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Lonan will fight it. He’ll throw himself in harm’s way to protect me, bloodbond be damned, along with the fates of magic and the throne of Gault. But I can’t let him.

I know my fate now. The reality of what this night will come to has been rising in my heart like the break of dawn. Saint Nona spun my thread and gave me a choice. Saint Decima cut my thread.

I know my fate.

And for all the protection Lonan has given me for years and years without my knowledge, when the time comes, I will be his shield.

We stay like that for several long moments. But the sound of a door crashing open in the distance has us both sitting upright.

“Vesper!” Galvin bellows from the Founders Hall, his voice echoing in the cavernous space.

I’ve healed. So he is healed.

Lonan’s eyes meet mine. “We need to move.” He wrenches me to my feet and grips my hand as we flee down the hall. The servants’ passage winds and dips lower. Corridors are bleakly dark and narrow. We duck below low ceilings as we hear Galvin enter the servants’ passage behind us.

I’m dragging Lonan behind me now—while he has spent his time at Gossemort attending class and studying, I have spent mine learning every peculiarity of this school, stealing away to the kitchens with Hugo and Poppy whenever I had a chance.

Finally we push through a door, and the extensive kitchens of Gossemort are spread before us. The aroma of bread and spices hits me as soon as we cross the threshold. One wall is lined with deep brick ovens. Long tables are stacked with bowls and iron pans. The windows are few and high, and with the storm raging once again outside, there’s hardly any light. We fumble through the dark away from the door.

“In here,” Lonan says, swinging open the door to a storage room and pulling me inside.

He slams the door shut, positioning himself between me and the door, just as we hear the kitchen doors open on the other side. It’s too dark to see anything, but I can feel them—his shadows. He unleashes them around us until we’re in a thick shell of shadow. They wrap around me, slick as serpents, filling every space.

His shadows are just as adept at hiding as they are at killing—his obfuscation and destruction.

Lonan moves us farther into the storage room. The back of my heel knocks into a crate, and I cling to Lonan’s shirt for balance. I can hear steps in the kitchen, pacing slowly. We’re silent as the grave. I hardly breathe, fearful of any sound that could give us away.

“Vesper.” It’s Galvin. His voice sounds so human, so him. I could almost believe he’s sincere, guiltless, searching for me. He switches so effortlessly between the monster and the man.

“Vesper, please,” he calls again.

I feel the tug on my heart, the bloodbond calling to me. The very core of my being aches for him. Can he tell I’m here? Can he sense me the way I can sense him?

Lonan’s free hand clasps mine. It brings me back to earth, and suddenly I feel moored, awake. I can think through the fog. I have to fight myself as much as Galvin. I grip Lonan’s hand. He’s my anchor to life, to the real world, where I am my own master.

Galvin’s pacing comes closer. He’s not calling out for me anymore. He’s sensing me.

His footsteps slow.

I close my eyes and breathe, concentrating on remaining myself, on resisting him. But behind my eyelids, I see the way he looked at me in the ballroom, I remember the way his kiss felt. Like home. Like fate.

He wants to turn you into a monster, I tell myself. He wants power, not you.

But is that all? Is there a part of him, like me, that longs for us to be together because that’s simply the way it’s meant to be?

I can feel my resolve weakening, a nausea rolling through me every second I keep away from him. It would be such sweet relief to just go to him now, to let this terrible night be over. Would it be so bad? For Gault to have an eternal king, siphon or not? Would it be so terrible?

This is the way around the death that looms over me—the way to stop my thread of life from snapping. A siphon is undead, a thing between worlds. If I go to Galvin, if I become what he is, magic will heal. But I will stay a siphon, immortal and terrible and his.

And Lonan . . . Galvin will never let him live. Not when he’s a threat to his right to the throne.

“Vesper.” Lonan’s whisper breaks through my thoughts. I open my eyes, though there’s nothing to see in the darkness of the storeroom and the blanket of his shadows. “Vesper, stay here. Stay with me.”

I’m trying. Galvin’s footsteps come closer. He can sense me—I know it. The bond pulls tighter, strangling my heart.

White haze clouds my eyes—I can feel it, even in the dark. My breathing turns ragged. My pulse thrums. My throat burns with thirst, and I glide my tongue over the elongated points of my canines.

Lonan’s hand moves to the back of my head, gripping my hair. He’s trying to pull me back, away from Galvin, but not toward him—toward myself.