This Ghoul wasn’t as dumb. He saw the move coming, and promptly lifted my entire body into the air. He shook me like a rattle. My grace sparked to life once more, and this time I didn’t stop it. If I did, this punk was going to take me through some portal, and I was sure wherever it ended was where I didn’t want to be. The corners of my vision turned white—

Without warning, the Ghoul let go and I dropped to the ground like a sack of lumpy potatoes. Landing first on my shoulder and then my ribs, I grunted. At least I hadn’t dropped my daggers. So, win?

I was also going to need rib replacement if that existed. The grace retracted as I planted my hand in the grass and started to push up.

Something rolled past me. Something bullet-shaped and white. It smacked into the ledge of the fountain.

It was a Ghoul head.

Dumbly, I watched it catch fire as I let out of a tired breath.

“Thanks, Dez,” I said, this close to lying down and taking a breather.

“That wasn’t me,” Dez replied, his voice barely above a whisper.

The corners of my lips turned down as I stared at the scorched cement of the ledge. The smell of an overused Porta-Potty receded, and a different scent washed over me—a fresher, crisp scent.

Wintermint.

My heart stuttered.

Slowly, I rolled to my back and onto my other side, looking up. The first thing I saw was bare feet. Somehow they were clean. I had no idea why I noticed that, but I had. How were his feet still clean? Had he just been flying around this whole time? My gaze lifted, and as close as he was now, I realized that the pants were the same kind of linen that the Throne had worn, a linen that looked incredibly well tailored. I kept looking up. The stomach and chest were still bare. Then I saw wings, gloriously white wings streaked with grace, spread wide and blocking out everything beyond them.

Zayne stood above, staring down at me with eyes that were too blue to be real, too cold to be his.

“Zayne,” I whispered.

He didn’t move. “That thing was going to kill you.”

My heart started hammering. “Probably. Eventually.”

Zayne tilted his head. “I couldn’t allow that.”

That was good. That was more than good actually. Relief started to creep into me—

“If you are to die,” he continued, “then it seems only fitting that it should be by my hands.”

8

Well.

The relief and rising sense of hope was short-lived, crashing and burning rather spectacularly.

“How romantic,” I muttered, ignoring the aching hollowness those words caused.

“You think?” he asked in a flatly apathetic way that was both unnerving and impressive. “After all, you said that I died because of you. Shouldn’t you then die because of me?”