The world trembled and blurred as the magic stole into my veins, and I pulled Pénélope into my arms, lifting her onto the platform right as the edge of the moon crept across the opening, spilling its light into the cavern. The mirrors caught its brilliance, and it seemed we were not buried beneath curse and rock, but kneeling in a field surrounded by sky and stars.

Pénélope’s fingers interlaced with mine, and I kissed her, her lips tasting like salt and dreams and desire. Everything I wanted. Everything I was willing to die for.

Then she was there. In my mind. In my heart. I gazed into her eyes, knowing for the first time with certainty that she loved what she saw. That she would not change me. And I wouldn’t change her. What souls we fey creatures had were now bound by the greatest magic known in this world and the next. It was the greatest joy I’d ever known, something that nothing – nothing – would ever make me regret. But it was also the greatest heartbreak.

Because I knew it wouldn’t last.

Chapter 19

Pénélope

There was no less to fear as we crept back through the labyrinth, yet my heart and mind were free of that malignant emotion for the first time in what felt like an eternity. For, perhaps, the first time in my life. Because Marc was in my heart and in my mind, and no one – not my father, not the King, not Tristan or Anaïs – could do anything to change that. It was a magic that could not be undone by anyone and, to me, that was like a castaway coming across a raft in the open seas. A chance. A hope. And I intended to cling to it, to fight for it, with all the strength I possessed.

We made it back to Trollus without incident, Marc concealing us with magic as he locked the gate, his hand immediately returning to mine after he’d tucked the key away in his pocket. My face ached from smiling, and though his hood concealed his mouth, I knew he was doing the same. The knowledge, the feel of it, made me giddy with delight, and I tugged on his hand, wanting to drag him at a run through the city streets until we were back in his home, in his room, in his bed. I wanted that intimacy: not just to know what he felt when we were together, but to feel it.

But rather than allowing me to hurry him forward, Marc pulled back on my hand, his unease flooding my heart. “Something’s happened.”

Turning my head, I scanned the city. It appeared as it always did, with no sign that the tree had failed and rocks had fallen. Yet there was no mistaking the charge of magic in the air, roiling and excessive and… dangerous. A sign of angry trolls, great either in number or in power, and my skin prickled with the certainty that the unrest had been caused by us.