Something had changed between us last night, vastly for the better. I could tell in all of the actions he’d taken with me this morning, how he felt free to touch me now, but was gentle when he did so. How he teased me, while still giving me a smile. 

Finx could create webbing from himself to use to bind things together, and while what Rhaim and I had was not so literal, we had somehow done the same. There was a thread racing from my heart to Rhaim’s, growing tighter by the moment, and I knew that it was love. 

Then my father came to kill him. 

I felt the portals opening around us, only I didn’t know what it meant, as Rhaim swept me off of the unicorn and tried to hide me behind himself, and as they were talking, I realized the truth, though I made Rhaim repeat it in my horror: my father had known where I was all along. 

And now? 

Everything was through. 

We were completely outnumbered, and there was only one way for me to save Rhaim’s life from my father and his guards. 

“Don’t hurt him!” I shouted, stepping away from his protection. “I’ll come out!”

“Moth,” he growled and reached for me, but I yanked away before he could catch hold. 

I had to deny everything between us. 

Vehemently enough that everyone would believe it. 

Even him. 

“How dare you?!” I shouted at him, backing up, as tears started streaming down my face, feeling the thread between our hearts grow taut. “Everything was a lie, and I was your joke! And to think I almost let you ruin me!” 

I watched my words hit Rhaim like so many blows. “Do not say those things, Lisane,” he pleaded. 

“Or what?” I asked him, begging him to understand, to know that I would choose a life without windows for a thousand years, as long as I knew he was safe. “Or you’ll torture me more?”

“Stay by my side and we can fight or flee, but do not abandon me like this,” he growled, obliviously. 

I ran for Jelena and she caught me with open arms. “I could never love you!” I shouted back at him, knowing I was lying. “I could never want to be with you!”

And then I plucked my father’s ring I’d found among his treasures from a pocket and threw it at him.