"And he said 'no!' Can you believe that?"

William stood, staring at me from the top of the steps, his arms crossed over his chest. His lips flicked up at the ends in a half-smile.

"Well, maybe if you'd have told him the truth..."

My foot slipped off the edge of the stone. I barely caught my balance. "Will! You know I didn't lie!"

"Fine." He held out a hand to help me up the rest of the stairs. I took it. When I was up, he narrowed his eyes.

"Rosinka lied. Thing is, I see that as partially your fault."

I yanked my hand away from his. "And how is that?"

William shrugged. "You haven't tried to control her. You may as well have let her lie to Arioch and now you have to pay the price for it. Unless you suddenly figure out the cure for miralis--which is unlikely, I'll admit--you are going to have to force your friend to give it to you."

"That's not fair." My eyes started to well with tears, but I blinked them away. I hadn't cried so far, so I wouldn't start now.

"Clair," William lowered his voice. "The one thing I've found out while being forced to be near King is that life isn't fair."

He looked away. His eyes focused on a blood stain against the wall. "I found that out before we were prisoners."

My heart twisted. It was too easy to forget William watched both his parents die in the same castle we were held in. For me, I thought of Dulcia's palace as the home of the muraes. For Will though, he saw his home overrun by monsters.

He saw the past and the present, while I just saw one of them.

"I'm sorry, Will."

He shook his head. "What do you need to apologize for? It's not your fault Dulcia's fallen." A small, sad grin flickered across his face. "Besides, it's because of me you're involved in this. I should be the one who's sorry."

He started to walk down the hall again, leaving me frozen in place.

An apology? That felt out of character.

"Coming?"

Move.

I bolted after him. For a boy made of wood, he could move fast when he needed to.

William pointed to a piece in the wall where stone bricks had been removed, leaving an emptiness of darkness.

"When I was younger, I'd explore every nook and cranny of the palace. It was said that there were secret passages running below the castle."

"Did you find any?"

He jolted to a halt. "Not really."

The fingers on his left hand twitched up to his side, where they brushed against the wood for a split second. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and continued down his path.

I tucked a piece of hair that fell in front of my eyes back behind my ear. "You okay?"

"Fine."

William led me past too many doors to count. Each time we passed a shadow on the wall, some deep part of me wanted to see if it was the last place someone breathed. My gaze would follow the past of the darkness until it was out of range. Even then, I still wondered. It still pulled at my gut.

For the sake of my friend, I didn't mention it.

William stopped at a door so white it was almost blinding compared to the black the muraes used. He pressed his hand against it, eyes closed.

A loud crack echoed down the hall. The door shifted backward, hinges groaning, and opened, barely wide enough for us to fit through. Will went in first, then took my hand to guide me.

My stomach brushed against the rough edge of the stone. It grabbed the edge of my clothes and pulled, yanked it, away from my skin. The edge morphed and swirled so eyes and a mouth screamed at me.

With one final tug, I was through. Without thinking, my hand shot to the place where the concrete touched.

Nothing had changed.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I held. William raised an eyebrow, but didn't ask what was wrong, which relieved me. How could I explain that it felt like the wall was drawing me into it?

He dropped my arm and leaned against the wall. My throat tightened as he moved toward it. A small squeak, one that could be mistaken as a mouse's, tore its way from my mouth.

His arm hit the stone. The arms that tried to suck me in didn't come for him.

"Clair, are you okay?"

It was then I noticed the ice surrounding me.

Relax. Relax, relax, relax. There's nothing wrong. It's okay.

The mantra kept going over in my head as I told him I was fine.

Will's knees buckled. His right hand shot to the cut across his shoulder and chest. Body trembling, he sank to the ground.

My fear of the people in the walls vanished.

"William!"

Before I started to go to him, he held up a hand.

"I'm good," he huffed. "Just--need a break for a minute."

My shoes clapped against the floor as I walked to him. When I sat, I pulled my knees to my chest.

There would be no way I'd get a response, but I still asked. "Every time I see you, you're worse. What is happening?"

A smile pulled at his lips. "I'll explain it later," he whispered. Then, in a louder voice, he said, "So, your mother's all right?"

"Yeah." I bobbed my head. "The only thing I noticed was a scar on her hand, which she refused to tell me about."

"That's good. I'm glad she's still..." He paused.

"Her," I finished. "I'm glad too."

A mumbled of voices came from outside, too low to understand. We silenced until they passed.

There was something else that bothered me. Merlin. The last I saw of him was in the forest after the other muraes finished with him. He didn't look like he was breathing, but maybe he still lived.

I hoped he did, for William's sake.

Heart pounding, I shifted my weight. "Will, have you seen Merlin since we got here? I mean, the last I saw of him, we were in the forest and--"

One glance at my friend was enough to silence me.

His eyes darkened. Fire blazed in them, fire that burned through everything.

"He's dead."

His expression didn't change.

If I thought my heart couldn't sink any lower, it did. The most interaction I'd had with Merlin was me trying to kill him. We weren't friends, but I'd finally trusted him enough.

And now he was dead.

"Will, I'm sorry." My arms pressed into my stomach like I could hug myself, like I could stop the hurt.

It didn't work.

William looked away. "It's okay."

It's okay.

No 'don't apologize.' He only said that if it wasn't my fault.

And it was.

I was the one who could've protected him. I was the strongest in the group, whether I tried to be or not. Merlin was killed because I failed at getting rid of King. He was killed because, with King still around, the muraes were able to attack.

He was killed because of my failure.

"Clair?"

William stood, one hand against the wall. He stared at me, not with hate or blame, but with sympathy.

Water tickled the side of my cheek. I brushed it away and stood. "Sorry. In my own little world."

