The St. Tristan palace is still as a tomb when I arrive. The doorman doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash at my arrival and I get the impression that girls visiting Raph at all times of night is far from an unusual occurrence. I try to remind myself that it’s no longer the case. Raph hasn’t so much as looked at another girl since this thing between us started. But the sickening feeling in my gut only deepens.

I follow the doorman’s directions to the west wing of the first floor, through the seemingly never ending marble corridor, my steps echoing ominously through the darkness. I finally reach the large double doors at the end of the hallway. One of the doors is open a crack, but for a moment I can’t make myself go through it.

Get it together, I tell myself.

I raise my hand to knock, but then I catch a glimpse of something through the crack of the door which stills every fiber in my being. I can barely make it out at first—a flash of skin, a gasp, a breathy moan.

Terror washes over me and my mind is screaming at me not to open that door. But I don’t listen.

The door swings open and for what seems like an eternity, I just stare … and stare … and stare.

Shimmering ice blue material lying discarded on the marble floor. A dress.

My eyes follow the trail to a thin scrap of white lace on the floor, then another.

When I raise my eyes to the large silk-sheeted bed, for a moment my mind can’t comprehend what I’m seeing. That traitorous muscle in my chest refuses to accept it.

I close my eyes and open them again, thinking that the image will disappear, that it’s not real. But it doesn’t disappear.

Layla’s naked body straddling Raph’s is real. So real, that I think I feel my heart stop at the sight of it and I want to scratch my own eyes out to stop myself from seeing any more of it. Everything about this nightmare is real—from the sight of Raph’s naked torso leaning back against the wide headboard, to the sight of Layla’s naked breasts pressed up against his chest.

His hands are gripping her forearms and his eyes are locked onto hers. I can’t see the look in them, but I don’t need to. I know only too well how those midnight blue eyes look when they’re dark with desire, with need, with passion, and I’ve been a fool to think that any of that was real when those eyes looked at me.

For a moment, I can feel the ghost of his touch, those hands on my skin, touching my body and I let out a tortured cry which sounds pathetic, even in my own ears.

They turn to me and the sick realization dawns on me that they must have been so caught up in each other, that they hadn’t even realized I was standing here.

They see me now, though. Shock flares in Raph’s eyes. But I tear my gaze away from his face after a split second. I can’t bear to look at him. I can’t even bear to breathe the same air as him.

My gaze lands on Layla, and the gleam of triumph in those cruel eyes makes me gag on reflex, as bile rises in my throat.

We stand there frozen, like pillars of salt, for what seems like an eternity and the universe feels like it has narrowed, so that we’re the only three people to exist in it. I was a fool to let Raph make me feel in those intimate moments like we were the only two people in the vastness of time and space. It has never been just the two of us. Layla has been there all along, and those moments—they were all lies.

I hear Keller’s words repeating themselves in my head.

I’ve just never known Raph to go without.

I know now that he hasn’t been going without. Not at all. It becomes clear to me, why he never took that step with me—because he didn’t need to. Didn’t want to. He had Layla for that, and she is all that matters. It’s always been her.

Raph and I have never used the word love. I’d always been too much of a coward to voice just how fierce my feelings for him had become, and I realize that perhaps it was also because some part of me knew that love was too weak a word for what I felt for him. I’d hoped that it was the same for him, too, and the words that he has spoken to me, well, they went far and above just love.

But I was wrong—about his words at least. Those words were lies and it’s clear now why he has never used the word love with me. As simple as that word is, it holds a meaning that could never be faked the way he was faking with me. He told me once that he didn’t love Layla. But it’s clear now that I’ve been a fool to believe him.

I feel the realization like a knife to the chest, but I force myself to accept it, even if it kills a part of me.

Raph is the first to move. He pushes away from Layla and leaps off the bed. As he approaches me, I can see that he’s not totally naked, from the waist down at least. But the mental image of Layla unbuttoning his black suit trousers then removing them, just causes my stomach to twist even tighter.

“Jaz—” His voice is low and I can hear the distress in it, but I can’t let him speak. I can’t let him get those words out. Because Magnus had been right about him—he is toxic and every single word out of his mouth, poison.

And what could he possibly say to restore the breath to my lungs? What could he possibly do to piece that traitorous muscle in my chest back together? Nothing he can say can ever make any of this go away. He will never be able to make this right.

But it’s my fault too—I knew from the very first touch, the very first look, that Raph would most likely shatter my heart into a million pieces and break me in two. Hell, he had promised on that very first night to do the latter. But I haven’t listened to my own warnings, or indeed his. I’ve been foolish and blind.

I can see perfectly clearly now. I came here looking for answers and I sure as hell have them. Not the answers my stupid heart was hoping for, but I was foolish to think it would turn out any other way. Layla had been right when she told me that there was only one ending to this fairy tale and it wasn’t a happily ever after for me. Not at all.

