“I don’t think anything,” she snarls. “I saw the evidence with my own eyes. Tell me, when exactly did you start working with the Sons and Daughters of Thayaria? Was it you who has been leaking information that bolstered their recruitment efforts? You who told them all of our plans?”

I’m speechless. I open and close my mouth, unsure how to even respond. The rebels—how could she possibly think I would work with them? That I would betray her? Some scheme is at play here. Either Laurel is trying to convince the Prince she thinks me a traitor, for what reason I can’t say, or the Prince has actually convinced her I’m one. I wrack my brain, trying to weave pieces together that just don’t fit. I debate playing along, but the situation is too urgent.

“Laurel, please,” I plead, but she cuts me off.

“Save your breath. You’ll rot in here while I determine what to do with you.” Then she turns on her heel and marches out. Carex gives me another pitying look before following her, but the Velmaran Prince hangs back, leaning toward me in the cell. His eyes are dark with a protective anger.

“Whatever lies you’re trying to spin in your mind right now to get out of this, save your energy. I’ve spent centuries at the Velmaran court. I can spot a lie from a mile away,” he whispers, his voice pure venom. Then he too turns on his heel and stalks away, leaving me reeling.

Three days pass in complete solitude, kept company only by stoic guards and the occasional servant bringing me meals. I try and fail to summon the aether, over and over again, even though I know it’s completely impossible. At some point, a healer comes and tends to my shoulder, removing the ache but leaving a numbness in its wake. In the prison’s silence, all I can do is think of Genevieve—her smile, her laugh, her unbridled love for research. The way she blushed when we did something she’d never done before. How even after everything she’d been through, she’d still known I needed to jump, and not just off the cliff into the Velmaran sea. Her amber eyes and black curls haunt me, both awake and dreaming. I lose my resolve to wait until I’m closed away in the cabin to grieve for her. Sobs wrack my body in an endless cycle of desolation and longing and pure, aching sadness.