“Why bother saving us that day?” I demand, shaking violently. I can still see the blue hellfire raining down from the skies. “Why didn’t you just send us to Death with the others?”

“I needed to see how far you’d go,” he says thinly, “to destroy the thing you don’t understand, just like every human before you.”

When the queen’s eyes fall on me, every inch of me disintegrates.

I was part of the experiment. By choosing to destroy the Orb, I showed him we don’t deserve paradise. That we can never truly change.

I feel sick.

“You don’t get to put this all on me. To claim you were just a bystander watching the pieces fall into place,” I say, voice cracking again and again and again. “I made this choice because Gil… because you…” The words catch in my throat like razor blades. You tricked me, I want to scream. You made me do this.

Except I don’t know if he did. I don’t know where the blame should fall.

But I’m worried it’s all on me.

Am I responsible for the end of the Colony? The end of humans? Because I failed to build a bridge?

“If I had refused to destroy the Orb,” I ask Caelan, shaking, “would you have let us live?”

Queen Ophelia answers instead. “Humans have no place in the new world. There’s nothing you could have done to stop what’s coming.”

I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can hardly stand.

Caelan doesn’t say a word, but his gaze lingers on me long enough to make my neck grow hot.

Queen Ophelia’s composure is unyielding, hands hidden in a sea of black silk. She looks at Prince Lysander and gives a nod. “You will take her to Death. But I don’t want you to just remove her consciousness—I want you to eradicate it.” She stares at me, vacant-eyed. “Infinity is no place for Heroes, and this one seems to have a knack for opening doors she shouldn’t. She will stay in Death until you’ve learned the way forward—until she becomes the first human to be erased from Infinity permanently.”

Ettore releases a hiss through his teeth, but he bows in resignation. The other three princes follow suit, and when Caelan lifts his face, I can’t figure out how I ever saw kindness in his wicked silver stare.

I try to take a step back, but I feel my body bolt to the floor, unable to move.

Queen Ophelia looks at me for only a moment. I wonder if she remembers the conversations we had when I was alive—the conversations about life and family and the future. I wonder if she despised me even then.