Drip.
Drip.
Dri—
The drop of water freezes in midair, halfway through its journey to the floor. In the almost-pitch-black of the dungeons, I can hardly see it. But there it is, hanging in the air, a tiny globe reflecting torchlight from the hall. A small thing, like a jewel—pretty and useless.
I release my hold on time and let the drop fall to the ground. It adds to the patch of dampness on the stone that’s slowly spreading toward me, will eventually reach me where I sit huddled in one corner, shivering, my arms wrapped around my knees. My facility with time is worse than useless now. I can play with the drops of water in my cell, or make the torch outside pause midflicker. But I can’t make this cell any warmer, and I can’t escape.
I can hold time in my hands, but no matter how much I concentrate, I can’t make it flow backward. I’ve tried what seems like a thousand times.
The name Antonia sits in my mouth like a cavity. Something sweet once, now rotten. The Alchemist’s name, my very first. I finally know who I am, and I can feel the knotted mess of power and history locked inside me—but that only makes it more bitter that I will die here, that Caro, the Sorceress, has bested me. I have failed Antonia. I have failed all the past selves without even knowing who they are, how hard they fought. I’ve failed Roan, the boy I once loved. I’ve failed Sempera—leaving the land in her power, and Ina at her mercy.
My stomach clenches at the thought of Ina. My sister.
She must hate me, despise me with every fiber of her being. And why not? I’ve heard the guards whisper—I know the stories Caro has spread about me. That I’m the witch who seduced Roan, and used him to gain access to the Queen. That I murdered the Queen, and then Roan, too, when he tried to stop me. That Caro stumbled upon me there, standing over their bodies with the knife cast at my bloody feet.
For a moment, I consider letting my mind consume me. I could close my eyes and lose myself in a vision, fall into memories that are as pure and real and plentiful as an endless string of pearls. But I press my hands against the cold stone floor, trying to anchor myself to the present, this cell and nothing else. If I lose myself in pleasant memories, I might never return—but if I think about Roan’s blood on the floor, or imagine Ina’s face when she learned he was dead, despair will unwind me.
It would only be a further betrayal of Antonia and all my other selves to fall apart now. Instead, I focus on what I know.
Caro needs me alive, or I’d be dead already. She needs my heart to break to get at the power hidden somehow inside. This should comfort me, but I don’t trust my heart, already ragged with the loss of those I love the most.
Somewhere in the dark depths of my mind, a voice whispers that I should hope to die before she can break me. But the idea of giving up life now—when I finally understand who I am, when I can feel my power hovering just beyond my fingertips—makes every fiber of my being wail in protest.
No. I refuse to die.
The sound of boots on stone rings out in the cold, damp hallway. It grows louder with each step toward my prison. I don’t move. There’s no point—the guards never get close enough to the bars for me to reach them and grab the keys.
But something is different. The footsteps sound lighter than normal, and hesitant. They pause at intervals, as if someone is stopping to peer into cells.
I look up just as Liam comes into view. When he sees me, as his eyes widen and he rushes to my cell door, my heart—wounded and exhausted as it is—swells and beats a little stronger.
But no. Liam cannot be here. The image flashes behind my eyes of Roan, trembling with Caro’s knife to his throat; and then Roan on the ground, wide-eyed and lifeless with his blood spreading around him. If she discovered Liam was helping me, she’d do the same to him—or worse.
“What are you doing?” My voice is hoarse from lack of use. I get shakily to my feet as he wraps his hands around the bars. He looks terrible, his face drawn and paler than normal, throwing the dark circles beneath his eyes into sharp relief.
“Jules,” he says softly. “Are you all right?”
“You can’t be down here,” I snap, trying to hide my fear. “Caro will—”
“I know what Caro will do,” he cuts in. His voice is heavy with grief; I remember that his brother is dead. “I should have seen what she was. If I had—” He breaks off, looking down and away, and I think I can see the glimmer of tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry about Roan,” I say, as gently as I can. Even if the brothers didn’t get along, I can’t imagine what it would be like to see my sibling cut down like that, for no reason other than cruelty.
My fists clench, thinking of Ina. I push my fear away.
“Roan is just the beginning,” Liam says thickly. “While Ina prepares to take the throne, Caro has the estate locked down. She’s rounding up everyone with any connection to you and questioning them.”
My blood turns to ice. Lora. Hinton. “She has to break my heart,” I say, half to myself. “She’s looking for anyone I love.”
Liam finishes my thought for me. “You have to get out. Before she starts killing them.” His hands tighten around the bars, his scarred knuckles whitening. “We have to go. We only have a few minutes.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to calm my racing mind enough to think. Images of the people I love float through my mind, a silent chorus. Swallowing down my terror at the thought of more falling victim to Caro’s wrath, I meet Liam’s gaze and approach him.
When I put my hands over Liam’s, he shivers at the touch but doesn’t move. His skin is warm, the only warmth I’ve felt in days, and I savor it. “Close your eyes,” I tell him. I close mine, too, and call on the power inside me, willing the current of time around us to stop.
The cell and the hall outside it are so bare that when I open my eyes, I’m not sure if it’s worked. Then I notice the sound of dripping water has stopped and the torch behind Liam is frozen midflicker.
