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He leans down, touching the stone ground. That wasn’t the moment for me; it wasn’t the moment I realized I was falling in love with Draven. I don’t want to hear when he fell—even if he fell first. I can’t do this, I can’t feel this, not when he is hurting me. Not when he is going to take everything. I told him about Rowe—he knows what this costs. I will never forgive him for it.

“I told myself that it was the gods testing me because they knew. They knew how long I waited, and they did this. I would still thank them for it.” Five hundred years? He can’t be that old…can he? “I am sorry, Miriam Vale.”

“NO!” I scream over and over behind the rag. I don’t want him to say sorry. I don’t want him to do anything but untie me and give me the keys. He ignores me. He doesn’t even flinch. Ren kneels and brushes away the dust, revealing three slots in the ground. “REN! DON’T!” I scream around the gag. The room is still so blurry, and sweat is pouring down my neck. There are slots for the keys on the floor with strange markings all around it in black.

Ren lifts his head once, his dark hair falling into his eyes, and he takes my breath away. Not just because of his looks, not just because of his eyes or the very way only he can look at me, but because he seizes my heart every time that I look at him. He makes me feel out of control and desperate. He makes me feel like no one else ever has, and most of the time, that is terrifying and then it is not. It is comforting and relaxing because I feel him looking at me the same way. The way he kissed me, the way he pushes me to the edge of madness before holding me there as we both tip over the edge into it. We are madness and it works for us. Ren will let me go and we will fix this—just like we have been doing since we met.

He is holding the first key over the hole in the ground for it. His eyes meet mine, and my heart snaps at the misery and determination I see in them. “There isn’t another way. I will help your brother. I will fix everything I’m breaking right now. Just know, there isn’t another way.”

No.

He can’t be doing this to me.

Please, no.

“I HATE YOU!” I scream, shaking my head. “BETRAYER!”

He flinches and turns away before slotting the keys one by one into the holes for them until they glow as bright as the markings on his neck, as bright as the map on my skin. He’s stealing everything I’ve fought for, and he isn’t going to stop. Life isn’t fair, and it’s a lesson I learned from a young age, so I learned to trust only myself. I learned to never let anyone in—and it worked until I met him. He was too strong, too much, to keep out of my heart, and I let him in. I let this asshole into my heart, and he’s stealing the wish from the gods and forcing me to watch.

I’ve let Rowe down. I’ve failed him and myself because I trusted Draven. Hot tears pour down my cheeks, and I hate him for that too—for making me cry in front of him as he rips my heart out and betrays me. The ground shakes underneath me as the glow from the keys slowly gets brighter and brighter until there are three orbs in the center of the room, each one a slightly different color. One is green, one is grey, and the third is pink. It takes me a second to remember which gods are in front of me now, even before Draven bows his head. “Lunaria, Noctaris and Khorash, I welcome you and claim this chance to ask for a wish. Thank you for journeying to this world in the keys.”

Lunaria, the goddess of love is pink.

Noctaris, the goddess of darkness is grey.

Khorash, the goddess of health is green.

My heart shatters as I meet the gods as a prisoner—what I’ve always been from the moment I got on Draven’s ship. How could I have not seen he was the villain all along? I was stupid and naive, and my brother is going to pay for it. Is Draven going to let me go after this? I doubt it. I know too much. Am I ever going to see Rowe? This is really happening, and now all I want is to be back on my island, back with Rowe, even if it is just counting the days down until he leaves me to be with the gods here.

I stare at Khorash’s light—the god of health…oh, how I could have begged her. She could have saved my brother without any effort, and now I’m powerless to do anything. There have been only a few moments in my life where my heart physically hurt. One—when the healer told me last year that my brother was getting worse and he wouldn’t make it much longer than a few years. Two—when I saw my parents’ bodies being torn apart to make their lanterns for the king’s wall. Three—this moment, and it hurts like hell. I feel like my heart is trying to stab itself over and over so I don’t have to feel this betrayal. But I feel it.

The gods were the keys? I’ve had them with me all this time, listening to and watching my every move? I don’t have a moment to process it because a voice fills the room. A woman’s voice, old and ancient, ethereal and light, and my very blood warms at the sound. I don’t know how I know, but this is Lunaria. “You are not the one who took the map, and her heart breaks for you.” Draven only straightens his shoulders, unmoved. “Your heart is hurting, just like the last time we met here, Crown Prince of the Shadowlands. But instead of being betrayed, you are the betrayer.”

Crown Prince of the Shadowlands? What the fuck is she talking about? The Shadowlands are a myth, a rumor, and something my mother used to talk about, but it wasn’t real. It was a home for witches, but it doesn’t exist. How can he be a prince of a place that doesn’t exist…and she said he has been here before? That isn’t possible. This has to be a dream, but it feels so real.

“This time will not be like the last. I am to claim the wish.” Draven stands still and his voice is clipped, cold.

“Betrayer.” A deep, dark voice echoes and it’s familiar. I’ve heard his voice before…on the night my brother was born. I thought I imagined it…but no. It was real. It was a god. Noctaris. “She will be your ruin for what you did this day, Prince. In death and beyond, you will not know happiness. You do not know who she is.”

“She has been my ruin since we met, and I would not change anything. I know who she is,” Draven answers, and his words cut deep. I was such a fool. He is some prince, and his entire crew has been lying to me from the beginning. Freckles…Clark…all of them. “And I am still here and I know what it costs. I know.”

“Then ask for what we know you have wished for, dreamed for, and begged us for a million times in your prayers and screams. You’ve cursed each one of us many times, Prince, and we have listened each time. Your blood sings for you to ask,” the final goddess demands, her voice stern and just as ancient as Lunaria. Noctaris sounded younger, closer somehow. I want to ask her to save my brother, to help somehow, to give me the wish.

“Don’t do this! Please!” I beg around the gag, but my words sound like nothing more than whines. This isn’t over. He could stop this. It’s not too late.

Then it is. “My ask is this—remove the magical block on the Shadowlands and wake every one of my people. Make the world remember the Shadowlands and undo the restriction the king has on me⁠—”

It’s done. He took it from me—from Rowe. I almost convinced myself he wouldn’t actually betray me, and I was so, so wrong.

“We will undo one part of the wish for a great price. The second is a personal gift from a god who is not here, and it cannot be undone by us,” Lunaria interrupts Draven. I don’t care what the Shadowlands are, I don’t care what Draven wants, but he just took my brother’s one chance of a life, just when I thought he might have one for once.

“Bring him before me, then!” Draven roars, shadows bursting out of the floor and taking on the shape of wolves. The wolves all crouch down and growl low. “Tell him to come and face me for what he did back then!”

“Challenge us, Prince of the Shadowlands, and this will all be for nothing.” The shadow wolves pause at the sound of Khorash’s voice. Draven’s hands clench into fists at his side. “He will not appear to you in this life until you are worthy. There is a price for restoring the Shadowlands and the magical block on all witches and their children across the world. This price must be paid now, just like it was for the current king. His price was taken, will yours?”

“I know what he allowed to be taken, and I am no coward.” Draven steps forward. “A life is your price, and so be it. Take mine. You took his sister’s at his request, but I will not offer a name.”

Draven looks at me. “Hate me, but know—I love you.”