Lost, I reach out and stroke her hair back from her face with my free hand. Just like Mami always did when I was sick. My palm is wet with blood now, but I don’t care. I shush her gently, stroking her damp hair back. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Tears track down my face. Foolish, selfish tears, brought on by the pain watching her suffer causes me. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t,” she says. Her breath is even more labored now as her chest fills with blood.

There has to be a way to save her. I’m not a healer like Olani, but surely there has to be something I can do—anything—just so this nobody from a small town on the coast, a girl who works in an inn, a girl who has no reason to be here, won’t die. I press my hands over her wound, soaking my fingers in blood. My magic recoils, but I draw it forward, reaching out, like I can force it to heal, to suddenly know what to do with shattered bones and split veins.

But it doesn’t. And I don’t either.

I’m disgusted, frightened, with lightning crackling in the air and arcing over my skin.

Suddenly, Gossamer is beside me. I don’t know if he followed me without me seeing or just appeared here. His face looks troubled, veering into what I’d call sorrowful on a human. He doesn’t ask who she is or what happened. He cuts straight to the point. “You want to save her?”

I cry even harder, so hard my chest hurts. Too hard to speak or nod.

Gossamer seems to take that as a yes anyway. He moves like a ghost, slipping behind me and putting his arms over mine. His hands over mine. They slip right through, so when I look at my own hands, they have a pale shadow with longer fingers, sharper nails.

“I have the power to undo this,” he murmurs. His lips, this close to my ear, make ice shiver at the back of my neck. “All you have to do is hand over control.”

I feel myself go stiff, wary at the hint of a faerie trick.

He feels it, too. “Seelie, there isn’t much time.”

Under my hands, the girl struggles to breathe. She shakes uncontrollably, eyes going wide. Where Gossamer’s hands meet mine, magic tingles expectantly.

“We need to work together,” he urges.

I can’t agree to something like that—I can’t. I can’t let him have all of me, all of my magic. I’m already in too deep, so deep I feel like I’m drowning.

But this girl is dying.

“I—” I start, not knowing how the sentence is going to end. Tears splash on the girl’s cold, white skin.

“Just give me control. Now!” Gossamer’s voice is desperate and strained.

“Seelie!” The echoing sound of footsteps down the hall makes my head snap up.

Raze’s voice. Raze’s footsteps.

“Help!” I scream.

“No!” Gossamer tries to hush me, but it’s too late. His hands pull back from mine, and his presence leaves my skin. Everything ebbs away into shadow.