“It will work.” I swallowed hard. “If you would remove your coat and shirt and lay on the ground, Your Majesty. ”

He obliged, the snow immediately melting to form a pool around his overheated skin.

“It will be painful,” I warned.

“I don’t feel pain,” he said, then his eyes flicked to me. “I feel nothing.”

“Then let’s begin.” I poured the potion, and drew upon all the power the world had to offer.

Chapter 60

Tristan

I drifted just outside the threshold of consciousness, aware. But not.

It was cold. I was cold. Numb.

Bodies jostled against me, dead limbs clutching and grabbing. Faces full of accusation. They dragged me deeper and deeper until I couldn’t breathe. The weight of a thousand corpses, a thousand victims, pressing down on my chest.

Get off, I screamed at them. I tried. Did everything I could.

The dead do not listen. The dead cannot hear.

I reached for the flame that was my magic, clawed at it with desperate fingers. But instead of burning bright, it guttered. Faltered. Blackness tugged me away from consciousness, further and further until it was only a distant gleam. But something wouldn’t let me go.

A sound, sharp and repetitious. Familiar.

“Tristan!” A voice I knew well. “Don’t you dare be dead, you stupid pretty-faced troll!”

Then the weight was pushed off my chest, the bodies shoved away, and hands, warm with the heat of life, were pulling me out of the cold.

I opened my eyes.

Chapter 61

Cécile

Roland opened his eyes and sat up, staring at one misty hand as though he couldn’t believe it was his own.

“Roland,” I said. “Are you all right?”

His form solidified, and I eased back, ready to run if I had to. Just because he couldn’t harm me with magic any longer didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of ripping out my throat. “Roland?” I repeated.

He lifted his head, and I sensed in the moment that his eyes met mine that his madness was gone. That in removing the iron from his body, I’d stripped away the poison twisting his mind. “I’m sorry it hurt,” I said, gently touching his hand.

He flinched, and I wondered how long it had been since someone had comforted him, if they ever had. If he had even wanted it. Then warm fingers clutched at mine, his chin trembled, and I knew the pain of the spell was nothing compared to what he was feeling now. How much terror had he caused in his young life? How many had died at his hands? His parents and his aunt, and, in his mind, his brother. Worse, how much emotional neglect had he suffered at Angoulême’s hands? His iron madness had been what drove him to commit all those atrocities, but now it was gone. And he was going to have to find a way to live with what he’d done.

A sob racked through his shoulders, and in a movement almost too fast to see, he curled up in a little ball, my fingers clutched painfully tight in one of his hands. In the same moment, I felt Tristan regain consciousness and relief thundered through my heart.