My fingers tremble as they land on his cheek. His head turns, just a little, pressing into my hand.
My own heartbeat grows louder. My palm begins to glow with familiar light against his cheek, illuminating it. The glow spreads from my hand, lighting up his skin like the maegis he casts so easily for the people around him.
Callan’s breathing shifts, changes, from rasping, tortured battles to steadier, quiet inhales. And then it stops.
Between one breath to the next, he stops breathing.
Not him. You cannot have him.
“What—”
“Do not interfere.” Merrick’s voice rings out. “Give her space.”
The sound of my heart grows stronger. Faster, like the wings of a hummingbird in flight. But Callan’s heart grows weaker, the space between beats lengthening until I can no longer hear them at all. Until the only sound is my own heart, twice as strong as it was before.
As though it no longer belongs solely to me.
The light emanating from my palms flares brightly, illuminating us both and making me close my eyes from the force, before it fades.
When my vision clears, when I blink the floating lights away, Callan’s skin is no longer the ashen gray of someone close to death—but burnished, warm gold.
Volatuscreaks. Dips, the sound of crates crashing echoing around us. Shouts ring out, but my arms only tighten.
“Callan.” His name belongs on my lips. “Callan!”
He chokes on air, the veins that trace down his neck vivid as his back bows in my arms. I keep hold of him, relief and shock warring in my throat as his eyes fly open.
No blood-soaked irises are in his wild stare. Only deep, swirling, glowing bronze, and the ship steadies as we stare at each other. Bronze, and something else.
A jagged streak of black runs through each iris, illuminated with…stars.
“Holy gods,” Sol whispers beside me. “What did you do?”
Chapter twenty-eight
Selene
Callan fights for breath. His hand grabs for mine as Rio whoops and Esme throws her arms around me in an indecipherable jumble of thanks and shock.
I did…something.
It doesn’t matter right now—because Callan isbreathingand staring at me, even as Rio almost tackles him with a yell of relief, before being wrestled off by a livid Sol and a grinning Esme.
But it’s another piece to a puzzle that seems to have no end.
I don’t know what to do with the look on Callan’s face. I avoid it by seeking out someone else instead, my eyes lifting, sweeping across the night sky that surrounds us and landing elsewhere.
Merrick stands back from the rest. A smile plays about his lips.
But he doesn’t look concerned. Or shocked, or scared, or off-balance. Or even relieved.
His gaze feels as though he’s not seeing me at all. The smile grows as he lifts his fingers, touching his thumb and finger to his forehead.
“Help me up.” The gravelly demand comes from below me. “Rio, get your damned elbow out of my ribs. Give us a minute, all of you.”
Callan’s hand appears in front of me a few seconds later. Unflinching, covered in dried blood. He closes his fingers around mine, steady and strong once more. “You’re shaking.”
He pulls me up, not letting go of my hand. His grip tightens instead as he quietens his voice to a rough murmur. “Will you not look at me?”
