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November 8 - November 19, 2025
He never used too much of her, no matter what she said, and that was the truth—however much he needed was just as much as she was willing to give.
If she kept holding him, they would know. They would know she was not normal, that there was something wrong. If she let him go, Ola would try to tether to Kier, and she would find that she could not.
It was also illegal, forbidden and punishable by death. She elbowed him in the ribs, hard, and laughed harder at his pout. “We’re not allowed to be.” Kier shrugged, allowing it. Nobody was allowed to be bound.
“How easily,” he murmured, “you give up your magic to me.” She blushed despite herself, pulling away from him with something like embarrassment. “It’s not magic when I have it. It takes you to make it into something.” “We’re not bound,”
I have received further reports that the Isle is gone entirely. There are no survivors. I have seen the empty bay with my own eyes, and though it has been days, no bodies have washed ashore. It is reported that the High Lady, the Lord Consort, and both children are dead, along with their court.
I have a feeling that grey is from the isle of locke and is important
“The girl,” Attis said, “is Maryse of Locke, daughter of the last High Lady of the Isle.” A sharp indrawn breath—Grey didn’t know if it was her or Kier, or both of them, because they knew the truth and neither of them could say it. Under her hand, Kier was very, very still. His own hand snaked back again, gripping her thigh with a new ferocity. “But Maryse of Locke is dead,”
“What will we do,” Kier said, “if they discover that you are Maryse of Locke?”
Lot paced as Grey spoke, telling him of Severin’s death, of her own identity, of the destruction of Locke. Except buried in all of that, she kept one final lie. “Severin,” she said, finishing. “He was the heir to the Isle. He was a well, too. I was just… the extra. A backup.” She let Lot comfort her as she cried, ignoring the seed of guilt that grew in her stomach. She watched Kier’s face as he heard the lie, believed it, swallowed it down.
shirt. “He stole your power, Grey. I can’t even think of that kind of violation without getting…” She heard the anger rising in his voice. He took a deep breath and continued, “He knew who you were, what you were, when he tethered. I will not risk you again. The things I wish I could say to you…” He caught himself again. “Losing you, living without you would be a fate worse than death.”
He raised his eyes skyward. “I suffer and I suffer,” he muttered. “And yet. And yet.”
not caring if they traveled through the tether. She faced the adoration and the devotion and the love, the jealousy and the agony and the longing. There was not a single word she could say to him to encompass it all, sixteen years by his side and the devastation of not having more. She forced herself to focus on the pulsing well of power in her middle. She stretched and stretched, reaching, finding the other pulses surrounding them—and she pulled.
Grey detonated. She was on her knees in the dirt. There was blood in her mouth. There was blood in her mouth and she was not quite down because there was something there; something had caught her and held her as the screaming around them cut off sharply. Severin’s hands on hers, bruise-tight— There was nothing left. She was an empty vessel, lowered to the ground on her back. She stared up at the night sky for an immeasurable moment, choking on her own blood. She felt it in her stomach, the shift of power, the moment her mother died— Power in bravery.
She chewed on her lip. She wished for a day when they could do this, go through these motions, without reminding her of the worst of it. “If they draw arms,” she said, her voice high-pitched and nervous, “I am to run to the cellar—not the nice cellar, but the root cellar below—and bar the door. There I am to await my guard. I am to wait, no matter what happens, for someone to come for me.” “And?” Severin prompted, eyebrow raised. “Whoever comes must know the recitation of the Isle’s holy verses,” Maryse said. “And I can’t keep picking the twenty-seventh verse, just because I like it, as that
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“Very good,” Isaak said. He tugged on her hair. “Your ribbons?” She turned her head, swallowing hard. Her mother had done her hair herself. Isaak ran his fingers over the ribbons and the pearls threaded through them, which really were not pearls at all. They were poison. “And your boots?” he asked. She got up, using her father for balance as she turned and lifted her heels, showing him one boot heel, then the other. He tapped them, checking the knives. “And Maryse,” Severin said. “If one of them tries to kidnap you?” She hated this question most of all. “They are not to succeed,” she said
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He hesitated, and they both heard the boots on the floor above them. “I thought you loved her,” Maryse cried, unable to make sense of it all. Upstairs, someone shouted—one of the cooks. “I love you more,” Severin said fiercely. He set her down in the dirt and paced, pulling at his hair. “I just—Retarik’s bones, this wasn’t supposed to happen. What do we do? What do we do?” Maryse flinched when Sev swore on the name of the gods.
She looked up at him, terrified. There were boots on the stairs, then fists slamming the doors. Severin looked up, over her shoulder, and sucked a breath through his teeth. “We don’t have much time.” Agony tore through her. Maryse gasped, gripping her stomach as some great power extinguished. She screamed, trying to keep the pain at bay, but it was no use. She fell forward onto her hands. Severin caught her and held her close. He shook against her, and when she looked up, her brother was crying. “Locke has fallen,” he said, reading the expression on her face. He closed his eyes for one brief
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He took her free hand with his. A closed circuit. There was pounding overhead, pounding behind her, crackling flames behind him. “You are Locke now,” Severin said, very quietly. “Do you understand?” She shook her head.
“We can run. Together.” “We can’t,” Severin said, and now the tears flowed freely down his cheeks. “If they take you, if you refuse to let them control you, they will make you bear an heir as soon as you’re able. One who will hand over all the power, who they can control—and then they’ll kill you anyway. I can’t save you. You have to save your power, Maryse—you have to save yourself.”
“After it’s done, you have to run. You will live, Maryse, if you forget us.” “No.” “Do you promise,” Severin whispered, “to let us go?” “No,” she whimpered. She did not hug him; she did not break the circuit. He squeezed both of her hands, and it hurt. “You have to,” he said.
Maryse relented. She reached out, felt the swell of the island below her, felt the swell of the power as she stripped it from every other well on the Isle. It all rushed into her in one great torrent, so much power for such a small body, too much power. She pushed it at Severin even as he screamed. Eyes shut, his hands gripped in hers, they detonated Locke
She remembered the press of his mouth against hers, the desperation in his kiss when she was certain they were going to die. “Kier?” “Grey, beloved, you absolute fool—if that was the worst of you, then you remain a saint among us.” He shook his head wonderingly. “And I have been trying to make you see me as more than your mage for six years now.”
“I adore you,” he said, all in a rush. “No—no. Listen. I… I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for years, maybe forever. Sometimes it’s all I can think about, and I can’t breathe because it’s so heavy on my chest that I… I might be holding it alone, the only thing about you I can’t be certain of. It’s agony, Grey, the not knowing.”
