Here we can be Bree and Nick without the Order’s demands. Without their rules and laws. Here we can forget that people want so very much from us and instead we can want from each other.

“Nick…,” I plead, tugging his face down.

His eyes snap open and lock with mine, pupils swallowed in silver. “Yeah.” He nods, wraps a hot palm around the base of my neck, slides it up into my hair. “Yeah.”

And then his mouth is on mine, and every call and response we’ve ever felt pales in comparison to this one. Power cycling from his body to mine in a slow loop between his skin and mine. Everywhere we touch speeds the rotation until I can’t tell whose breath is whose, whose flame arcs higher, which spark starts the fire that surrounds us. He moans, tugging us to the ground. I open my eyes—and see that the stars over his shoulder shine in our rhythm, too.

“What if the Regents find us?” I whisper, breathless. “And we can’t have this again?”

“They can’t find us here,” he replies, and presses his mouth against my throat. I shiver. He pulls back, grinning at his effect on me. “Bree, I—” He stops short, eyes dimming to blue irises, black pupils.

“Nick?”

He gasps, eyes seeing something that isn’t there—or isn’t here, in the memory. “Oh God. No.” He clutches at my arm. “The cabin—we’re at the cabin!”

And then he disappears.

“Nick!” I push up to sitting, but he’s gone. The stars go out. Cadair Idris’s shadow disappears. Even the ground fades, until I am falling back, back….

“Bree!” My eyes snap open as Alice shakes my shoulder, shouting in my face. “Wake up!”

“I’m… I’m awake,” I mumble, blinking hard. The room is blue-gray dim, the last bit of night before morning. “I was…” My chest tightens. “No, no, Nick is…”

She nods. “I know. Sel came running in; William has him now, but it’s not good.” Her eyes scan my face and stop at my hairline. “What happened to your hair?”

I dig a finger through the curls. “Nothing.” I push to standing. “Listen, I know where Nick is.”

“You do?” She jumps up. “Then we gotta go. Now!”

It’s a fight, but I manage to convince both Alice and William to stay behind. Alice, because I can’t risk her getting hurt, and William, in case anyone from the Mageguard—or a demon—follows our trail back to Miss Hazel’s.

Sel almost leaves without me, too, but I shoot him a glare hot enough to melt metal and clench my fist around the keys. “Don’t you dare.”

Two minutes later, we’re in the car.