Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
The storm fades, but it leaves behind ruin—emotional if not physical.
I stepped out of the courtyard, away from the stone halls that echo with power and betrayal. Now, the castle looms behind me, its dark towers jagged against a sky washed clean by rain and studded with cold, indifferent stars.
God, if I could leave this kingdom entirely, I would. I’d carve a door into the sky and walk through it without looking back.
The path softens as I descend, the harsh cliffs giving way to gentler curves where waves kiss the shoreline with quiet insistence. The air is different here—salt-tinged, threaded with the scent of wet pine and earth.
My body moves without thought, as if it knows where to go even when my mind doesn’t. And when I look up to see the small dock nestled at the edge of the moat, something in me splinters.
There, tethered to the worn wood, is the sailboat.
It rocks gently in the water like it’s been waiting for me. Like it remembers.
The sight of it punches through me—grief and memory crashing together in my chest. The wind in my hair. His laughter. Strawberries and honey. The moment I let myself believe I was seen. That my heart was safe.
I hesitate at the edge of the dock, breath clouding in the cool night air. I take a tentative step as if I can walk backward through time, and the wood creaks softly beneath my feet.
“You shouldn’t be out in weather like this.”
I turn, breath trapped in my throat.
Alder leans against the sailboat. He’s perfectly dry.
A soft white tunic clings to his chest, tucked into black breeches that look entirely untouched by the storm.
Moonlight brushes the edges of his golden hair, and in his hand, a knife gleams as he slices a pear, slowly, methodically, eating piece by piece with devastating calm.
He’s too perfect to be real, and he can’t be.
Because I left Alder at the chapel.
For a moment, I wonder if I did step back in time. Back to earlier today, before we left for our picnic. Because this doesn’t make sense.
Then again, nothing has for days. Not waking up on the dock. Not being in this world. Not the machine. Not the Tower.
So maybe this is just one more impossible thing in a long line of impossible things.
The silver water ripples behind him, the gentle lap of waves against the hull the only sound in the thick silence stretching between us.
I can’t move. Can’t speak. My mind lurches, scrambling to reconcile the impossible.
“You—” My voice fractures, thin and trembling, barely able to carry the weight of the question forming behind it.
His lips curve into a tired half smile. “Me.”
I shuffle backward, my body acting on instinct, every nerve screaming at me to run. But I don’t. I can’t. Not yet.
First, I need answers.
My breath comes faster, uneven. “No.” I shake my head. “No, you’re not—you can’t be— You’re in the chapel with the queen, and the nobles, and the…the…” My voice pitches higher, the words tumbling too quick, desperate. “You can’t be here. It’s not possible.”
But he doesn’t deny it. He doesn’t move. Just watches me, his face cast in shadows beneath the moon’s watery glow.
I retreat another step.
“How are you down here?” My voice quivers, barely audible over the rush of the waves. “How did you—”
The answer crashes through my skull before I can even finish.
This isn’t Alder.
Not the Alder I know.
Not the Alder I left back at the chapel.
The man before me exhales slowly, like he’s giving me a moment.
And then, finally—softly—he says the words that steal every trace of warmth from my body.
“I’m not him. I’m not Alder.”
A gasp scrapes the back of my throat. The air around me stills.
“No,” I whisper, the denial automatic. I shake my head as if I can physically push the idea away. “No, that doesn’t make sense. That’s not— It’s not possible.”
He doesn’t argue. He just holds my gaze like he’s waiting for me to catch up.
I try to force the pieces apart, but they continue to slide together, clicking into place with horrifying clarity.
The way he was on the island—warm, kind, soft in a way Alder never has been. The way he steadied me on the boat, laughed with me, made the world feel soft and manageable for the first time in what felt like forever.
And then the Alder I’ve always known—calculating, cold, manipulative. The man who crushed my trust, who ruined my life like it was nothing.
Not two sides of the same coin.
Two different coins altogether.
My chest tightens. The world tilts. I grip the dock’s wooden railing as the truth crashes over me.
This kingdom has been full of faces I recognize but don’t truly know. Mackenzie’s face worn by a queen who’s nothing like her. Sylvie, her red hair and freckles identical to Elsie’s. This world is a mirror, a parallel universe full of people I’ve seen before, echoes of lives from my world.
