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The truth of that word hung between us We stood there, in the darkness of the woods, and I felt the shard in my heart shift I knehat it would leave behind when the pain was gone: loneliness, nothingness, a deep fissure that would not lio," Mal said at last

"Where?"

"Back to the Little Palace I’ to just leave you in the woods"

We walked up the hill in silence and entered the palace through the Darkling’s chambers The common room was blessedly empty

At the door to my roo In the library In the chapel That tibird nearly crashed In ht you tried to kiss me"

He stared at me

"I don’t know if they’re visions or visitations I didn’t tell you because I think Imad And because I think you’re already a little afraid of me"

Mal opened his ht deny it Instead, he turned his back ononly to snatch a bottle of kvas froot ready for bed and eased between the sheets, but the night was too warazing up at the obsidian do on Mal’s door, tell his, that we should have marched into Os Alta that first day hand in hand But would it have mattered in the end?

There is no ordinary life for people like you and me

No ordinary life Just battle and fear andjolts that rocked us back on our heels I’d spent so irl that Mal could want Maybe that wasn’t possible anymore

There are no others like us, Alina And there never will be

When the tears cary I turned my face into my pillow so that no one would hearleft, I fell into a troubled sleep

"ALINA"

I woke to the soft brush of Mal’s lips on mine, the barest touch toflalinted off his brown hair as he bent to kiss the curve of my throat

For a moment, I hesitated, confused, not quite awake, then I wrapped my arms around hiht, that he’d kissed Zoya, that he’d walked away fro that ed his mind He’d come back, and I wasn’t alone

"I ainst his ear "I lided up his back and twined around his neck He kissed hed into the welcoht slide over me and ran my hands over the hard muscles of his arms If Mal was still with me, if he could still lovein hand the shift of our bodies together He was kissingmy skin I shivered and pressed closer to him

This hat I wanted, wasn’t it? To find some way to heal the breach between us? Still, a sliver of panic cut through ht I cupped his head with aze met his, I shrank back in terror

I looked into Mal’s eyes--his familiar blue eyes that I knew even better than ht, they gliray

He smiled then, a cold, clever smile like none I’d ever seen on his lips

"I lass

Mal’s features ain like a face from the mist Pale, beautiful, that thick shock of black hair, the perfect sweep of jaw

The Darkling rested one gentle hand on my cheek "Soon," he whispered

I screamed He broke into shadows and vanished

I scrawith terror and thethrough the door Already, I had a lie on htmare," I would say And the ould co ofin my throat

But the roo in the near dark