“I’m sorry,” I told her. And she would know why. She’d warned me not to break Lucas’s heart. He didn’t know it, but I already had. Because it was true. Without meaning to, without even realizing it, I had fallen in love with Erik.

And now I wouldn’t ever get to tell him.

“Charlotte, I’m sorry,” I repeated.

“No,” she said, coming to take my hands in hers. “I’m sorry.”

I was taken aback by this response, even in the midst of my panic. Still, I gripped her hands tight with my own, because in my tilting world they felt like something to hold on to.

For a moment, her expression mirrored my anguish. Then she shook her head, as if despair and helplessness were things that could be thrown off.

“You said you were linked,” she said, wringing my hands in hers while she wracked her brain for any scrap of hope she might offer. “Before we got here, Rastin said he and Erik were linked, and that their connection might allow him to open a door to Erik’s side. What if . . . what if that means you can open the doors between your worlds now, too?”

My mouth fell open at this suggestion. One that struck me as possible.

Was it, though? I’d opened the door after Lucas had shut it to no avail. At the same time I hadn’t thought I was capable of traversing sides. And maybe there was a trick to it, some method Erik used whenever he wanted to cross from one side to the other.

“I don’t know how,” I said.

“You never saw him do it?” Patrick prompted.

“No, he never—”

“Come on,” said Charlotte, grabbing my hand. “They were headed for the greenhouse.”

We burst away from the porch at a run, the boys following after as we rushed down from the ruined porch, taking the path to where I sensed him now.

The conservatory, the door to which, on my side, stood ajar.

SEVENTY-NINE

Zedok

Roses all but coated the inside of the glass house, the vines tangling to the point that they would soon devour the door. No doubt they would all die when I did.

I’d left the door ajar behind me and, coming to a stop at the far window, the one against which I’d pressed myself the night Stephanie had given me my new heart, I waited.

Rastin entered first, the boy close behind him.

“My soul,” I told them both. “I believe it has somehow become entangled with hers. Enough so that she now mistakes the love I feel for her as her own emotion.”

“You’re saying she thinks she’s in love with you?” the boy asked, and I was glad to note his bravery had grown since my initial appearance. He would need it in these next few moments.

“Crudely put,” I said. “But that is my guess, yes.”

“Your guess?” Cheney challenged. “What if you’re wrong?”