And now, standing in front of me, is the cruelest reflection of all.
I shake my head again, harder this time. My breath whooshes from my lungs like I’ve been hit, and my fingers ache from gripping the railing so tightly.
“Gemma…” he says softly.
“How?” I manage to say, my voice a dry rasp in my throat. “How is this possible? How did I not see it? How do you know my name?”
He sets down the knife and the half-eaten pear and steps off the boat onto the dock.
I want to run. I want to scream. But my mind won’t send the commands to my limbs. It’s spinning too fast, unraveling everything I thought I knew.
“I’ve been watching you,” he says gently. “Since the forest. Since the first morning you arrived and you went in my carriage, with my guards, with a man who looked exactly like me. I thought…I thought it would be easier to—”
“Easier?” I snap, voice trembling with fury and something rawer, something closer to grief. “It doesn’t seem to matter how many versions of you there are. You’re all liars.”
Tears sting the corners of my eyes, but I blink them away. I won’t cry. Not for any version of him.
His gaze doesn’t falter, but it shifts—turns sorrowful, maybe. Or is maybe tinged with shame. I don’t care.
The truth is here now, staring back at me. Two men. Two versions. Two pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know I was trying to solve.
“You’re the Lord Lockhart everyone keeps talking about. The Lord Lockhart everyone assumes Alder is.”
He nods. “I am.”
“Of course you are,” I whisper.
“Lord Alderic Lockhart.” His name is a falling star, burning through the dark. “Former ruler of the Kingdom of Pentacles. Invited to Cups to discuss trade alliances and…” He shakes his head, his gaze dropping to his feet. “None of that matters anymore.”
“You’re the one I saw in the forest. You were naked and—” I gasp. “The henhouse. And this boat. The island. The machine after that woman—after she—”
“You were hurt,” he says quickly, stepping forward. “I couldn’t leave you—”
“So you whisked me away?” I spit. “Kissed me? Tucked me into bed after I passed out like some twisted fairy tale?”
“No, I found—”
“Shut up.” I drag my hands through my wet hair, every inch of my skin buzzing with betrayal. “I knew it. I knew it in the forest after I first woke up here. You were different. Warmer. Softer. Too good to be true.”
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, but it does nothing to quiet the tempest inside me.
“I ignored it. I told myself I was being paranoid. That it was just trauma, stress, displacement—whatever the fuck people like to call it when a woman’s gut screams and she chooses not to listen.”
My breath hitches. “So I did what I always do. I stuffed it down. I followed Alder. I tried to be reasonable.”
I look up at him. Moonlight spills over his body, tracing every edge in soft silver. He looks like a fallen angel. And it makes me want to scream.
“All those moments I thought we were building something…” My voice fractures, fragile and splintering. “Do you have any idea how much that hurts? Did you even think about me at all?”
His head snaps up at that, his blue eyes locking onto mine.
“Gemma,” he says, and my name on his lips is so full of emotion it makes my chest ache.
“You’ve been the only thing I’ve thought about since the moment you came upon me in the woods.
” His voice deepens, and he takes a step closer, the dock shifting beneath his weight.
“Everything I’ve done in this kingdom—everything—has been because of you. ”
I clench my jaw, anger rising like a shield. “Don’t. Don’t try to make this about me.”
“But it is. It’s always been about you.” His voice is raw, earnest, desperate. “I should be in the castle. In meetings. Fulfilling the duties I was summoned to perform. But I’m not. I’m here. Living on this boat. Waiting for a moment like this. For a moment with you.”
My lungs squeeze, and tears press hot against my eyes. “You lied to me.”
“I know,” he says, not flinching. “And I won’t stop you from being angry. I deserve that. But I won’t lie to you again.”
He presses a hand to his chest, like he’s trying to hold himself together.
“I’ve been adrift for so long, Gemma. My whole life I’ve been a tool for other people’s gain.
A pawn, a purse, a weapon. But the moment I saw you—” Alderic’s voice breaks slightly, and that rough edge slices through me.
“Something in me shifted. I wasn’t just surviving or serving or existing.
I wanted something for myself. I felt something real.
For the first time in my life, I was just… me.”
The words linger between us, warm and devastating.
He’s standing there, baring his soul, and I can feel the pull between us, as undeniable and scorching as fire itself.
