Yet he directed his focus not to his pain, but to the dirt beneath him. It felt damp against his cheek but grew dry with every breath. He relaxed as much as his perishing body would allow him.

Dry dirt meant Myrthe was safe from her tears.

Someone hauled up his rope, ensuring he couldn’t escape. He closed his eyes against the sounds of Sven and Hedy collecting Myrthe’s unconscious body to take her to the king as leverage. She would be crushed when she woke, but he couldn’t let her die for him.

He would never get to share his theory about the Well. The connection between the Wishtress and the water. The Well had chosen Myrthe to bring its Talents to the people . . . through her tears. Her emotion, her heart. Yet she’d been used by others. Been a slave to those who’d sold her Talent for their own gain.

He had to trust that somehow, someday, Myrthe would learn the truth about her Talent—and the beauty it was designed to spread. The Well would not abandon her—had never abandoned her. No matter how convinced she was that it had.

“You sure you want to leave him alive?” Hedy asked. Bastiaan started—he’d almost forgotten they were still up there.

“He won’t be for long,” Kees’s low voice responded.

Sven peered into the Well and something like triumph crossed his face. “Shoot him, then.”

“Leave it be,” Kees said wearily. “It’s not worth the risk. He could still be armed.”

“He’s dying,” she snarled. “Fish in a barrel.”

“Shark in a puddle, more like it.” Though Kees was on the wrong side, Bastiaan disliked him least. “I don’t want you living with his blood on your hands, Hedy.”

“I don’t mind.”

Boots sliding on dirt. Bastiaan readied himself. At least it’d be quick. But the sounds grew more and more distant. Then . . . gone. And Myrthe with them. The swollen rage inside his chest could refill the Well within seconds if it could be released. Instead he closed his eyes and took deep breaths.

The moon hung like a coin against a splash of black ink. Even if he had his time snap back, it wouldn’t free him from the Well. It wouldn’t heal him. His Talent had its limitations and the Well had a reason for that.

He ought to have used his Talent better. For others—the thing he always told people but seemed to do terribly on his own. How could one know the right thing to do yet always fail at doing that very thing?

He stared up at the stars. Felt them moving as time ticked by. He was glad to be dying in the Awake and not the Stillness. It felt natural. Right. The more he accepted his end, the less pain he felt—almost like it didn’t matter anymore.