I found North in the small garden. The flowers and green sinews of life that he had brought back with his magic lay scattered around him, burning.

“I did it,” he said. His back was to me, but he always could find me. “I ruined it all.”

“North,” I cried, wrapping my arms around him from behind. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Syd,” he whispered. “You need to wake up.”

“No,” I said. “I won’t leave you.”

“Sydelle.” His voice was louder, suddenly not his own. “I said wake up!”

I glanced up, feeling his form shift and change in my arms. He glanced back over his shoulder at me, a low laugh rising in his chest.

I was looking not at North, but at the mutilated face of Reuel Dorwan.

I sat up with a scream, kicking and thrashing at the sheets. My sleeping gown was wet with sweat. A nightmare. Please, Astraea, I thought, pressing my face into my hands. Just let it be a nightmare.

“It’s lovely to see you again, too, Sydelle.”

Dorwan sat across from the bed, in the chair usually occupied by Beatrice. If he hadn’t been wearing that rotting pale coat, I might have taken him for a stranger. As the burns from his duel with North healed, the skin of his face had been pulled back, giving him a perpetual sneer.

Beatrice was nowhere in sight. I tried to pull myself off the bed to escape him, but I got no farther than the edge. I didn’t have the strength.

“I don’t advise that,” he said. “You’ve been asleep for nearly a week. Your body needs to wake itself up.

“I had to keep you asleep,” he continued. “We couldn’t have you getting upset enough to cause another quake, could we?”

“What…are…?” The words scratched my throat. The wizard handed me a glass of water from the nightstand, but I turned away from it.

“Come now, Sydelle,” he said. “No poison this time. Wizard’s honor.”

I accepted the glass and downed its contents in one large gulp, though a part of me wished it were poison.

“That’s better,” he said.

I turned my head away again, looking around the small room. The fire crackled and hissed, but I could still feel the coldness radiating from Dorwan.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked.

“In hell?”

Dorwan let out a burst of laughter. “Close. You’re in Auster. The king’s summer palace on the coast.”

“If I’m in Auster, what are you doing here?”

“I’m just a messenger,” he said, “who brought wonderful news to the king.” Dorwan inched closer to me, and I drew my knees up to my chest for protection. “Tell me, Sydelle, do you know anything about Auster’s faith?”

I took a deep breath, humoring him. “They believe that Salvala’s gift of the sword to man was better than Astraea’s gift of magic.”

“And they expect their goddess to return and reclaim the throne of the heavens,” Dorwan finished.

“What does this have to do with me?” I asked.

“It has everything to do with you, and that’s why finding you was so delightful,” he said. “When poison and duels didn’t work, I had to figure out a different way to take you from Wayland. He wasn’t ever going to let you go unless I put a sea—or a lake—between the two of you. Luckily for me, I caught the king’s ear, and he was willing to listen to the word of a wizard.”

“What did you tell these people?”

Dorwan’s face pulled back into another uneven smirk. “That I had found his goddess, of course. Their legends said that one of their most hated enemies would bring her to them. There are a lot of strange similarities between the two of you: a beautiful girl with the ability to control the magic of the world, to harness the power of storms and other terrible calamities. Crimson hair and a vengeful temper, too, of course.”

“You lied to them?” I said. “What will they do to you when they discover I’m not a goddess?”

“They won’t ever know,” Dorwan hissed. His eyes narrowed, and the splotchy pink of his scarred skin went white with anger. “Because if the king were to find out, he would kill us both—rather horribly, I’m afraid—and then move on to slaughter everyone in Palmarta.”

“They’ll just use me!” I said. “I’ll be the one to kill everyone! Don’t you have any kind of loyalty—to Palmarta, to the other wizards? They’ll be the first to die in the war!”

“Settle yourself,” he said dismissively. “I have far more self-preservation than that. My plan all along has been to use you against them. When the other wizards are dead, I’ll have your blood for myself. I’ll be the only wizard, too powerful for any human army to stop.”

I moved away from him. “I may be a jinx, but at least I’m not a heartless snake!”

Instead of being incensed, Dorwan’s mouth parted in surprise. It was only for a moment, but his one good eye widened with wonder.

“He told you, then? Finally told you?”

“I figured it out myself,” I said.

Dorwan let out a laugh. “It really is a sad story, you know. I think he did mean to save you from all of this. He needed you most of all, but now he’ll never see you again.”

“Leave me alone!” I couldn’t get my voice above a whisper.