I see before the daylight disappears is Liam pulling his hood up to hide his face.