“Then stop wasting it and put your heart back where it belongs.”
I knew he could do it. Last night, he’d explained how it worked. About the reanimation spell the Queen had him under. About the spell he needed to return his heart to where it belonged. But he’d also admitted that he wasn’t sure whether or not his mother would still be able to control him if he simply evanesced with his heart and hid it away.
He had said it didn’t matter.
I had not-so-quietly disagreed.
Cursing, he dragged me toward the light at the end of the hallway.
When we reached the Queen’s bedroom, he tore off his coat, grumbling and cursing about time and women. He ripped open his shirt, exposing the jagged scar to the candlelight.
The heart in my hand contracted wildly.
Closing his eyes, Rían took a deep breath, and the beating slowed.
He began to murmur, his words a hum too low to make out. He was chanting too slowly. He needed to hurry.
As if he’d heard my silent plea, he breathed on his fingertips until they glowed like a branding iron. An unearthly hiss erupted as he dragged them along the scar on his chest.
His face contorted. Sweat beaded on his brow. “I can’t . . .”
I had magic. Maybe. Possibly. “Can I help?”
He grasped my free hand. Warmth spread from his body to mine as I became a conduit for his magic. He gestured for the heart, and I let him have it, watching in rapt fascination as my fingertips began to glow too.
“Finish it,” he ground through his teeth. Blood dribbled from the wound he’d opened. I brought my index finger to the other side of the “X” and traced the scar, flaying the skin open. My stomach lurched. For all the times he’d saved me, I could do this.
“My heart,” he whispered, face ashen and eyes black.
I collected it from his limp hand.
“Against the cut.”
I pressed the contracting muscle against the open wound.
Rían rasped out two final words.
And flicked his wrist.
The heart disappeared. The wound closed.
Gasping like a drowning man, Rían’s hand flew over the scar.
I held my breath, tears collecting along my lashes. “Did it work?” I assumed it had because the heart had been there and now it wasn’t.
“I don’t know,” he rasped, lips as white as his open shirt.
What if it hadn’t worked and the heart had gone back to its cage? What if the Queen had found out and had stolen it at the last minute?
“I . . . Ithinkit did.”
I refused to let the relief welling in my core settle. Not yet. “How do you feel?”
“Like shite.”
Oh no. What if we’d screwed it up? What if he’d done the wrong spell or something had gone wrong or—
Rían brought two fingers to the pulse point at his throat. Blue eyes flew to mine.