Luce was too stunned to even be angry. The scream seethed inside her, and she gaped at Dorian in bitter astonishment. Her problems weren’t real? Rescuing her father wasn’t real, the risk of war with the humans wasn’t real, Anais committing murder wasn’t—

“That’s an insane thing to say.” Luce’s voice was still very quiet. “I was saving my father.”

Dorian gazed at her thoughtfully, and for a few seconds he didn’t say anything. He opened his mouth and paused, as if the words he was thinking were too cruel to be voiced. Then he halfway smiled.

“I’ll never get to save my father.”

The scream fought harder now, trying to get out. Luce couldn’t say anything, and she felt too broken to move.

“Luce, listen . . .”

She gaped at him, her face crumpling from the struggle not to scream or cry.

“I won’t sing back,” Dorian announced.

Luce clutched the shore. She didn’t understand at first.

Dorian watched her, then spoke again. “If you want to kill me for this, you can. I won’t sing back.” He actually grinned: the impish, defiant grin Luce had loved so much. “Now’s your big chance! It’s a one-time offer, though, so you better—

His grin fell away. He shouldn’t say that to her, Luce thought, not when her voice was already so close to overpowering her, when she could hardly keep it restrained . . .

The note rose up, velvety and piercing at the same time, and hovered for a moment like a living star. The beginning of the death song, of Luce’s song of enchantment, so fiercely beautiful that the air itself seemed to crystallize into pure longing.

Luce watched Dorian bite his lip, hard, and close his eyes. Preparing himself. As her song tumbled down the scale she could feel his mind falling with it, letting go of everything, giving in to that feeling of absolute forgiveness . . . But nobody was actually forgiven now, were they? He took his first steps into the sea, and even as she sang Luce was weeping uncontrollably. But he should die for what he’d done to her, and even if he shouldn’t, the song was too powerful for her to call it back. The boundaries of her own mind seemed to disintegrate in that torrent of violent music.

Waves parted around Dorian’s chest, slapped at his shoulders. His back was turned to Luce now, but she could hear his labored breathing. Even without trying to defend himself he still had much more resistance than a normal human would. But arrogant as he was, he didn’t have enough.