Silver mist swam before my eyes, forming vague, shifting shapes that teased the tip of my tongue. They dispersed before I could identify them, but I was surprisingly okay with the exercise in futility, content to watch and try again and again. There was little else to do here — if this could even be considered a place.

I was stranded on a shore of some kind, half submerged in a river cold as snow-melt. My legs bobbed as the current tugged and tested their weight.

Or was I dangling from the Ridgeview cliff, churned by bitter winds? It wasn't water pulling me down — not quite. It curled like smoke, wet and dry all at once, so cold that it burned as it lapped at my hips, slowly creeping towards my waist.

And yet I wasn't scared. Whatever it was, it felt oddly natural. It was something from which my life had sprung and would naturally return. I didn't know what lay below the surface or downstream, but I sensed that death would be an adventure. I looked forward to it with cold curiosity, wondering if I would retain any of my memories from my past life.

Stay with me.

The words were a jolt of warmth, breathing life into the ashes of my heart. The embers flared, only for their heat to be whisked away by the river once more.

Please. I just found you.

A quiet sobbing secured my listless attention, and I followed it to an emerging shape in the mist. The not-quite finished outline of a man, an impossibly familiar stranger. He leaned over my prone form like he knew me, smoky tears rippling through his cheeks before dissipating in an unearthly puff.

Please don't leave me behind.

His voice was more honest than his form. It betrayed a fear of separation that cut deeper than any blade ever had. It sang of chipped paint on a rustic gazebo, of brittle planks crunching under his shoulder as he tackled his father to the ground. It sang of the family that left him behind, and the sire-bond that caught him in a suffocating fist and squeezed, liquifying his insides, making them pour out of his mouth, his ears, his nose.

It was hard to watch, because there were so many ways it could have been avoided. His mother should have turned around; should have fought harder to end Marcus King's life and the hold he had over their son. Instead she got in her car and drove away, leaving Isaac alone in alpine dirt, quickened to mud by his own blood and vomit.

Isaac, I called out, following the humming threads of that song. Dark and melancholy, dissonant and wistful. Isaac was used to being abandoned. He was always hurt by the ones he loved the most, and I was proving to be no exception.

Piper? the shadowy wraith's eyes flew wide, smoke swirling in his pupils, but I couldn't summon the strength to say any more. The river tugged more insistently, now, already up to the first of my ribs. Come back. Now!

My surroundings took on substance. The roaring water faded into a cheering crowd, and I realised I was back on the ballroom floor.

It was a good place to die. I'd made one of the happiest memories of my life here.

Another figure loomed behind the shadow warrior. Her edges were harsher, her words hissing like a whetstone scraping steel into shape.

When Isaac snarled at her to get away, Corinne held firm. "I have to confirm the girl's death before we can officially call you champion," she lied through her teeth.

That had never been the case. The butterfly tattoos kept tabs on all of our vitals, and I suspected mine had plummeted the moment the moribund slipped beneath my skin.

No, my mother was here to verify my claim of a smuggler's highway, foolishly promised to Roland in vain. Clever, I thought, but it was an echo of a person I used to be, a reflexive assessment of someone I used to consider an enemy. I couldn't quite recall why I'd hated her so fiercely; such an emotion seemed impossible to me now, in this halfway state. I couldn't even feel frustration over the fact that she was finally close enough to kill, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Corinne Cross knelt by my body, pressing two fingers against my jugular. They stayed there for a long time, digging in hard enough to bruise — or so I assumed, for all I felt was vague pressure.

Then she placed a hand over my mouth and nose, her ear against my chest, listening for the rise and fall of my lungs, the quiet drum of my heart. It was the closest we'd come to embracing in years.

"You stupid girl," my mother breathed. Her cruel eyes went hazy; were they welling over? "You had them beat. Why did you let him win?"

I didn't know what to say, but it didn't matter. I couldn't answer. She was there, and I was... in between.

"You were the best of me," she said hollowly, climbing to her feet. Then her expression hardened, smoke solidifying into stone. "You made me look stupid."

"Get away from her." Isaac's hand clamped down on Corrine's shoulder, hauling her away from what I now realised was my corpse. I felt a glimmer of warmth again at his imperious tone, the one he learned from his father. "And call my lanista. We're leaving."

"You don't have one anymore," Corinne purred, catching her balance mid-stumble. "You won your freedom with my daughter's life. You are expected at the revels, and —"

"Fuck the revels," Isaac hissed, baring his fangs. "We're leaving now. If you try to stop us, they'll have to send someone down to declare you dead."

She stiffened at the blatant threat, anger steeling her spine.

"She surpassed you in every way, and I proved her equal," Isaac hissed. "You stand no chance against me."

Her glare might have been lethal if I wasn't already dead.

"WE HAVE A WINNER!" Corinne roared, beating her chest for the crowd. Once the answering screams were self-sustaining, she motioned the battle mages forward, with a curt: "This one's mine."

I realised they intended to collect my body. Other mages were already picking their way through the bloody mountain of fleshy scraps Isaac had left behind of his opponents. Some of the audience was shouting; no, bidding for souvenirs and trinkets, while an auctioneer stepped up to the plate and hawked impossible prices for that man's eyeball, or that woman's spleen. They're going to feast, I thought numbly. Our bodies won't even return to the sand. It would have made me sick, if I could feel anything but tired.

"Piper is mine," Isaac snarled, stepping between us.

The mages turned back to Corrine, clearly afraid of what the newly crowned victor was capable of. She shrugged in answer to their unspoken question and they fell back, to Isaac's palpable relief — double-edged with disappointment. He was raring for a fight. His grief was tempestuous.

"It's more than she deserves," my mother said cooly. "Go wait in the chariot outside. I'll send Jerome after you shortly."