I close the distance between us, barely remembering to extinguish the flame in my hand as I snatch at his sleeve. “Raze, stop!”

The faint feeling of security I’d felt vanishes with the dim pool of golden light.

Raze shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it and blinks down at me, at my hand digging tight into the fabric of his sleeve, up my scarred arm to my eyes. His face twists like he’s struggling to focus, to remember who I am.

The singing doesn’t stop. The voice is like sunshine, starkly out of place here. Jarring and impossible to tune out.

I tug his sleeve again. “Raze. Stay on the path. Come on, just keep moving.”

His voice sounds dull and hollow as his gaze flicks back to the deep forest. “I remember...my father’s voice. He used to sing to me. Just like that.”

I thought the voice’s vague familiarity was a faerie trick, but it’s not. It sounds familiar because it sounds like Raze. The faerie trick is darker, wrapped in a layer of the truth—but it’s still a trick. His parents aren’t here.

Raze tugs his sleeve from my grip. “I have to...”

“There’s nothing for you to do!” Desperation is starting to fill my chest. I pull his arm, staggering backwards through the brush. “Raze, please, listen to me!”

If he can hear me, he doesn’t show it. He pulls back, using his considerable size advantage to pull me along with him into the trees.

My boots scrape in the soft, black earth as I try to dig my heels in. I shove the iron knife into my boot and reach for his face with my free hand. “Just—listen—!”

My hand cups his freckled cheek, and I force him to look back at me. The gingery scruff starting to grow along his jaw prickles against my palm.

“Listen!” I say, meeting that blank look again, begging Fate for him to come back to his senses. “I don’t know who you think it is, but it’s not real. It’s just a trick. Come back to the path with me. Please.”

Something lights behind his eyes for just a second, through the curtain of red strands that fell in his face when I turned it to me. “I...”

For a moment, the singing fades. I hold my breath, letting Raze’s sleeve slip from my grip.

The singer starts the same song over. The echoing voice sounds distant, yet just within reach.

And Raze is gone again.

His blue eyes glaze over, and his neck strains as he pulls away from me, frantic as a wild animal in a trap, trying to turn back to the source of the song.

But I’m not going to let him go that easily. “Raze!” I grab onto his arm, pulling in the opposite direction. “Stop!”

It’s useless. He shakes me off easily, pulling his arm out of my grip with a roughness I forgot he had. I try to snag his arm again, but his elbow catches me in the ribs hard enough to knock the air from my lungs and send me falling.