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He shoves away from the pillar. “Avaline would never take a potion for any illness. She believes in letting the body fight off any sickness so that it will grow immune. Can you take me to her?”

“Of course.” She glances at me. “One more thing,”—she points at Achlys—“he hasn’t been by Gwyn’s side since she left to pick her bouquet.”

Arkyn snorts. “That’s hardly proof.”

“Ark.” Lettie throws up her hands. “Please tell Riven what you told me twenty minutes ago, before I lose my mind.”

He scowls.

“What?” I ask, leaning forward. “If you know something, tell me now.”

“Easy there,” he says. “It’s just… Lettie told me about her concerns, and I—playfully, I might add—suggested that maybe Gwyn’s likeness was… stolen.”

“Stolen?” My brow furrows. “Stolen how?”

“There’s a fable about an old hag who grew so jealous of the younger, prettier witches in her coven that she’d imprison them and steal their likeness with a strand of hair, a nail clipping, or even a tooth,” Ark explains. “The night Lord Devlin assaulted Gwyn, I caught him toying with her hair. He could’ve taken a strand or two and used it to create an elixir that grants someone the ability to look like Gwyn on the outside.”

“But you couldn’t find Devlin within the Fae Isles or anywhere near our borders when you went looking for him,” I say, trying to wrap my mind around this. “And Devlin isn’t a witch.”

“That’s true.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “But didn’t Gwyn say he smelled like someone she knew?”

Oh, fuck.

He smells like her.

There’s a ringing in my ears, a hollowing of my heart.

An aching wrongness.

A single word rises like a tide. It’s primal and ancient and impossible.

The rune on my neck ignites, sizzling and sparking, challenging the very fabric of my soul.

In my mind’s eye, I fight against the blazing heat that’s trying to sear away the truth of what Gwyn is to me.

In life, in death.

It’s muddled by the curse, hidden beneath my mother’s fear.

But it’s there.

Just out of reach.

A thread dangles in the distance, covered in cobwebs. I squint, surveying the dim, golden light pulsing beneath the grime. An inferno ripples beneath my skin. I fight through the hurt, clawing and scraping, trudging through centuries upon centuries of soul-deep loneliness.

All of it keeps me from her.

My bride.

My fingertips brush the thread, and my soul sings.

My queen.

It swings closer, slipping through my fingers like starlight.

My love.

I grab it.