Page 60 of The Fallen Kingdom

Kiaran flinches and looks away. His features are strained, his jaw set. My movements are slow as I dip my head into the water and blot the blood. The same way I would when encountering a predator in the wild: No sudden movements. Back away an inch at a time.

Don’t look like prey.

“Being mortal now doesn’t make a difference?”

He shakes his head once. “My powers are bound, not nonexistent. Being temporarily mortal doesn’t make me human any more than having powers makes yousìthiche.”

Kiaran’s words are even, emotionless, and almost a touch harsh. As if he were blaming me for bleeding—but that’s not it. We’ve hunted together for so long that I can read his thoughts as clearly as if they were my own: Kiaran blames himself for being tempted.

Here. I would bite you right here. And that’s why I don’t trust myself with you.

After a long stretch of silence between us, I speak. “Are you all right now?” My voice is faint, hesitant. Careful. He knows what I’m asking.Are you Kiaran or are you Kadamach?

“Not yet. Talk. Distract me.”

I try to focus on our surroundings, staring up at the hole we fell through. It’s so high up it looks like a small, bright star amid the black. “Do you think they’re still up there?”

I hear Kiaran’s soft inhale as he looks up, too. “If they were, my sister is foolish enough to have dived down with us.”

“Do you think they’re all right?”

“I hope so.” When I don’t respond, he rasps, “Tell me what you see.”

My eyes adjust to the near-pitch-black cavern and I tell him. The only light comes from the hole so far overhead, such a small break in the thick rock surrounding us. I swim to a small alcove and ease around a boulder raised out of the underground loch. The crack in the wall on this side of the loch is dark; for all I know it leads deeper into an underground cave system. It looks dangerous, and too tight for Kiaran to fit through.

My hands trail along the slippery walls. No way to climb up, anyway. And despite the sections of smooth rock within the loch, there are no other tunnels—at least, none above water.

No way out.

Hesitantly, I look over at Kiaran. Should I tell him that? His eyes are closed, as if he were lulled by the sound of my voice. “Keep talking. Just for a few more minutes.”

“What should I say?”

“Anything.” His voice is raw. “Anything. Tell me another story.”

I force out a breath and say the first thing that comes to mind. “The faery king and the girl used to train in the earliest hours of the morning,” I say, keeping my tone soft, steady. “They sparred until the predawn light came up over the North Sea. On rare mornings when the sky was clear of rain clouds, the girl would look over at the king just as the first rays shone through the buildings and bathed the city in a beautiful, golden glow.

“Because, you see, that was when the king tipped his head back and closed his eyes and the girl allowed herself, for those brief moments, to think about things she could never admit to him aloud. Like how with each passing day, she hated him less and less. Until the morning came when she watched him greet the sun and knew she didn’t hate him at all, not anymore. She understood then that one day, she would be there when the sun rose over the sea, and she’d look at him, and realize she loved him.”

I almost say it. The words are on my lips and the darkness seems to hold its breath, waiting, waiting for me to say them.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

Then I hear something. A breath next to my ear, almost inaudible. I jerk my head to the side and Kiaran looks over, about to speak.

I press a finger to my mouth, listening hard. “Shh.”

A whisper, faint—as if it were coming from far away. I whirl sharply, but there’s nothing there.Did I imagine it? Am I going mad?

No, there it is again. A voice so low that I can’t make out the words, spoken in an unfamiliar tongue.

I turn again, my hand reaching out, but there’s nothing but air. “MacKay,” I say warningly. “Did you—”

Kiaran is at my side in an instant, his shoulder against mine. He swears, low and foul. “I don’t know.”

There’s another murmur to my left, quiet and dark, and I press closer to Kiaran. “I definitely heard that,” he says.

We both listen again, but the cave is silent. Too silent. There is no softtap tap tapof dripping water or anything to indicate we’re in a cave at all. It’s as if we’ve been dashed into space, drifting in a desolate lake with no light or sound—nothing but our breathing.

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