“I’ll be fine,” I say. “Either way.”

His face is grim. He doesn’t reassure me, but I know that if I end up in the garden, he’ll fight for me the same way he’s been fighting for Beatrice these last years. I wish it gave me comfort. I wish I knew I was worth fighting for. I think of the soft O that Stacie’s lips made when I killed her.

“What will the last task be?”

He hesitates, glancing around at Ethan and Natasha just out of earshot. Whatever it is, he’s not supposed to tell me.

He leans in like he will brush a kiss on my cheek. My skin tingles, even though he doesn’t actually touch me.

“You have to kill him.”

“Who?” Realization slaps me the second I ask. Of course. Only one of us can win.

My head jerks automatically toward Ethan, but Roman’s hand is suddenly on my cheek, keeping my head pinned forward between his palm and his cheek.

“He’ll go to the garden, though, right?” I can sentence him to that fate. It’s his fault Nadine is there.

Roman’s head shakes beside me. His curls brush my forehead. “Not this time. They’ll use every last drop of one of you to create a new immortality spell. The stones on the cuff are still linked to the garden, but the immortality spell breaks when the magician wearing it dies—it needs a new sacrifice to be cast again. We’ve all been here. We’ve all done it.” His voice is hard, straight to the point.

“What if one of us had died, though? In the last challenge?” It sure didn’t seem like anyone was going to stop Stacie from ripping into my neck if she’d wanted to.

Roman grimaces. “Then they would have plucked someone from the garden just to kill them permanently.”

My legs shake under the weight of my skirt. Of course it’s not as simple as slapping a bracelet on.

“I don’t want that. I don’t want to be a—” Murderer. I don’t say the word. All of them have blood on their hands or they wouldn’t be here.

Roman’s fingers twitch against my cheek. He knows what I was about to say and doesn’t answer.

“There’s no other choice for you, Ava.”

He didn’t tell me yesterday because he knew I would take my chances and run.

“There’s always a choice. Sometimes there just isn’t a good one.” Too much of my life has been spent without choices. It’s why I’m really here, why I craved power. And now they want to strip away choice in exchange for power? That’s not power at all.

“I won’t do it.”

Roman pulls back from me. His jaw clenches.

“He won’t hesitate.”

“I know.”

“He tried to kill you first.”

“I know.”