“Shut up!” I cry out.

He opens his mouth again, but I make sure he closes it.

“Just shut the fuck up. I don’t want to fucking hear it.”

He moves forward another step, but I don’t let him come any closer.

“Don’t you dare touch me, don’t you dare come anywhere near me.”

I’m shouting so loud, that Raph stops dead in his tracks and I’m surprised no one has come in to see what the hell is going on already. I can feel Layla’s gleeful eyes on me. But I ignore her completely.

I’m so angry, that I’m shaking, every fiber in my body buzzing with adrenaline. I can feel my eyes burning, fierce with pain. But I’m too angry to feel ashamed, too angry to care. I take a deep breath, struggling to breathe through the feeling in my chest which feels like a bomb is exploding inside it and I’ve let Raph past my defenses to plant the bomb there. It was only a matter of time before it detonated.

Maybe I should ask him to explain himself. Maybe I should beg him to tell me what I’m seeing is some horrible misunderstanding. But I don’t. Because that part of me is dead now, leaving only a block of ice in its place.

I finally meet his gaze and I feel nothing. Because a block of ice can’t feel and when I speak, my voice is as cold as the arctic wind, as cold as Raph’s own gaze that first moment we met. I know now that was his true self. Not the guy who made me feel safe, made me feel like I’d finally found somewhere to belong. Not the guy who kissed me with such awe and reverence, that it felt like I was all that mattered in the entire universe, who told me that I was all that mattered and that he belonged only to me. No—that guy didn’t exist. He was nothing but a lie. All of it was a lie.

I should get the hell out of here. Now. Something inside me needs to hear the words from his own mouth. I need to hear him say it.

“I just want to know one thing.”

Raph’s eyes flinch at my words, at my tone, but they don’t look away. Good. I want him to see just how dead he is to me now.

“Did you know about the Crown Trial?”

Something flickers in the depths of Raph’s eyes, but still he doesn’t look away.

“Yes,” Raph replies simply, and the fragments of the shattered universe that had been lying at my feet earlier? They’re swept away into the darkness, never to be pieced back together again. Devastation is an understatement. The pieces of the puzzle that I’d been desperately trying to put together, fall into place, but the image is too horrific to even look at.

If the world ended right now, I doubt I’d even notice, because it feels like it already has and nothing, nothing will ever be the same.

He’s opening his mouth to speak, but I cut him off again by holding a hand up. I’m not screaming this time, but I don’t need to. Because the look in my eyes is clear enough.

“Was that the reason why? Was that the real reason why you tried to drive me away and then why you tried to get close to me in the first place?” It should hurt me to ask these questions, but I don’t let it hurt. I can already feel the numbness settling over me, and soon I pray, I’ll feel nothing at all.

Raph doesn’t answer, but the flash of guilt that I see in the depths of those heartbreakingly blue eyes, is enough. This time, I don’t need to hear the words, because that look tells me all I need to know.

He finally drops his gaze, unable to look me in the eye for a second longer. I’m glad, because I don’t want him to see the lone tear slipping down my cheek.

Layla sees it, though, and her responding laugh echoes through the silence. My gaze falls on her naked body still lounging on Raph’s bed like she owns it, which is fitting, because in all the ways that matter, she does. Just like she owns him.

I’m certain that from that first moment I saw you on that beach, I’ve belonged to you. Raph’s unwelcome words play themselves over in my mind and I feel like ripping off both my ears, so that I can never again hear any of his lies.

“Did you really believe that Raph was into you for real?” Layla asks, the delight ringing in her voice.

She quirks a perfectly shaped eyebrow, as she examines the devastation on my face.

“Oh, you did. How….”

Her lips curl into a cruel smile.

“Foolish,” she says finally, and I have no response, because she’s right.

It’s that same foolishness that makes me look back at Raph. Hope can be a stubborn thing and that one last grain of hope inside me wants him to say something. Anything to make the clawing in my chest go away. But he doesn’t. He’s as silent as a pillar of stone. He won’t even look at me.

That last ember of hope dies and I’m finally able to move. This time when I turn and run, Raph doesn’t ask me to stay. This time, there’s nothing he can possibly say to make me stop running.

I’m almost at the car next to the palace gates when I hear footsteps crunching on the gravel behind me.

Every fiber of my being stiffens, but when I turn around, it isn’t Raph approaching and I don’t know whether to be relieved or bitterly disappointed.

“I warned you to stay the hell away from Raph,” Layla says to me.

I don’t even know why I reply. But I have nothing left to lose now, anyway.

“You warned me about being Raph’s latest fling. Not about this—not that he was …” I can’t even make myself finish the sentence as my insides start heaving.

“I warned you that you have no idea how sick and twisted he is,” she replies coldly. “You should’ve listened.”

There isn’t a single protest left inside me because she’s right—I should’ve stayed away from Raph. But I didn’t listen. Not to my own warnings or those from the people who know him far better than I ever did.

