Page 161 of Their Wicked Cage

“From the moment you woke in the afterlife, I knew you were something special. You sat with me. You spoke to me like a friend, not a thief. You… reminded me of myself. Your defiance and compassion. Your loneliness. You were what I would have been, should I have been given a second chance. So, I gave you what I have never had… another breath.” She draws closer to me, tucks a blood-crusted lock of hair behind my ear. “I watched over you so you wouldn’t ever know loneliness and granted you more power than any other witch walking this world, so you’d never feel weak again.” She lightly clasps my chin between two fingers. “Believe me when I say I didn’t bless you because I pitied you, eternal one. I blessed you because I admired your resilience.” She holds my gaze. “It’s that resilience that you should call on now. As my parting gift to you, I will give you until nightfall to wake him.”

Color bursts all around us, and Death is gone.

So is Aislinn.

Everyone draws close.

“How am I supposed to bring him back without my floramancy?” I ask quietly.

No one speaks.

Rory places a hand on my trembling shoulder, and hope… Hope threatens to cleave me apart.

“Rory, have you⁠—”

“No. I can’t see the way forward.” She bows her head. “I’m so sorry. I’ve tried.”

Quill kisses her temple. She peers up at him, nodding as a silent exchange passes between them.

I rip a fistful of grass from the ground and let the blades slip through my fingers.

“What did Death mean when she said you welcomed the Viretree’s magic into you?” Arkyn asks.

“Aislinn came to me,” I tell him. “In the cell where my coven matron and Devlin were holding me and Lyrielle captive. She offered to bless me if I tethered myself to the Viretree and welcomed its magic as my own.”

“Well, can you use that magic to bring Riven back?” asks Lettie. “When we die, we return to the lands.”

“And if I can control the magic of the lands…” I trail off as a breeze whips around me, summoning a barely-there tapping on my shoulder.

Another sign from Aislinn.

“Everyone get out of the circle.”

I wait until they’ve obeyed, and then I climb on top of Riven, using his supreme’s dagger to slice open his tunic. His skin is bare beneath my hand as I press my palm flat against his sternum, over our bargain’s mark of the tree adorned in nightshade. Magic heats beneath my fingertips as I call it forth and let it pool in my hands.

If the fae return to the lands when they die, then Riven can return from the lands.

“He’s not yours,” I murmur, vibrating with anticipation. “Not yet.”

Magic floods through me and into him as I begin to chant. “A fragile line I dare tread to raise Riven Thaelon from the dead. By root and bloom, by love once sown. My king, my mate, my love, my own, I call you home.”

Heat builds, and the space between my hand and his skin turns incandescent as I take magic from the land and pour it into him. His veins glow with power. A faint thump pounds against my palm.

I tell myself it’s a trick of the mind and keep pouring into him. The roots of his bargain’s mark writhe beneath my touch.

It happens again.

Thump, thump.

And again.

Thump, thump.

I don’t stop.

I take and take and take, pour and pour and pour.

“Come home, Riven,” I plead. “Come home.”