I didn’t want her to die before she had a chance to grow up. I didn’t want her to be enslaved. I didn’t want her to go to sleep in our world and wake up in my father’s and then grow up thinking that was the way things were supposed to be.

“Kate?” Curran said. “Baby?”

The magic seethed under my skin. “I need some air.”

I turned and walked away, down the hallway. My legs carried me outside, onto the top of a short stone tower. Sunshine hit me. I inhaled, breathing deeply, feeling my lungs expand.

I had to stop this from coming. I had to.

“Hey.” Curran blocked the daylight.

“Hey.”

“Looking grim, ass kicker. Rough day?”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Are you going to tell me what the witches said or do I have to ask our minister?”

He’d put two and two together.

“In about a month there will be a battle,” I said. “Atlanta will burn. If we marry, you die. Roland kills you. I watched it happen.”

I didn’t want to tell him about our son. Not yet. When we talked about the future, he always talked about children. His father died protecting him, and Curran would do the same for our son. I had to shield him from knowing our baby might not have a chance. It was enough I knew. Telling him about it changed nothing at this point, except to pile more weight on him.

He shrugged. “I don’t care. I’m not going to live my life according to someone else’s vision. Your father can’t dictate it. The witches can’t dictate it. The only question that matters is do you want to marry me?”

“Yes.”

“Then we get married. Fuck them.” He put his arm around me and squeezed me to him. “If I’m going to die, I’d rather die married to you. But more important, what makes you think I’ll roll over?”

“I didn’t say you would. I have no plans to roll over. I want to win, but I don’t know how.”

I looked past the Keep’s courtyard and the clear stretch of cut grass between the walls, to where the woods met the horizon. Somewhere out there my father was adding the tower to his castle. I had no doubt of it. The vision showed it complete. I would pull it down.

“We win the old-fashioned way,” he said. “We outthink him and we fight. We’ll do what we always do.”

It wouldn’t be enough, but if I said that, he’d tell me we wouldn’t find out until we tried. That’s what I would’ve said back to him.

“It could be worse,” he said.

“How?”

“We could be fighting him and your aunt.”

My memory served up Erra dying on the snow.

“She talked to me before she died.”

“What did she say?”