I should get in the car and get the hell away from this place, although I have no idea where I can go to escape the Dynasties and their twisted world. But something keeps me rooted on the spot, as if the masochist in me wants Layla to twist the knife in deeper.

“Raph was raised to want nothing else but that throne. It’s who he is. No matter how much Raph may resent his father’s hand in his life, nothing can change the fact, that it’s that hand that’s molded him from birth for that crown.

“When your existence was revealed and when you were found and brought back here to Eden, well, you can only imagine the lengths that Raph was willing to go to in order to protect what he’s been raised to desire above all else, at all costs.

“First the plan was to make your life so miserable here on Eden, to break you so badly, that you’d go running back to that trailer park back on Earth. But then it was discovered that the laws require the Crown Trials to actually take place, and there was no way around it. So the plan changed somewhat, and Raph would need to break you in an entirely different way—in a way far more wicked, if you ask me.”

She flashes me a radiant smile which would have been beautiful, if it wasn’t so twisted.

“It may have been his father’s will, but Raph sure as hell executed it with perfection. Raph’s always been so good at getting girls to fall head over heels for him, until they’d sell their own soul just to get a taste of him. Except in your case, it wasn’t just your soul, it was your claim to the throne, too.”

I’m reminded of Jethro’s words to me at the Fall Ball, that Raph is next in line to the throne and nothing would change that. I’d thought that he must have been referring to Raph’s betrothal, but I know now that it was about far more than just that. It was about something far more twisted. I feel sick to my stomach and I’m surprised at my ability to keep myself from vomiting all over the gravel courtyard.

“I have to admit, Jazmine, I’m disappointed in you. I thought for a moment there that you would have more sense than to let Raph toy with you like that. But I was wrong—you’re just as foolish as all of those other girls, all too willing to open their legs for Raph. But who can blame you, Raph sure as hell knows how to use his hands and that wicked tongue of his to strip a girl of all of her senses.”

If there was anything left inside my chest, it’s decimated right in that very moment and distantly, I can feel my hand gripping onto the handle of the car door, just to keep from doubling over.

“Too bad you didn’t get the pleasure of getting acquainted with his dick, too—because that would have really sealed the deal.”

“Go to hell, Layla,” I manage to say finally, my words barely a ragged whisper in the night.

“I’m going to ignore that, along with everything else I hate about you and I’m going to grant you this one small mercy. From one enemy to another.”

She holds something out to me then and my entire body stills as my gaze lands on the golden key in her hand.

“Where—where did you get that?” I gasp out.

“Does it matter?” she replies.

“All you need to know is that it’s your ticket out of here.”

I stare at the key in her palm, the moonlight glinting off it like a promise of salvation from this hell that I’ve been plunged into. I used to think my life on Earth was hell, that trailer park and all of the other temporary homes and faceless foster parents before it. But I was wrong. I’d trade that loneliness and loss for this devastation clawing at my chest in a heartbeat. Layla seems to know it, too.

“Take it—get the hell out of Eden and never look back.”

I don’t ask any questions, I don’t hesitate for a moment longer. I reach out and take that key from Layla’s hand instead. The irony hits me. Magnus has lied to me. Raph has lied to me. But Layla has been open and consistent about her hatred of me from the start. She’s been the only honest person here in this web of deception.

I don’t know how to open a portal. But having watched Magnus and Raph do it, some primal part of me already knows. I let that part of me take over as the air around me shifts and splits open to reveal the universe beyond.

For a moment Magnus’s warnings about Earth not being safe, enter my mind. But I brush it away. Magnus lied to me. How could I trust anything he’s ever said to me and even if it is true, I’d much rather the shadow of that unknown danger, than the very real one in this place. It isn’t just the St. Tristan Dynasty that’s toxic, this entire world is poison.

This world is a mirror of Earth, Magnus once told me. If only I’d known then just how right he was. This place may have seemed beautiful, vibrant and vivid in a way that my life on Earth never was. But it’s just as ugly.

The beauty is nothing but a deception. It draws you in with promises of hope that creep into your soul. But it’s all lies. All of it. The danger that lurks beneath that beauty is like the thorns beneath the bloom of a rose, like poison from the sweetest forbidden fruit. Now, I know how those human myths about Eden were formed. Eden itself is the forbidden fruit and I had been foolish enough to taste it.

As I stand at the entrance of the portal and take one last look back at the St. Tristan Palace, some part of me hesitates for a moment. But the palace is as still as a tomb and Raph is nowhere in sight. I don’t know why that still has the ability to slice through my chest, not when any remaining connections with Eden have already been burned away in the devastation that I’ve just emerged from.

Raph once told me that the throne was all he was raised to ever want, at all costs. I should have listened. Because in the midst of his web of lies, that was the one truth.

I step into the portal, I do just as Layla said—I get the hell out of this poisonous world and I don’t look back.