“You’re wrong,” I told the Huntress. “Can’t you see that? I’m here. I’m right here, Isolde.”

“Are you?” Her eyes searched my face. “I’ve seen too many ghosts since you left.”

“Tell me what to do. Tell me how to save you.”

“Hunt. Remember me when the first green comes. Watch the first spring fawns. Listen to the birds.” She turned her head to the window. “Smell the damp soil on the breeze and walk through fens still cool with snow. Feel the sun warm the rocks in the high passes, where the mountain lions den and the eagles nest. Look down on the valleys and you’ll understand. We were the eagles. We were the lions. We fell on them because they were below us, so far down they didn’t even look real. She was right perhaps to curse me for that, but you should have seen us, Rowan. We were wild. We were . . .” She shuddered again, and I held her closer. “We were wrong. All flesh, all blood, all teeth and bone and grace.”

“It’s in the past now,” I said.

“The past is everything.”

“I’m here. Don’t you see? That means you didn’t lose me. That means there is still a future, and nothing in the curse said you have to die for your sins!”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t.” The tears came faster now. “Just tell me how to save you.”

“You already did.” Her breath caught, and I held mine until she breathed again. “I love you. I loved you from the moment I saw you, even though I knew it meant this. You’re worth a thousand springs.”

“You can’t die,” I commanded her.

“I am the winter rose,” she said. “And the roses are dying.” Her face tightened with pain, and she turned her head away from me. Another shudder shook her, and this one lasted longer than the others. The room spun as I remembered the feel of thorns spreading in my veins.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait. You can’t leave me. I came back.”

Footsteps pounded on the stairs and the white wolf rose, hackles up. I ignored her. It didn’t matter. The Huntress’s heart stuttered underneath my hand, flickering, fading, gone.

Snarls echoed against the stone, followed by screams.

“Stand aside,” said Avery Lockland.

I looked up from her body through eyes blurred with tears. Avery stood in the doorway with blood seeping through his clothes and briar scratches on his face, a bloody hatchet in each hand. I did not see my wolf.

“Move, Rowan.”

I shook my head. I was waiting for the reassuring thud of a heart against ribs, and it wasn’t coming. Avery took another step, his eyes flicking around the rose-strewn room. Then he saw the woman in my arms, and he froze.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said.