Page 11

When I turn back to Evie, my fingers are twisting my bracelet so hard that the metal bites into my skin. “I need you to not tell anyone where we’re going,” I say, praying she’ll actually listen.

Her laugh is short and sharp, with zero humor in it. “You’re asking me to keep your secrets now.”

“I’m asking you to not get us killed.” Electricity crawls up my forearms, silver threads pulsing in time with my heartbeat. “If the Blood Coven finds out we’re heading to Pine Valley, they’ll be waiting for us. And Logan—“ I stop, because I keep choosing him, over and over, and I’m not sure if that makes me brave or stupid. “He’s helping me find another star touched instead of bringing me back to the Blood Coven. That has to mean⁠—”

“That has to mean what?” Evie cuts in, steady and measured. “That he switched sides? That he’s suddenly fighting for the greater good?”

Logan’s fingers brush the back of my hand, and electricity sparks between us, my pulse pounding as I focus on Evie and Kieran.

“Leave,” I say. “Both of you. Go find whatever it is you’re looking for.”

Evie holds my gaze for three full seconds. Then she turns away, and the air leaves my lungs in one sharp pull.

Kieran’s already at the railing, one hand braced on the wood, the other resting on the hilt of his sword. His eyes haven’t left Logan since the compulsion failed, and the blades at his hips are vibrating in their sheaths.

Evie walks toward him, and Kieran’s hand lifts from the railing. His fingers find hers, and they interlock, the tension in his shoulders easing when their skin makes contact. It’s not gone, not even close, but it’s gone enough that the blades stop humming.

“Do you know how to get where we’re going?” Kieran asks, and I barely catch the words over the wind.

“Yes.” Evie’s fire sparks at her free hand, and her fingers tighten around Kieran’s.

She doesn’t look back at me.

I want her to. I want her to turn around and give me one last look—angry, hurt, disappointed, anything—because that would mean she cares enough to bother. But Evie Thorne is done looking at me, and the absence of her attention is worse than her anger could ever be.

Before I can think about it further, fire erupts around them, bright and hot. Then they’re gone, and the only thing left where they stood is the fading smell of smoke.

Exhaustion hits me all at once, and I lower myself onto the blood-stained planking.

Logan drops down beside me, there in the way that always makes me feel safe, no matter what.

I twist my bracelet three times, pressing the smooth place where the clasp used to be.

“She might be right about you,” I finally say, and the words feel broken and hollow, because I don’t want them to be true.

A strand of my hair blows across my face, and he reaches over and tucks it behind my ear. His fingers are warm from the fire he just put out, and the spark that jumps between us when his skin meets mine is small and gone too fast.

I wait for him to say something—anything—to make everything that’s happened this morning make sense.

“She might be,” he says, and somehow, that’s far worse than any denial he could have given me.

5

JADE

The silence stretches between me and Logan, thick with salt air and the creak of wood, and I let it sit there because I don’t have the energy to fill it.

Finally, I pull my hands off the deck and press them against my knees. “We need to go to Pine Valley.”

Logan nods, but he doesn’t move.

“Pine Valley,” I repeat, because apparently my brain has decided that saying it twice will make it feel more real. “The place where wolves live. Shifters. People who can smell a threat from a mile away.”

“The ankar token masks what I am.” His hand drifts to the chain at his neck, his fingers pressing against the spot where the two fused rings sit beneath his shirt. “We’ll be okay. And if we aren’t okay, I’ll go back in time and make sure we’re okay.”

Some of the tension leaves my shoulders, but not all of it. Because now I’m looking at his eyes—really looking—and the gray I’ve been staring into for months is the color of storm clouds, and they’re not real.

“Your eyes,” I say, and my chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with exhaustion. “The Geryon said they’re red.”