His chin raised just slightly, enough to say he knew I was lying.

Instead of asking, he pointed to the entrance. "Do you know a spell to make it quiet for anyone but us?"

I sniffled. "So no one can hear us, you mean?"

He nodded.

I walked over to the door and placed my hand on it. Eyes closed, I whispered, "Vouum."

When nothing happened for a moment, I cracked one eye open.

"Did it work?"

I rolled my eyes and glared at Will. "I don't know! It mutes us to them, not the other way around!"

"Okay, okay." He held up his hands, palms facing me. "I guess we'll just have to hope it worked."

Wow. What a vote of confidence.

William lowered himself to the floor, one hand resting against the wall as he did so. He motioned for me to do the same.

A tiny grin etched itself across his face. "I have to sit for this, sorry."

Before I could ask why, he closed his eyes and slammed his hands on the ground. The word "illium" slipped from his lips. Gray sparks shot from the floor, flying into the air and over our heads.

The ground where his hands were stretched and bent, stone pried away from stone. A circle big enough for one of us to fit through formed on the ground. Inside the hole were three small stones, one deep scarlet, another bluer than the sky, and the last whiter than snow.

The cavaliers.

As soon as I realized what he'd shown me, the hole closed. A spark snapped against William's hands, popped against them so hard he drew them back.

When he moved again, they weren't wood. Pale tan skin took place of the stiff board. Blue tinged the end of his fingertips.

When I could find my voice again, it was less than a whisper. "What was that?"

"Wh--where they are," he coughed. A speckle of shining red spread across his lips. "Y--you need to know how to get them."

"But, you just did." I lowered my voice. "Why show me when you can..."

He can't.

How long ago was it he told me he couldn't use magic? The only reason he'd been able to was because of the spell he was under--the spell that turned him to wood.

The spell that was dying.

If the spell died, what would happen to him? He wouldn't be able to use magic anymore, which would leave getting the stones up to me. He wasn't even supposed to be using magic in the first place. It's what kept him alive.

William expected something to happen to him.

Realization hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn't long ago he told me he wasn't supposed to live as long as he had. The spell his mother cast only lasted until the muraes were gone.

She must've expected it to be easy.

William met my eyes. "I'm turning human again, Clair, and I don't know what will happen when I fully change. There's a chance--"

"No." My voice cracked. Tears popped up in my eyes. "You'll be fine."

"Clair, if a part of me changes back that relies on something that's still wood, I'm done for. Think about it. I don't breathe now, but what if my lungs change? My heart? My blood is already changing, that's easy to tell. Wood doesn't bleed."

I shook my head. Hair hit my eyes.

Why did it feel like I'd been punched?

"Please, Will, don't talk about it."

"No!"

I whipped my head around so I could see him. His eyes flared with determination.

"You know how to get the cavaliers now. If I'm not here, you will know when to use them." He placed a hand, a half-warm, half-wood hand, on my shoulder. "It is up to you if I'm gone. Promise you'll be patient and do it when the time is right."

I said nothing. My throat tightened so a trickle of air came down my windpipe.

William gripped my shoulder tighter. A flash of pain raced through my arm.

"Promise me, Clair."

A nod was all I could muster.

His hand fell from my shoulder and hit the floor with a deafening thud.

We sat in silence.

Too many thoughts raced through my mind for me to focus on just one. Too many emotions swarmed my stomach. Too much fear, worry, anxiety--anything--shot through my veins.

William was the one to break the silence. He shifted his weight like he was testing to see if he could stand, then just stayed as still as the dead.

A small, chocked laugh tire its way from his mouth. "You know, when I laughed at my father because of a rhyme, I didn't think it'd be true."

I pulled my knees to my chest. "What rhyme?"

Good to know speaking was possible again.

"It's a--ah--prophecy, is what my father believed." He shrugged. "I see it as a warning--was a warning, I mean."

He stared at the floor as if it held a mirror for his memories. "When snow falls, the kingdom dies. The Light will leave. Dark will rise. Only then will the leader rise, out from ashes and hidden from prying eyes."

"Sounds complicated."

Will just laughed. It was a nice sound to hear.

"It is meant to tell Dulcians when the next ruler of the kingdom will come. I didn't believe it until, well..."

He pointed up at the stone ceiling, but the gesture alone told me what he was saying.

The snow. When the snow fell, the snow that hadn't fallen in years, his family was killed.

"I think--" He leaned against the wall and stood slowly. "I think the next part--the one about the leader--is up to us. It has two meanings."

I nodded. "The muraes or us."

"Yeah. And that's if and only if King wants to rule. That's what I assume, but--" He shrugged. "We don't know."

"Raoul would probably be able to figure it out for us. He has always been good with puzzles."

Assuming he was still alive

William's face paled more than it already was. My heart launched to my throat.

"William?" I squeaked. "What's--"

"The Lumita are gone."

No.

The Lumita, the ones my brother stayed with, they couldn't be gone. If they died then Raoul would be--

would be--

dead.

He couldn't be. He didn't live through murae poison to be killed by them.

"Clair."

My friend's voice was muffled by the screams in my head.

Frigid air crept around my arms, my legs, my skin, turned it, hardened it.

"Clair!"

The screams stopped.

"Clair, he still may be alive. I don't--we don't know. There are plenty of ways he could have escaped."

True, but the chance was slim.

"Clair." William's voice was low, low enough to be mistaken as a breath of air. He pulled me close to him, so his arms wrapped around me.

Warmed me.

The cold in my chest melted away.

"We will stop them," he whispered. "I swear to you, no more of your loved ones will die. I promise."

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to take the promise and hold it forever.

Promises are made to be broken.

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