I massage my palm, blinking back a hot rush of emotion. I remember Denver’s body crumbling to dust in my hands. Remember how I clamped ash-covered fingers around Fleur Attwell’s neck, and the rage . . . the blinding rage I felt in that moment. My throat tightens painfully around the words. “I remember climbing out of the lake in time to see my best friend murdered in front of me.”

“Fleur was merely defending herself and those she loved.”

“And what about the ones I loved!” The word “loved” vaults from my mouth before I can wrestle it back. The room blurs behind a hot, bright oil slick of emotions. They’re gone. Michael, Denver, my team—

“Noelle Eastman,” Lyon says gently. Her name steals the air from the room. “I had hoped to be the one to tell you about her.”

I shake off his sympathy with a callous shrug. “Tell me what? That my own girlfriend turned against me to defend your stupid cause? That she betrayed me to protect Jack Sommers?” I spit out his name, glad he’s dead. Grateful at least for this one small victory.

“Noelle did what she felt was right. She protected you in the only way she knew how—”

“She sent me home!” I slam my fist against his desk, making the snake flinch back from the glass. “I know it was Noelle who killed me and sent me back through the ley lines! I smelled her coming.” I smelled the familiar faint scent of vanilla on her skin. Felt the warmth of her whispered apology in my ear right before she slit my throat.

I can still feel the phantom pull of the ley lines as they dragged me back home into stasis, the lingering dull tug in my soul. I shove back from the desk, aching for her for reasons that make no sense. “Where is she anyway?” I growl. “If she’s awake, I have a few words I’d like to say to her.” Lyon just stares at me, pity in the shine of his eyes. “Where is she!”

“She’s in the wind,” he says, so softly I almost miss it.

I slump into the chair.

In the wind. Gone. Her soul scattered.

“Who did it?” I ask in a strangled voice. “Was it Fleur? I swear on that fucking staff, I’ll—”

“Chronos struck the killing blow,” he says, silencing me with a flash of white teeth. Lyon’s eyes have gone hard. In them, I see a glimmer of Winter—the famed, fierce Season he used to be, not the middle-aged professor—staring back at me.

Of course he would protect her. Defend her. Lie for her. Fleur’s one of the traitors who put him here.

“No!” I rise, nearly toppling my chair. “Noelle was an officer on my team. Traitor or not, she should have answered to me!”