The daggers dropped from Coralythe’s fists and clanked on the floor. I might have thought she was relenting, but the thunder in her gaze said otherwise. Thick purple clouds rolled across the whites of her eyes. Lightning sparked across her exposed skin. She lifted her hands toward me.

“You despicable child. I curse you. I curse you with all the curses I’ve not spent.”

I couldn’t move, still in shock from the revelation of what I’d done.

“At the drop of your next tear, you’re cursed to die. Let your emotions never have release. Let your heart feel eternal torture, robbed of relief. May you become as cold as the ice with which you snuffed out life.”

Fire pierced my eyes and my vision went blinding white, then storm purple. A scream tore from my throat. The pain of a thousand summer suns mixed with the claws of frostbite cut through my skin. My Wishtress Talent writhed inside me like an animal thrashing against a throttling grip. I felt it suffocating, gasping for breath. Wholly separate from my own body and yet inseparable. Then the Talent went limp.

Something hard struck the side of my head.

Shattering glass. Rain. Fire.

Black.

Chapter 7
Bastiaan

“The king is dead!” Runt raced out of the windmill to meet Bastiaan.

“I heard.” Bastiaan wiped his feet clean with a rag after dipping them in the bowl of water by the door. The weight of regret and sorrow pressed him deeper into the ground.

“We learned of it yesterday from the crats.” Word always spread among the canal rats first. And Runt, having been a crat once, was Bastiaan’s top informant. “And the canals are frozen! Did you hear that? Don’t worry, our creek’s still okay. Diantha said it’s because it’s not connected to the canals.”

Runt took the soiled cloth from Bastiaan.

“You don’t need to do—”

“There’s cheese on the table.” Runt pushed him farther inside with his free hand.

Though Runt was a mere ten years of age, he acted as both loyal serving boy and stubborn parent. Bastiaan hung up his travel bag and pulled out what was left of the bread he’d received from Myrthe, shoved it into Runt’s hands. “You and Mother eat. I need . . .”

He couldn’t finish the sentence. He stumbled up the spiral staircase, memory after memory pounding in his brain. The king teaching him how to use a sword. Telling him the history of Fairhoven as they traveled. Arguing good-naturedly over their differing opinions on the Well. Teaching him how to overcome his fear of water and swim.

“Bastiaan!” Runt’s holler was a dim echo. “Wait! There’s a summons!”

Bastiaan burst upward through the door into his study and collapsed on his bed, pressing the palms of his hands against his temples as though that would silence the memories. The guilt.