A pit forms in my stomach, but I refuse to let doubt creep in. The Matron begins to murmur the incantation in Ancient Fae. I join in, just like we practiced, praying I don’t mess up a single syllable. I can feel the room growing farther away. My vision zooms out, like a camera switching to a wide shot. Everything grows smaller, more distant, as I’m sucked backward—the color fading from the edges of my periphery.
“Now,” the Matron says.
I plunge into darkness.
It is complete sensory deprivation. I know that I’ve left behind my body and entered into a place outside of time and space. There is nothing here but endless blackness.
Zadyn? Are you there?
He doesn’t answer, but I feel him in the emptiness around me, in the absence of air. He’s here somewhere.
Zadyn?
Nothing. I wander further in, my senses offering no help. Then I see it, like a tiny shivering candle in a sea of darkness. It’s him, even though it’s not.
Zadyn, it’s me. Serena. You have to come back.
I can’t see his form. But I feel him here stronger than ever. His soul is unmistakable.
Please, Zadyn. You’ve been with me my entire life. Even when I felt alone,when I couldn’t see you, you were there. So I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving here without you.
This was not enough time. Not even close.
Unending silence answers me.
I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry for every time I took you for granted. Every fight we ever had. Every time I was so damn blind to what’s always been right there.
I can’t be without you. I just can’t. So you need to come back.
I wait, counting seconds that don’t exist here.
Come on, Zadyn,I plead, I beg, I bargain.Come back to me. Come back to me. Please come back to me.
He’s there on the other side of my call, reluctant to answer, but I don’t falter. I hold onto him for dear life—his essence, his heart, his soul. I cling to him, pulling him back from the divide that bars him from my sight.
Come back.
I strain against the bounds of my own mind. Tugging at him is like tugging at myself. Plucking one of my own heartstrings that belongs to him, hasalwaysbelonged to him. It sings a song of woe, of howling pain, and the echoes of sadness.
I pluck again. And then I pluck harder.
Come. Back.
And he does.
My eyes fly open the moment his do. His chest rises beneath my outstretched palm as we both gasp for air.
“Did it work?” I breathe.
His wild eyes find mine, bewildered and confused. He stares at me as if I’m a stranger he’s seeing for the first time. I watch him fight to concentrate, to sift through two hundred years of memories for one of me.
I don’t know why that hurts, but it does.
Then I see the recognition flash over his face, and I burst into tears, throwing myself across his naked chest. My sobs shake the table as Zadyn settles back into his body.
Almost reflexively, his arms reach up to hold me. His skin starts towarm against mine, and I send up thank you’s to whatever god is listening.
After an hour, he speaks.
