Chris was at my side in an instant, his eyes raking over the results of the spell. “Bloody stones and sky,” he swore. “All that for nothing!”

“What am I doing? What have I become?” I sobbed, unable to contain the flood of disappointment and disgust I felt toward myself. “How did I become a chicken-killing practitioner of the dark arts? An agent for a king set on conquering the whole world? How did I get here? How did I become so evil?” The questions poured out of my mouth until the need to breathe silenced them.

“You’re not evil, Cécile,” Chris said softly, patting me on the shoulder.

“Then why am I doing this?” I demanded.

“Because you love Tristan,” he said. “And you couldn’t stand to see him hurt.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“No.” He sighed heavily. “It doesn’t make it right, but I’m not sure that it’s entirely wrong either.” He moved in front of me so that we could see each other’s faces. “I’m just a farmer with a good eye for horses. I’m not a scholar or a philosopher, or any of those sorts, but if you ask me, most people aren’t tough enough to put a bunch of strangers ahead of their loved ones. And quite frankly, I’m not sure I’d want to know the sort of person who would.”

“Tristan would,” I said, wiping my nose on my sleeve. “It’s what he wanted me to do.”

Chris gave me a little shake. “He put your life ahead of everything and everyone – I know for a fact that he sent lots of those half-bloods to their deaths in order to get you out of Trollus alive. And rightly or wrongly, he did it because he loved you too much to let you die.”

Pulling a slightly grimy handkerchief out of his pocket, he wiped my face. It came away bloody. “It seems to me, that no matter what we do, no matter what choices we make, there isn’t a happy ending waiting for us at the end of the long road.” He squared his shoulders and pushed me upright. “But that doesn’t mean we give up. It doesn’t mean we stop fighting.”

He got to his feet. “I’m going to take this chicken down the road to a family I know could use it. Why don’t you start cleaning up in here?”

I clung to Chris’s optimism as I set to wiping away the blood splattered across the kitchen, but my heart wasn’t in it. I hated what I was becoming. Every day, I lied and deceived those closest to me. Every time I practiced magic, I broke the law. I was attempting to find a way to unleash a terrifying force onto the world. And for what? To save the life of the one I loved? I cringed at how selfish it seemed, but no matter how many times I played the events at the mouth of the River Road over in my mind, I could not fathom doing anything different.