“Raze didn’t tell you?” Olani snorts. “Typical.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Aris snaps. “She’s awake. She’s needed. Let’s go.”

Isolde pushes Aris aside gently, stepping towards me. She speaks with exaggerated calmness, but I can see a flurry of emotions flickering in her eyes. They glitter, almost as if she’s about to start crying, set against her mouth stretched in a trembling smile. “Seelie, everything is okay. We’re in Wildline Manor.”

My head spins. What? That can’t be true. The fire blows out like a candle, leaving thin trails of smoke as I struggle onto my shaking legs. We can’t be in Wildline Manor. That’s where Leira Wildfall lives, Leira Wildfall who took everything from us, who almost killed Isolde. I saw the firedrake. Why didn’t we get away? Why are we here? Why aren’t Isolde and Aris trying to murder each other? Why didn’t Raze tell me?

Burn it all, says a not-so-quiet voice inside me. I could. It would be too easy.

I turn from the thought, from the flash of hot violence running through me. I need to get away from this. I can’t breathe.

What I thought were floor-to-ceiling windows behind me are actually doors, panes of glass set into intricate iron frames that open to a balcony. I trip over a low table as I stumble for them, and I hear the sound of glass breaking behind me. Water splashes to the floor as a vase of flowers smashes, leaving pale pink petals in my wake.

“Seelie, wait!” Isolde calls.

I throw the doors open, letting the breeze cool my heated skin. I’m wearing a nightgown that I know isn’t mine, and the silky fabric clings to my sticky skin. I sway on my feet and hold tight to the balcony’s stone railing. I lean so far that for a second, I think I might fall.

That would be bad because I’m several stories up, looking over Gilt Row.

The street looks different in the daytime. I think it’s still early in the morning, because there’s almost no one out walking, even though it’s pleasantly cool with just a few wisps of gray cloud overhead. The pastel houses snuggle tight together in their orderly rows, and the pale pavement is perfectly smooth and free of any kind of debris. It doesn’t seem real. How can I be back here, after everything that happened? Was it all for nothing?

Anxious, half-delirious wind rushes under my fingertips and flutters my sleeves. It whips my hair from my face, chilling my skin and rushing in my ears. I can’t hold it back any longer.

My bandaged hand still stabs with pain every time I move it, but I raise it anyway, reaching down into the aching hollow of my chest to summon my magic. Blood starts soaking through the white cloth. I can’t focus, but the magic is already there, running as freely as my blood, white-hot power splitting through the haze of pain.

The russet leaves of the climbing ivy tremble as the wind picks up around me, breaking off and swirling into the empty air with a hollow, brittle rush.