My gaze drifts to its source, and I step closer.
The water rises from a perfect hole in the rock at the foot of the hawthorn, gallons and gallons of it spurting from the earth with impressive power and velocity.
I crouch slightly, studying the way it moves, impossibly clear.
What lies beneath this?
Not a trickle or a simple vein of water, but something vast.
An underground geyser, maybe. One that defies gravity and travels through stone the way blood moves through a body. Something ancient and otherworldly presses upward to feed the heart of this garden, and a strange shiver quakes me.
The man I’ve come to call my ghost is heir to all of this. To these cliffs, this light, this city above the clouds. To a kingdom that sits above the world and looks down on everything beneath it. I turn slowly, taking it all in.
What would it be like to grow up here? To wake each day in a place where nothing is allowed to falter, where even nature bends to expectation. To be raised with this view, this height, this constant reminder that you stand higher than everyone else.
E is thecrown princeof the Sun Court.
I wonder if this place ever felt like home to him, or if it was just another kind of cage.
“We need to ask your father for help,” I murmur. “Before Lillivere gets too far with Nick.
“She won’t kill him—not until she petitions the king for your return. She’ll want to use him as leverage.”
I think he’s right and nod, but that’s a small relief. “If the King of Light sends soldiers after them now, we might still?—”
Stone meets the soles of my boots with a sharp, hollow echo as we round the trunk of the majestic tree, and I freeze. I know where the path curves, where the light breaks, where the ground dips ever so slightly near the edge. I’ve never stood here before, and yet I could map every inch of it with my eyes closed.
This is the cliff from my dreams.
I release E’s hand and examine the patch of stones overlooking the thickest clouds—the same ones that scorched my back so many nights before, where I hold so many memories I don’t fully own.
“Is everything alright?” E asks.
My trembling hand flies to the arch of my brow. “How could it be alright? You’re a prince, and Nick has been taken prisoner. Everything is amess.”
“We’ll save him, Max.”
“What if we don’t?” I counter, the combination of fatigue, worry, and shock pushing all my buttons. “And what happens when your memories come back? What happens to me when you wake up one day and realize that you love someone else? That you still belong to her?”
He gathers my hands in his. “Then we deal with it together.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
I shake my head. “I’m not interested in a fling, in filling the gap while you figure yourself out.”
His voice shifts—darker, deeper. Possessive in a way that makes heat curl low in my stomach despite everything.
“You think you’re afling?” he murmurs. “I’d die for you, Max.”
His hand closes around my wrist, firm enough to stop me from pulling away.
“I know exactly what I feel when I’m with you,” he adds.
My pulse stumbles.
“That’s not the same as knowing who you are.”
