teeth, the bruis­es. It seems like such a strange acci­dent, doesn’t it?”
I can hard­ly breathe. This is it—the con­fronta­tion I’ve been dread­ing. Do they sus­pect?
“Very strange,” I reply, my voice bare­ly a whis­per.
Eve­lyn con­tin­ues to look at me, her gaze unyield­ing. But then, sur­pris­ing­ly, her expres­sion soft­ens a frac­tion. “But Andy was always one for… unusu­al sit­u­a­tions,” she says, a hint of sad­ness in her voice. “And acci­dents do hap­pen.”
I’m silent, not sure what to make of her words. Is this her way of say­ing she knows what hap­pened but doesn’t blame me? Or is she sim­ply play­ing a part, just like I am?
Eve­lyn final­ly turns her atten­tion away from me and back to her son. “I just wish things could have been dif­fer­ent for all of us,” she says, her voice laced with a touch of regret.
In that moment, I feel a strange con­nec­tion with her—an under­stand­ing that tran­scends our pre­vi­ous ani­mos­i­ty. Despite every­thing, she too has lost some­one.
“Yes,” I agree, my voice soft. “Me too.”
As Eve­lyn stands there, gaz­ing at Andy, I real­ize that the com­plex­i­ties of our entan­gled lives are not so eas­i­ly unrav­eled. The pain, the secrets, and the silent bat­tles we’ve fought are wrapped up in the fab­ric of this solemn gath­er­ing.
I watch as Eve­lyn takes one last look at her son, then nods slight­ly to me before she walks away. In her depar­ture, I feel a weight lift slight­ly. Per­haps this is the begin­ning of clo­sure, not just for me but for every­one Andy’s life touched.
In the heavy silence that fol­lows, I reflect on my jour­ney to this point—the fear, the resilience, and ulti­mate­ly, the lib­er­a­tion from a life of tor­ment. Andy’s death has set me free in more ways than one, but the path ahead is still uncer­tain.
I glance over at Cecelia, my bea­con of hope, and real­ize that despite the ghosts of the past, the future holds promise. As the chap­ter of Andy’s tyran­ny con­cludes, a new one begins, ripe with pos­si­bil­i­ties and the chance to rebuild from the ash­es of a life once con­sumed by dark­ness.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
61
I’d nev­er worn so much steel. Blades had been strapped all over me, hid­den
in my boots, my inside pock­ets. And then there was the Illyr­i­an blade down
my back.
Just a few hours ago, I’d known such over­whelm­ing hap­pi­ness after such
hor­ror and sor­row. Just a few hours ago, I’d been in his arms while he made
love to me.
And now Rhysand, my mate and High Lord and part­ner, stood beside me
in the foy­er, Mor and Azriel and Cass­ian armed and ready in their scale-like
armor, all of us too qui­et.
Amren said, “The King of Hybern is old, Rhys—very old. Do not linger.”
A voice near my chest whis­pered, Hel­lo love­ly, wicked liar.
The two halves of the Book of Breath­ings, each part tucked into a
dif­fer­ent pock­et. In one of them, the spell I was to say had been writ­ten out
clear­ly. I hadn’t dared speak it, though I had read it a dozen times.
“We’ll be in and out before you miss us,” Rhysand said. “Guard Velaris
well.”
Amren stud­ied my gloved hands and weapons. “That Caul­dron,” she
said, “makes the Book seem harm­less. If the spell fails, or if you can­not
move it, then leave.” I nod­ded. She sur­veyed us all again. “Fly well.” I
sup­posed that was as much con­cern as she’d show.
We turned to Mor—whose arms were out, wait­ing for me. Cass­ian and
Rhys would win­now with Azriel, my mate dropped off a few miles from the
coast before the Illyr­i­ans found Mor and me sec­onds lat­er.
I moved toward her, but Rhys stepped in front of me, his face tense. I
rose up on my toes and kissed him. “I’ll be fine—we’ll all be fine.” His
eyes held mine through the kiss, and when I broke away, his gaze went right
to Cass­ian.
Cas­sain bowed. “With my life, High Lord. I’ll pro­tect her with my life.”
Rhys looked to Azriel. He nod­ded, bow­ing, and said, “With both of our
lives.”
It was sat­is­fac­to­ry enough to my mate—who at last looked at Mor.
She nod­ded once, but said, “I know my orders.”
I won­dered what those might be—why I hadn’t been told—but she
gripped my hand.
Before I could say good-bye to Amren, we were gone.
Gone—and plung­ing through open air, toward a night-dark sea—
A warm body slammed into mine, catch­ing me before I could pan­ic and
per­haps win­now myself some­where. “Easy,” Cass­ian said, bank­ing right. I
looked below to see Mor still plum­met­ing, then win­now again into noth­ing.
