Prologue

ISLA

Flames devour everything. They rise higher and higher, a monstrous inferno consuming not just our home but the very foundation of my life. The heat bites at my skin even from a distance, its wicked tendrils taunting me to flee, to give in, to abandon all hope. But I can't.

I stand frozen outside the house, my chest heaving with sobs that refuse to calm, no matter how many times Jasper, my loyal butler, tries to console me. "Miss Isla," he pleads, his hands firm on my shoulders, his voice trembling with desperation. But nothing he says registers.

All I can think about is Mathieu—my brother, my heartbeat, my everything—trapped in there. I clutch at the firefighters as they rush past, begging, screaming at them to bring him to me. "Please," I cry, my voice breaking into shards. "He's in there! He's in there!"

One of them pauses, his soot-covered face grim as he looks down at me. "We're doing everything we can," he says, but his words sound hollow.

It happened so quickly. Barely half an hour ago, Jasper burst into my room, his face pale with terror as he dragged me out, leaving everything behind—my books, my desk, my entire world still intact. I stumbled down the grand staircase, not understanding why the air felt so heavy, why the corridors were choked with the acrid scent of smoke.

But then, through the haze, I saw it. The fire, blazing with a cruel hunger, climbing the walls I grew up around, devouring the tapestries, the chandeliers, and the memories that had once made this house a home.

Outside now, safe but suffocating, I realized what Jasper did not. Mathieu wasn't there. He hadn't escaped.

I try to run back, my instinct stronger than my reason, but Jasper pulls me back, his arms an unyielding cage. "You can't, Miss Isla. It's not safe."

"I don't care!" I scream, fighting against him. My nails dig into his arms, my voice cracks with desperation, and yet he doesn't let go. My brother is in there. I know he is. He needs me.

A firefighter appears in front of me, his helmet dented, his uniform smeared with soot and sweat. For a moment, my heart leaps with hope. But when I see the look in his eyes, everything inside me crumbles.

"We couldn't find anyone," he says quietly.

My legs give way beneath me. "No," I whisper. "You don't understand. He's still in there. You have to—"

"We searched everywhere," he interrupts gently but firmly. "The fire... it's spread too fast. I'm sorry."

Sorry. A meaningless word. It cuts through me, a dagger laced with finality. My knees hit the ground, but I don't feel the pain. I clutch the grass, the dirt, anything to steady myself as reality closes in around me like the smoke filling that house.

"Mathieu!" I scream until my throat burns. Again. And again. My voice cracks, but I keep yelling. Maybe if he hears me, he'll find a way out. He always does. He promised me he'd always protect me. He promised.

Time becomes meaningless. Minutes stretch into hours, each one more excruciating than the last. The fire dwindles at last, the angry flames reduced to smoldering embers. All that remains of my home is a skeleton of ashes, blackened beams, and smoke spiraling into the night sky.

I sit motionless on the ground, staring at the ruins, my heart hollow and cold. My brother is gone. Gone. I can't accept it, won't let it settle in my chest. Mathieu can't be dead. He can't.

Tears have stopped flowing, dried by the heat of the fire and the suffocating weight of grief. The world feels eerily quiet, save for the distant murmurs of the firefighters and the crackle of dying embers.

My parents aren't here. They don't even know yet. How do I tell them that the fire took him? That it didn't spare him, didn't leave me one thing, one piece of my family to hold on to?

But even as my heart breaks, some small part of me refuses to believe it. Refuses to accept that Mathieu is gone. Somewhere in those ashes, in the wreckage, a whisper of hope lingers.

Because if I let myself believe otherwise, the fire won't just have taken my brother. It will have taken the rest of me too.