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Or so I’d thought.

The guards had only continued advancing. I ended up chucking the board game at one of their heads seconds before stuffy darkness enveloped me, the others’ screams muffled against burlap as they tied our wrists and ankles.

Then we were thrown in some kind of iron wagon, jostled and cramped together so tightly that somebody’s feet kicked my stomach and I rammed myself back into a pair of bony shoulders that resulted in a stifled shout behind me.

We didn’t know we’d been exiled to the ships as a way to keep us in line. For all we’d known, we were being taken to a cliff’s edge to be tossed over.

A similar commotion had erupted around me now as we crossed that shimmering border of the Uninhabitable Zone. Except this time, Dazmine was with Terrin, Sasha, Sylvie, and me, and Mattheus and Garvis were both dead.

Grief lanced my chest, but I pushed us forward until I sensed the exact location that Jagaros had told us to meet him at.

My darkness spit us out onto a limestone platform overlooking the glimmering ponds below.

“Wow,” Sylvie breathed, straightening to gaze around. Her eyes widened when they landed on the faerie poised at the end of the platform, a tattoo striped around his neck and a crown of twisted bones and glinting jewels on his head.

Jagaros looked every bit the king of this island as he turned his sharp, slitted attention to me.

“Where is she?”

I sighed. “Contrary to popular belief, old man, I have a limit on how many people I can Walk through space and distance at a time.”

“Coen,” Sasha murmured in warning.

“What?” I kept my tone light and innocent. “He’s not king yet.”

If Jagaros had still been in his tiger form, I had a feeling his ears would be flicking and tail would be swishing right about now, but I had to keep the bastard motivated somehow. We couldn’t treat him like a royal figurehead before he earned the title back the proper faerie way.

Disentangling myself from the group, I slipped my mask from my pocket and called forth my innate power again, that fathomless void already buzzing in my veins. “I’ll be right back.”

The familiar darkness gobbled me up again, and sharp anticipation surged through my veins at the thought of seeing Rayna face-to-face again.

I’d told her to invite everyone she trusted, but part of me expected to find her waiting for me alone. For so long last year, she’d followed in my disastrous footsteps when it came to trust, bottling up every truth and secret in the maze of her mind so that she wouldn’t drag the people she loved into danger, too. But doing so only hurt the people you loved anyway.

We’d both learned that the hard way.

Which is why my pride nearly burst from my chest when I landed on my feet in the jungle behind the Arboretum to find Rayna surrounded by five others.

Emelle and Lander glanced from me to each other, eyes round. Rayna had told them all about me, of course, but I’d erased their memories of meeting me two years ago, so this was the first time they were viewing me up close. And with my mask on, all they could see of me were the slits of my eyes anyway.

The girl with the nose ring and raven-black hair—Wren, I was pretty sure her name was—looked me up and down, several judgements brewing within her eyes. Beside her, the broad, blonde male blinked at me, forehead creasing, as if trying to pinpoint where he’d seen me before. That had to be Gileon.

Rodhi simply wiggled his fingers in my direction.

“Hello again. Glad to see you’re looking a little less murderous.”

I felt less murderous now that Rayna was safe and whole right in front of me, a small, shy smile playing on her lips. I found myself staring at them for a moment, imagining the way they’d bounce if I thumbed them, before letting my gaze travel to the glint in her eyes and then the rest of her.

Half of her curls were pinned up at the top of her head, the other half spilling past her shoulders and neck, where that necklace of black pearls lay draped around her neck. A diamond-shaped cut in the center of her dress revealed her midsection and belly button, a slit in the side revealing a sliver of that knife sheath she never used anymore but always continued to strap to her thigh.

Surrounded by drooping foliage and budding vines, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“Well,” Lockett said, raising a hand toward me and jolting me from my trance. “Rayna said that this is the only time we’re allowed to touch you, so let’s not waste the opportunity, shall we?”

I lifted a brow, my gaze snapping back to Rayna. Still feeling possessive, are we, little hurricane?

The barest hint of a flush crawled up her cheekbones as she tipped her chin up. I told you last year. You’re my prey.

Otla miineh, I said in Sorronian. And you’re mine.