Chapter 45
Bottled Death
MAX
We follow the chilly breeze down the cramped passage and find a series of hallways that are easier to navigate. Countless intersections appear to lead to every other area of the palace, but the cold wind guides us into a vast rectangular chamber, and I skid to a halt.
The architecture of this cul-de-sac room mirrors that of the throne room in a way that makes my skin crawl.
White pillars support the ceiling, and marble floors stretch beneath our feet.
But there’s no gold, no warmth, no attempt at grandeur or even comfort, as though we’ve stepped into the throne room’s shadow.
An entire wall in the back is made of darkened glass, and my stomach drops.
The hidden chamber runs directly alongside the throne room, separated only by a pane of enchanted glass.
From this side, I can see everything. The throne.
The skylight. The mutilated wings. I can even catch a glance of the mezzanine overhead.
From the other side, however, all anyone would see is their own reflection. No one in the throne room would ever know they were being watched.
“I was right.” My voice comes out quieter than intended. “There was someone here, watching us.”
“Daddy dearest, I'd bet,” E snarls.
There’s a table against one wall with various instruments laid out upon it.
Chisels. Mallets. Fine engraving tools. The kind of instruments a sculptor might use.
Beside them sit long metal tweezers, diamond shears, and several blackened paddles scarred by heat.
A furnace squats in the corner of the room, its mouth dark and cold now, while a steel worktable stands nearby, smooth from years of shaping molten glass.
The workshop looks abandoned, but not ancient.
As though someone walked away in the middle of a project and never came back.
I hesitate, and my pulse stutters.
At the center of the secret room rests a massive glass enclosure, at least twelve feet long, eight feet tall, and four feet deep. Unlike the observation wall, this glass isn’t see-through.
E drifts closer to the structure, his expression darkening. “What do you think’s inside?”
We approach cautiously, but the enclosure is buried beneath a thick sheath of ice, the glass completely opaque.
“Let’s see what’s in there,” E says.
His handprint slowly appears in the frost, smack-dab in the middle of the wide pane, melting a hole in the ice.
“I can’t— Fuck,” he curses quietly. “I think there’s someone in there.”
My mouth parts. “Wait. Is it a woman?”
My mind crashes straight back into the dream, to the bruised Iris in the mirrors. “Because I had this dream that Iris was trapped behind glass—”
“There’s only one way to find out,” E cuts in. “Melt it.”
“What?”
“Melt the ice with your fire.”
I blow out a heavy breath and step forward, anxiety tightening a knot beneath my ribs. Then I press both palms to the frozen glass.
The cold bites so hard, my fingers turn blue on contact.
I didn’t even know something could be so cold.
Fire unfurls from my hands in violent ribbons that slither across the enclosure.
Narrow red-and-orange lines race outward in every direction, swirling and drawing beautiful patterns in the frost. Sheets of ice begin to slide downward in heavy slush, and I push my fire further until the leftover ice vaporizes out of existence.
Steam hisses around us as the surface clears inch by agonizing inch.
The enclosure is filled with freshly thawed dark blue water. Whatever’s inside had been encased in a solid block of ice within the tank.
“By the Dark One,” I gasp.
A silhouette emerges inside the tank.
“It’s a man,” E murmurs in shock.
The man suspended in the water looks as though he’s meant to drown there for all eternity. Fae runes are tattooed across his left pectoral and form a network of black ink arranged in the unmistakable shape of an eyeless skull.
He’s naked, his skin almost blue, and covered in bruises and scars.
Some are fresh. Dark purple marks stain his ribs and throat. One eye is swollen shut. Deep cuts split the skin of his shoulders and chest, as though whoever hurt him wanted him alive long enough to suffer.
Others are far older, and I circle the tank to take it all in.
A vicious gash runs down one side of his back. Pale scar tissue mars his shoulder blades, standing above—worst of all—the welts where his wings once were.
The wounds healed unevenly, leaving thick ridges where the muscle was carelessly cut.
I choke on a ragged breath. “Oh, no. Ezra, I think he's—”
“My brother.” His voice breaks. “Elio.”
Ezra blinks into view, his hand pressed flat against the newly cleared glass, and I hold my breath. The phenomenon is volatile at first, his golden silhouette flickering, but it finally stabilizes enough for him to appear. Not in the glass, not in a mirror, but right in front of me.
In the flesh.
I've seen Ezra before. I saw him at the bridal shop, and then again tonight in the mirrors. I saw him in fragments of memory. In dreams vivid enough to leave me aching when I woke.
I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong.
A dream isn't real.
A fantasy isn't dangerous.
A ghost can't break your heart.
For a moment, he can only stare at his own hand, then his knuckles curl over the glass.
The man standing before me is solid in a way his reflection never managed to capture. The dreams and the mirrors left out how impossible it would be to look away from him.
From his light.
He's tall, broad-shouldered, and impossibly striking in the cruel, unfair way Fae royals simply are. His platinum-blond hair falls across his brow in soft, unruly waves, framing a face that belongs in legends.
His jaw is strong, dusted with the faintest shadow. The severity of his features should make him intimidating, but his mouth softens the effect. His lips are full and infinitely more dangerous because I can picture exactly what they look like when he smiles.
Gods.
His chest is bare, exposing pale skin and hard muscles. My gaze drifts lower before I can stop it. Defined abs disappear beneath the waistband of his white cotton trousers.
Veins trace his knuckles, and tendons shift as his fingers flex. I remember those hands holding mine, touching my face. I know exactly how his mouth feels, how the lines of his stomach tighten under my touch.
But none of it compares to his eyes. They lock onto mine with such unbearable intensity that the rest of the room blurs.
His ice-blue gaze is something I could never see the bottom of. Beauty and light reveal only the first few feet of the turquoise ocean that are his irises before the rest disappears into a fathomless blue.
The scratches I carved into his shoulder with my nails add fresh streaks of color to his skin, and a few flecks of blood from his encounter with Iris still stain the bandages taped across his shoulder.
Standing here, close enough to see the pores of his skin and the uneven rise and fall of his chest, I can no longer hide behind excuses.
Ezra Lightbringer is real.
Painfully, terrifyingly real.
“We have to help him,” he croaks.
I raise a determined brow, teetering on the edge of insanity. “Instinct?”
“Instinct,” he confirms.
“Okay.” I search the room for something to break the tank, but he beats me to it.
He grabs a mallet from the table and slams it against the glass tank with all his might.
The glass cracks in a spiderweb pattern.
He hits it again.
And again.
And again.
Each impact sends new fractures racing through the enclosure, but it doesn’t give.
Tears streak down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, little fox.”
The words come out strangled.
“You were right. I never should have touched you,” he says, dropping the mallet down to the floor.
My stomach drops.
“Ezra—”
“I never should have kissed you.”
He buries one hand in his platinum-blond hair and pulls hard on the roots. “You should run far, far away from me.”
His chest rises sharply. For a moment, he looks like he can't get enough air. “I remember.”
The confession tears itself out of him, his eyes squeezing shut.
“I remember who I am.”
Water begins to seep through the fractured glass, and Ezra puts himself between me and the tank. The metal reinforcing its edges as the corners groan.
The walls shake.
The temperature plummets, water exploding from the enclosure, crashing across the floor in a freezing wave. Shards of glass rain around us. Frost races over the floor and climbs the walls.
For one impossible heartbeat, the drowned prince remains perfectly still. Before his eyes snap open.