“One morning I woke up and he was gone. I searched from sunrise to sunset. At first I thought he was testing me to see if I’d start time to find him. On the second day I found him at a nearby village’s old library. I don’t know what he’d been reading—probably something new for us to discover. But his oil lamp must have spilled because the library was burned to the ground. He lay out in the road, burned beyond recognition.”

His voice cracked. “I was certain he was dead.”

“Oh, Bastiaan . . . you couldn’t have known that would happen.”

“But I could have freed him sooner.” He shook his head and closed his eyes. “So much sooner.”

I placed a hand on his arm, suspecting where this story was going. “You got him back to his family, though, didn’t you?”

“Back to the schloss, yes. I laid him in his bed, knowing servants would find him the moment I snapped my fingers. The odds of his recovery were slim to none, even if they brought in a Talented healer.”

The tale was a heavy one, and yet the longer Bastiaan spoke, the lighter he seemed. As though poison were being drawn out of his body.

“I returned to Windmill Cottage . . . and I started time again. He died three days later.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He met my gaze, his own face twisted with uncertainty. “You don’t blame me?”

“No. And even if I did . . . I’m not your judge. Your guilt—your actions—answer to the Well that gave you your Talent. And clearly the Well is still allowing your Talent to work—to defeat Mattias’s Bane, even.”

Bastiaan flipped his hand over back and forth. “Is it working, though? That leaf—”

A roar crashed through the silence and sounds burst to life like animals themselves—dark night sounds. Growls. Rhythmic buzzing and the chirping of unseen biters. Bastiaan paled and his hand gripped mine like a vise. He opened his mouth once. Twice.

He saw it as his Talent failing him. Unpredictable. Volatile.

But to me, it was merely time starting back up again. Time I was used to living in. I could do this. We could do this.

I was the first to run—well, my version of running, at least—pulling him after me.

The roar returned, right on our heels. The mama bear.

“Why is she in the Autumn Trial?”

Bastiaan finally found his voice, though I hardly caught the croak. “We never defeated Spring. She passed right through the mist wall.”

That was when the buzzing hit my ears, mixed with the Autumn night sounds. The black wasps. Winter’s breath. We were about to fight two Trials at the same time.