But Liam is with me, breathing heavily though everything else has stilled. My body trembles with weakness; with little food and sleep, I feel the weight of time in my limbs. Still, I manage to squeeze Liam’s hands in mine. In response to the pressure, he opens his eyes. He blinks slowly, in wonder, as he realizes what’s happened.
I take my hands from his—ignoring the regret that seeps through me—and point down the hall. “The guards are down there. They have keys.”
Liam understands immediately. He steps back, pausing for an instant to gape at the still flame of the torch, and then he’s off, striding with sure footsteps down the hall. My hands shake with fear for him.
But in a few minutes, he’s back, the key clenched in his fist. He fiddles with the lock, and I wait, my heart racing. The door comes open faster than I expect, and I stumble forward, unused to standing on my own. Liam catches me against him, and for a moment we stay like that, with his arm around my shoulders and my cheek pressed against his chest. Warmth surrounds me, and for a moment I feel almost safe. But I know we can’t stay like this. Time is frozen down here in the dungeons, but upstairs—for Caro, for Ina, for everyone I love—the seconds tick on.
Liam steps back first, dropping one of his hands to enfold mine. “I know a back way out,” he says, his voice low and urgent. “Follow me.”
He tugs me along down the hall, careful not to outpace me, though I can tell he’s itching to run. Liam leads me down narrower and narrower hallways, the air cold and heavy and smelling like water. At first, I count down the seconds until the moment we’ll be pursued—but soon, it’s all I can do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, between my weak body and concentrating on holding the time freeze for as long as I can. Before long I have to let it go or collapse.
Eventually, we reach a narrow, spiraling staircase that seems to rise and rise. But finally we do come to the end, and emerge into a small hut lit with an oil lantern. I glance out the window and see the lake, and the castle beyond that—we must be in one of the guards’ warming huts by the northern wall. There’s a cot and a table cluttered with supplies, and a door across from us, edged in gray twilight.
I let go of Liam’s hand and sink onto the cot, drawing in as much fresh, aboveground air as I can fit into my lungs. All my limbs feel weak, watery. I watch Liam as he gathers the supplies on the table, thrusting them into two knapsacks, then turning and holding one out to me.
“Addie can hide us tonight,” he says. “Then tomorrow we’ll get as far away from the estate as we can.”
His face shines with earnestness, and looking up at him makes my body ache. He’s risking his life for me at this moment, and about to give up everything he’s known.
I can’t let it continue.
“Caro killed Roan because she thought I loved him,” I say.
Liam’s eyes flicker. “But you didn’t.”
A needle of pain stabs through my chest. “Maybe not. Maybe just not enough. That’s not the point.” I stare straight into Liam’s eyes, willing him to understand, to feel the danger swirling around us. “You can’t come with me, Liam. It’ll only get you killed.”
His mouth twists. I wait for him to argue back, but he just stares at me for a long moment and then, finally, nods. A mix of relief and disappointment floods me.
“If I had trusted you sooner . . .” he says at length. His voice splinters, and he takes a deep breath before going on. “If I had told you what I knew, none of this would have happened.” The words he leaves unspoken hang between us. The Queen would still be alive. Roan would still be alive.
“And none of this would have happened if I’d gone to Ambergris like you asked,” I counter softly. “We can blame ourselves all we want, but that doesn’t help stop Caro now.” My voice catches on her name.
Liam holds my gaze as I reach out to take the bag he’s packed. “Wait.” His fingers brush the back of my hand, then pull away. He opens a drawer under the table and takes out a small, battered book bound in leather. The sight of it plunges me into memories—cold nights in our cottage, sitting on Papa’s lap while he read stories from the book. Opening the cover on my own and tracing the words there, knowing they belonged to me, even though I was too small to read. And other memories too, mine but not mine, the minds of Antonia and all my other lives, my other selves, their memories and hopes and loves and terrors laced through my blood and bones. This is what my father sought in the vault, what he gave his life for.
“I hate the thought of you alone,” Liam says softly.
For the first time in what seems like centuries, I feel a spark of hope. “I’m not alone,” I tell him as I take the book. I couldn’t be alone, not with the words of my past speaking to me from these pages.
Liam watches me, holding his hands stiffly at his sides like he wants to reach out again but won’t allow himself to. “What are you going to do?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Hide. Learn about myself. Then try to face Caro, when I’m ready.”
“It’s not too late to disappear,” he says. “You could change your name. Leave Sempera. She’d never find you.”
“She would find me,” I say with certainty. “You don’t know her like I do. But I won’t disappear. I won’t leave you—leave everyone under her thumb forever.” I reach out and grab his hand, and he blinks. “Stay here, at Everless,” I tell him. “I’ll need you before this is over.”
Slowly, slowly, he nods. “I’ll help you in whatever way I can. And I won’t say good-bye, Jules,” he whispers. “Now run.”
I take one last, long look at him—this boy who I hated for so long, who’s been protecting me since he was a child himself. His eyes are dark hollows, brimming with yearning and fear. For an instant I want to kiss him—but hold myself back, remembering that my touch is a mark of death.
“Thank you, Liam,” I say.
Then I turn my back on him and walk into the night, the past weighing heavily on my shoulders, toward a future as wild and unknowable as my own heart.