No sign or glim­mer of Rhys’s pres­ence near or behind us. A few yards
ahead, Azriel was a swift shad­ow over the black water. Toward the
land­mass we were now approach­ing.
Hybern.
No lights burned on it. But it felt … old. As if it were a spi­der that had
been wait­ing in its web for a long, long time.
“I’ve been here twice,” Cass­ian mur­mured. “Both times, I was count­ing
down the min­utes until I could leave.”
I could see why. A wall of bone-white cliffs arose, their tops flat and
grassy, lead­ing away to a ter­rain of slop­ing, bar­ren hills. And an
over­whelm­ing sense of noth­ing­ness.
Ama­ran­tha had slaugh­tered all her slaves rather than free them. She had
been a com­man­der here—one of many. If that force that had attacked
Velaris was a van­guard … I swal­lowed, flex­ing my hands beneath my
gloves.
“That’s his cas­tle ahead,” Cass­ian said through clenched teeth, swerv­ing.
Around a bend in the coast, built into the cliffs and perched above the
sea, was a lean, crum­bling cas­tle of white stone.
Not impe­ri­ous mar­ble, not ele­gant lime­stone, but … off-white. Bone-
col­ored. Per­haps a dozen spires clawed at the night sky. A few lights
flick­ered in the win­dows and bal­conies. No one outside—no patrol. “Where
is every­one?”
“Guard shift.” They’d planned this around it. “There’s a small sea door at
the bot­tom. Mor will be wait­ing for us there—it’s the clos­est entrance to the
low­er lev­els.”
“I’m assum­ing she can’t win­now us in.”
“Too many wards to risk the time it’d cost for her to break through them.
Rhys might be able to. But we’ll meet him at the door on the way out.”
My mouth went a bit dry. Over my heart, the Book said, Home—take me
home.
And indeed I could feel it. With every foot we flew in, faster and faster,
dip­ping down so the spray from the ocean chilled me to my bones, I could
feel it.
Ancient—cruel. With­out alle­giance to any­one but itself.
The Caul­dron. They needn’t have both­ered learn­ing where it was held
inside this cas­tle. I had no doubt I’d be drawn right to it. I shud­dered.
“Easy,” Cass­ian said again. We swept in toward the base of the cliffs to
the sea door before a plat­form. Mor was wait­ing, sword out, the door open.
Cass­ian loosed a breath, but Azriel reached her first, land­ing swift­ly and
silent­ly, and imme­di­ate­ly prowled into the cas­tle to scout the hall ahead.
Mor wait­ed for us—her eyes on Cass­ian as we land­ed. They didn’t speak,
but their glance was too long to be any­thing but casu­al. I won­dered what
their train­ing, their honed sens­es, detect­ed.
The pas­sage ahead was dark, silent. Azriel appeared a heart­beat lat­er.
“Guards are down.” There was blood on his knife—an ash knife. Az’s cold
eyes met mine. “Hur­ry.”
I didn’t need to focus to track the Caul­dron to its hid­ing place. It tugged on
my every breath, haul­ing me to its dark embrace.
Any time we reached a cross­roads, Cass­ian and Azriel would branch out,
usu­al­ly return­ing with blood­ied blades, faces grim, silent­ly warn­ing me to
hur­ry.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

C ELIA, LIKE HARR Y, WAS BURIED in For­est Lawn in Los Ange­les.
Robert and I held her funer­al on a Thurs­day morn­ing. It was kept
pri­vate. But peo­ple knew we were there. They knew she was being laid
to rest.
When she was low­ered to the ground, I stared at the hole in the
earth. I stared at the glossy sheen of the wood of her cas­ket. I could
not keep it in. I could not keep my true self from com­ing out.
“I need a minute,” I said to Robert and Con­nor and then I turned
away.
I walked. Far­ther and far­ther up the wind­ing hill­side roads of the
ceme­tery, until I found what I was look­ing for.
Har­ry Cameron.
I sat down at his tomb­stone, and I cried out every­thing with­in me. I
cried until I felt deplet­ed. I did not say a sin­gle thing. I did not feel any
need. I had talked to Har­ry in my head and my heart for so long, for so
many years, that it felt as if we tran­scend­ed words.
He had been the one to help me, to sup­port me, through every­thing
in my life. And now I need­ed him more than ever. So I went to him the
only way I knew how. I let him heal me as only he could. And then I
stood up, dust­ed off my skirt, and turned around.
There, in the trees, were two paparazzi tak­ing my pho­to. I was
nei­ther angry nor flat­tered. I sim­ply didn’t care. It cost so much,
car­ing. I didn’t have any cur­ren­cy to spend on it.
Instead, I walked away.
Two weeks lat­er, after Robert and I had gone home to Aldiz, Con­nor
sent me a mag­a­zine with the image of me at Harry’s grave on the
cov­er. She had attached a note to the front. It said, sim­ply, “I love you.”