I listened to her as she went inside. I listened as Ribbon plopped himself in front of the door on the inside of her apartment, like the guard toad he was. And I heard the soft sound of her bedroom door opening.
Only then did I breathe again.
The stairs creaked under me as I climbed up to the rooftop. The night was cold, but it felt good. Necessary.
My workshop greeted me with a half-lit forge and the faint sharp scent of cedar shavings. A breeze slipped through the open shutters, stirring the smaller unfinished carvings and sketch papers.
I went straight to the back table—the one I always pretended she didn’t know existed. The one where I stored the pieces Ididn’t let anyone see.
The carving sat there, exactly where I’d left it. Two figures, back-to-back.
Her silhouette, light, loose and a little defiant, hair curling tightly the way it always did after she brewed something chaotic. My silhouette beside her—taller, broader, turned slightly toward her without meaning to.
It was a ridiculous thing to make. Animpossiblething to keep. But every night I worked on it anyway.
I lifted it carefully, my thumb brushing along the line of her carved shoulder. She fit against me perfectly—even in wood.
A deep ache pulled through my chest, slow and familiar. I shouldn’t have let myself get attached. I shouldn’t have stepped between her and Corwin. And Idefinitelyshouldn’t have moved when he reached for her.
I knew what this meant. My father had taught me exactly what happened to a man who let the bond guide his choices.
His whole world narrowed to one person. And when she died—he followed. I wasn’t sure if it worked the other way, too. If the bond forced the same from the female half of the whole, butI wasn’t going to take the chance with Hanna. I wouldnotdrag her into a fate she couldn’t escape.
She didn’t need a mate—didn’t needme—to be whole. She’d already proven that.
And the truth gnawed at me with every heartbeat. She’d be safer without me. She’d be happier, eventually, with someone who wasn’t doomed to ruin what he touched. Things always went wrong around me and I knew that no matter what I did, things would alwayscontinueto go wrong.
Corwin’s words echoed in my skull—not because they were true, but because I feared the truth beneath them. If I stayed, she’d choose me and if she chose me, fate would finish the job.
I set the carving down and stepped back, running a handthrough my hair. The workshop felt colder now or maybe I’d done that. Or the fear did.
I extinguished the forge flames one by one, watching the light flicker and fade. Then I stared at the carving. At the future I shouldn’t want. At the female I couldn’t have and I whispered to the empty workshop the same lie I’d been telling myself since the moment the bond sparked awake.
“She’s better off without me.”
But the bond thrummed in my chest—low, steady, unyielding—as if it disagreed. As if it already knew the truth I refused to let myself imagine.
It wasn’t going to let me go anywhere. Not really. Not if it meant being away from her. Not anymore. I could have made the choice when I’d first met her. But now that I knew her? Now that I’d seen so much of her? There was no way.
The dream pulled me under before I could fight it. One moment I was staring at the ceiling of my workshop, the embers low and cold. The next, I was back in the Hellplane trenches.
The air was thick with smoke and blood and the metallic hum of magick burned too hot. I saw my father ahead of me, tall, solid, a mountain of a male who used to lift all three of us younglings with one arm and laugh.
But he wasn’t laughing now. He turned toward me, his eyes hollowed-out caves of grief. His skin had gone gray, like the life had already drained from him.
“Father—” I shouted, but my voice came out wrong. Thin and childlike.
He didn’t hear me, or if he did, he didn’t respond. He only whispered one word.
“Mate.”
Then he walked into the battle line without armor. Without a shield. Without a soul.
“Stop!” I screamed, sprinting after him, legs heavy as stone, lungs burning. My voice didn’t carry and my hands couldn’t reach him.
He disappeared into the magick fire the warlocks had conjured to fight us. And the world shook itself apart.
I fell to my knees, rubble crashing down around me, smoke choking me. His voice—no longer his—echoed everywhere.