It’s a thread of heat that winds through the air, connecting us in a way that feels ancient, fated, like our souls were forged from the same flame and are only complete when they’re together.
The way he looks at me, like I’m something sacred, like I’m the answer to every question he’s ever asked—the weight of it nearly brings me to my knees.
But fire isn’t just warmth and light. It consumes. It devours.
I take another step back, the distance between us both a relief and an ache. No matter how far I move, the pull doesn’t lessen. It’s still there, burning between us, tethering me to him with an intensity that feels like it will either save me or destroy me.
But the pain of betrayal pulses just as fiercely. It’s a wound too fresh, too deep, to ignore. His words may ignite something inside me, but they can’t erase the truth of what he’s done.
Alderic reaches into his pocket and pulls something out.
The tarot card.
The one from the cake pull. The one I lost in the woods on the day he and I met.
My heart trips.
He holds it up between us, the intricate artwork catching the moonlight. The Lovers. Their entwined bodies shimmer faintly, magick still clinging to the edges like dew. Their connection is obvious, undeniable, fated.
“This is us,” he says softly, his voice gentle now, careful. “This card brought you here. It wasn’t chance, Gemma. It was meant to find you. To find us.”
I shake my head, breath catching. “No. Don’t do that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“No,” I whisper. “It’s just a card.”
“It’s everything,” he says, stepping forward. “You know it. You’ve felt it. You believe in magick now—how could you not? You’ve seen it. And you know this wasn’t random. You dropping it where we met, that wasn’t coincidence. That was the Tower drawing us together.”
I cross my arms over my damp dress. “You’re twisting this. You’re trying to make it into some grand love story, but it’s not.”
His jaw tightens. “It is a love story. You just don’t want to admit it.”
“No,” I snap. “It’s betrayal. It’s manipulation. It’s lies stacked on lies stacked on even more lies. You and Alder—you both made me feel something real only to rip it out from under me.”
He flinches, but I don’t stop.
“You don’t get to stand here and rewrite everything as some fated-mates romance just because it makes you feel better.”
“I’m not rewriting it,” he says, voice rising.
“I’m telling you what is. This card—The Lovers—is not only about love.
It’s about duality. Choice. A union that alters the path of everything around it.
That’s what this is, Gemma. Us. I’ve seen this before.
Back in Pentacles with The Empress and The Hermit.
Only after they succeeded in healing the kingdom did the Tower release them.
They told me more would come to heal the realm.
I didn’t think it would be us. You. Me. This card found you because you’re the key. ”
His voice grows more urgent, more insistent, tumbling over itself with conviction.
“The Tower. The island. The machine we found. The gears turning, everything starting up again, it all began when you and I arrived. Delphara thinks it’s Alder, that it’s some prophecy fulfilled, a sign from the gods. But she is wrong. It’s not him. It’s you. It’s us.”
My thoughts churn, trying to make sense of it. The magick. The machine. The way the Tower revealed itself to us. How it all came alive around us.
And still, I shake my head. Because none of it excuses the lies.
“The Kingdom of Cups is dying, Gemma. Towerfall itself is dying, and if we don’t—”
“Stop.”
He blinks, startled, his urgency faltering, caught off guard by the edge in my voice.
“If what you’re saying is true…” He opens his mouth to respond, but I don’t let him. “And I’m not saying it’s not. But I wasn’t brought here to fall in love.” The words scrape out past the lump in my throat.
He stills.
A gust of wind rolls off the water, sharp with salt and the ghost of rain. And in the space between us, the card flutters in his hand like a dying flame.
“Gemma—” My name is a prayer, a plea, a broken thing falling from his lips.
And I’m breaking too.
Because yes—I believe in magick. I believe that card brought me here. I believe there’s something bigger happening, something ancient and wild that’s been weaving itself into my life without permission.
But this is not our love story.
“There’s a lot here that needs to be fixed,” I say, my voice steadier now, stronger for the pain beneath it. “And I will do what I have to do to get back home. To make it right. But whatever this is”—I motion between us, a trembling hand slicing the air—“it’s not the answer.”
I turn and walk away.
The dock creaks beneath my steps. The breeze bites at my skin. The tears come hot and unrelenting, blurring the world as they streak down my cheeks.
I don’t wipe them away, and I don’t look back.