I didn’t believe in hearts. I believed in dreamscapes and spirits. Those were what mattered. Those made money. But my heart had hurt that day. For the first time in my life I’d been forced to acknowledge my heart, and acknowledge its fragility. It could be bruised. It could humiliate me.

I was older now. Maybe I’d changed. Maybe I’d grown up, grown stronger. I wasn’t that girl on the brink of maturity, desperate to connect, to find someone to lean on. She was long gone. Now I was a weapon, a puppet to the machinations of others. I couldn’t work out which was worse.

A tongue of fire still tantalized the embers in the hearth. It cast light on the figure by the window.

“Welcome back.”

I didn’t reply. Warden glanced over his shoulder.

“Go on,” I said. “You must have something to say.”

“No, Paige.”

A moment passed in silence.

“You think it was stupid. You’re right.” I looked at my hands. “I just—I wanted—”

“To be seen.” He looked into the fire. “I believe I understand why that memory affects you so deeply. It is at the heart of your greatest fear: that there is nothing to you beyond your gift. Beyond the dreamwalker. That is the part of you you see as truly valuable—your livelihood. You lost your other parts in Ireland. Now you rely on Jaxon Hall, who treats you as his commodity. To him, you are nothing more than quick flesh grafted to a ghost; a priceless gift in human wrapping. But Nick Nygård showed you more than that.”

I was looking at him now.

“That night opened your eyes. When you realized Nick loved another, you faced your greatest fear: that you would never be acknowledged as a human—as the sum of all your parts. Only as a curiosity. You had no choice but to show yourself otherwise. To find the first person who would have you, someone who knew nothing of the dreamwalker. That was all you had left.”

“Don’t even think about pitying me,” I said.

“I do not pity you. But I do know what it feels like. To be wanted only for what you are.”

“It won’t happen again.”

“But your solitude did not keep you safe. Did it?”

I looked away. I hated that he knew. I hated that I’d let him work me out. Warden came to sit beside me on the bed.

“The mind of an amaurotic is like water. Bland, gray, transparent. Enough to sustain life, but no more. But a clairvoyant mind is more like oil, richer in every way. And like oil and water, they can never truly mix.”

“You’re saying that because he was amaurotic—”

“Yes.”