When I saw Fleur in her cell, I told her she was lucky I wasn’t carrying the scythe. But luck had nothing to do with it. I chose to leave the staff in my office, partly because it’s too fucking painful to carry, but mostly to avoid slitting her throat with it. As tempting as it was to reach through those bars and strangle her, I wouldn’t dare deprive Jack Sommers of the torture of watching her die.

But there’s something I need from her first.

I push open the double doors to the Control Room. They slam into the wall, the sound echoing off the polished wood pews as I storm past them to the dais. I set the orb on the scarred surface of the desk. Gaia’s magic hurls itself against the far side of the glass like a glowing swarm of pissed-off hornets. There has to be a way to harness and control it. I can’t entrust it to anybody else.

The wall of screens behind the dais is shattered and dark. I lean my weight against Gaia’s desk, the wood creaking under me as I look out among the rubble-covered pews where she and Michael used to hold court. This is the room where I was promoted in my first ranking ceremony. Where I was inducted into Michael’s Guard.

There had been order and rules here. Everything had made sense.

The emptiness of this room—the wreckage of it—burrows under my skin. If I can’t take that magic inside me and learn to create new Seasons, then the Observatory, the world, and everything in it is doomed. I will be Michael’s biggest failure. Ruler of nothing. It won’t matter what happens to Jack or Fleur, because no one here will live long enough to see it.

I stiffen at the approach of footsteps from the hall. A cloying, sweet scent grows stronger, like lily of the valley under a sheen of nervous sweat. I push off Gaia’s desk, moving to the center of the dais as the doors open and Fleur Attwell is pushed through them.

She staggers, her toe slipping on a piece of broken glass as she sucks in a breath. Her wild gaze darts over the fallen plaster, shattered terrariums, and broken TV screens. Tears gather in her eyes when they land on the orb. The magic settles almost instantly, its light softening as it drifts toward her, bumping gently against the side of its enclosure. I tip my head, watching their odd exchange.

The Guards nudge Fleur forward, breaking the spell. Static crackles around her as she snaps to a halt in front of me.

I hold my hands behind my back, hiding my burns as I study her. “You want to kill me, but you won’t. Not today.”

“Did your staff tell you that?”