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Galvin wants the book for Gault. Lonan wants the book for Imaelhain, and presumably to keep me from killing my bloodmate and falling with him. Neither of them can have it. A moment of terrible tension snaps between the four of us.

And Lonan takes off.

The bone pathways are narrow, barely the width of a foot and slick with rain and mud. We’re nearly six stories in the air, towering over the rest of the school. Lonan starts toward Poppy, pacing determinedly down the path. Poppy is frozen, looking between us, seemingly uncertain what to do.

Galvin starts toward Poppy, moving faster than Lonan. I mutter a curse. My stomach is in my throat as I look down at the pathway. The ground is far, the gravestones small dots. A fall from this height would break my neck.

I have no choice.

I step off the platform onto the pathway, testing my weight on the trail of bones. One step. Two. I look up. Lonan is nearly a third of the way across his bridge. He crouches low, sword in hand. Galvin is nearly the same distance.

I look back down, take another step.

It happens so quickly. My foot shoots off the smooth surface on a too-slick bone, and I’m falling forward. The bottom of my foot slices on the jagged edge of a split femur. My face collides with the path, and blood spurts from my nose. Gravity takes over. I’m scrambling, clinging, my body tumbling over the side. Someone shouts my name. Finally, my arms hook around the pathway as my feet fly free. Momentum yanks me down, and my arms nearly slip.

My pulse pounds in my ears. Terror races through me as my feet dangle over the graveyard. Calling on every ounce of training, every moment spent tiring my muscles, I swing my legs. Once, twice, and on the third swing I hook them around the path. It’s hardly wider than one of my legs, and I cling to it.

I look at the upside-down image of Poppy in the center. She’s backing away from Galvin as he paces closer, a preternatural sense of balance keeping him aloft. On the other side of her, Lonan is getting close.

I wrench my arm over the side of the pathway and pull myself up onto it. My whole body is shaking. I force low, slow breaths through my lungs as I rise to my feet again. Lonan and Galvin have both nearly reached Poppy. She holds the book tighter, twisting her neck back and forth between them.

I can’t allow this—my one chance to break this bond, to heal magic. Galvin thinks healing it means destroying the Dark, ridding the earth of Lonan and Imaelhain. But I’ve seen the merits of the Dark—passion and chaos, secrets and destruction. Some things need to be destroyed.

So I run.

It’s a gamble, on my own life, on the Ridding, on the bones beneath my feet. Fate and Choice and Chance weave together in a strange braid to keep me from falling. I stumble. I sway. Shards of bone slice into my already bleeding foot. I catch my balance with outstretched arms, but I do not slow down.

Galvin sees me running and he sprints forward, heavy feet crashing down on the path of bones.

And then the bones fall out from under him. They fall, released of all magic, and Galvin falls with them. He bellows and catches his arms around the edge of the bridge.

I don’t slow down, don’t wait to see if he falls. Everything is on the line now.

Lonan and I match pace toward Poppy. She looks back and forth between us like a frightened rabbit.

I feel a fresh stab of betrayal. Galvin over me, my godfather over me, her brother over me. I understand the fear of loss, better than anyone. But I wouldn’t sacrifice her, no matter who was at risk. And that is the difference between us, I suppose. She is my family, but I am not hers.

“Poppy,” Lonan calls imploringly, extending a hand. “I’ll give it to the headmaster!” Saints, I pray that he’s lying. I thought our trust in my godfather had mutually broken. But Lonan is a loyal knight. I wonder if part of him still trusts our mentor, the man who plucked him out of the orphanage and gave him a home at Gossemort.

“I’m not meant to give it to you,” she calls back. “He said to give the book to the prince.”

I stop, dumbfounded. Van Asten told Poppy to give the book to . . . Galvin? It makes no sense.

A hand grabs the hem of Poppy’s dress. She screams, teetering, as Galvin pulls on her skirt. He’s crawled beneath, creeping across the underside of the bridge like a spider. He uses her to pull himself up, and as soon as he’s on the platform, he tears at the book. I expect her to hand it to him, but there’s hesitation. For just a moment, her eyes flash to mine, as if after all she’s done, she cannot quite commit this final act of betrayal.

If there was ever a time to be reckless, it’s now. I spring forward, running without thought or reason along the bone bridge. I fall forward, my feet slipping, but I grab Poppy, holding her to me and wrenching her out of Galvin’s grip.

The rain tears down from the sky. Lightning strikes as the three of us tussle—Poppy curled over on the book, Galvin ripping me back from her.

His hand finds my throat, sharp talon-like nails digging into my flesh. My air cuts off, and my eyes meet his—stark white, full of pure malice.

Perhaps this was my fate—the gamble I made when I chose the onyx stone—my bloodmate holding me aloft over the graveyard. The fall wouldn’t kill me—only silver can do that now. But what would a drop like that do to me? How much pain can a body endure while still alive?

The next moments feel stars-ordained, like a carefully coordinated dance. The rain suddenly becomes a torrent. Lonan rushes for me—me, not the book, not Poppy. And Poppy, she turns those huge blue eyes on me, and in a blink I remember a hundred nights of huddling on her bed, sharing the shattered pieces of my heart with her. I see the memory of them in her gaze. She reaches for me, not to grab me from the ledge, but to reach into my pocket. She comes away with the silver stake.

Galvin sees it, his hate-filled eyes shifting to her. There are four siphons held aloft on the bone bridge, each at the mercy of silver, each heart vulnerable. Poppy grips the stake’s hilt, shifts her eyes away from mine, and drives the stake toward Galvin.

His clenched hand releases my neck, and I fall.