My head throbbed from striking against the stone. A slow nausea built in my stomach. I pressed my back against the wall, steadying myself, while the floor wobbled and tilted.
I couldn’t see around Griff’s wings—he’d flared them wide. But I could feel.
There was the low hum of illusion. And when I looked in the space outside myself, I saw Justice’s simple knots. They were distinct in their rudimentariness. One gentle tug, and they’d unravel.
My heart tumbled in my chest, falling over itself to clamor to him.
“Griff,” Justice said, and I nearly leaped over Griff’s wings at the sound of his deep voice. It echoed through the hall, and Griff snarled. “Step aside.”
I pushed off the wall and wobbled on my heels. I grabbed Griff’s back to steady myself and tried to move his wing.
“Either you move, or I move you. The first way, you live. The second, you die.”
I stopped tugging at Griff’s wing. A slow itch traveled up my spine. “Justice?”
There was the sound of a sharp inhale, and then weighted silence. Griff’s form was tense. His skin was kicking off a violent heat, like a tar pit bubbling under an alien sun.
“Griff, move,” I said softly.
His wings twitched. The dark hall filled with a steaming, boiling pressure. What was this?
But then, the pressure and the heat evaporated, and Griff shrank back to his own form. He caught me as I stumbled. I didn’t notice him holding me up. The entire hallway had shrunk to a single point.
I stared at the man standing in front of me.
What had happened to him?
All the air leaked from my lungs like a deflated balloon. Had I been happy? Had I felt joy? Had I really felt like I could spin and fly because Justice was back?
“Yes,” he said, smiling, “I know what you’re thinking. It would’ve been better if I’d died.”
No. That wasn’t it.
It would’ve been better if . . . no . . . There was never any point in wishing for a different past. There was only one way to change the past, and that was by altering the future. The only way you could go backward was by walking forward. The only way you could rise up was by falling down.
Justice was a different man.
He was older. Years older. There were lines on his forehead. Crow’s feet spanning from his eyes. Lines of pain bracketing his mouth. He’d always kept his hair shorter, but now, it reached his shoulders. A closely trimmed beard lined his face. But those were superficial changes.
I stepped forward, my hand raised to the scar that tore from his eye, trailing down his cheek. It was hidden beneath his chin, but I knew where it ended. I’d cried that tear.
For him.
I’d cried that cut.
I’d felt every single one of the scars marring his skin.
I reached out and pressed my fingers to the scar’s raised edge. It was hot, and Justice hissed as if my touch burned. He grabbed my hand and began to yank it away, but just as suddenly, he stopped and held my fingers against his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. My throat ached with all the jagged-edged words trying to rush out, piling one on top of the other. But all I could say was, “You weren’t worth sav—sav—saving.”
My throat closed, and I choked on Jagger’s words, hating them as they spilled free.
Justice dropped my hand, then he grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me close.
Behind me, Griff snarled, sounding just like his father.
Justice’s lips curved as he held my mouth an inch from his. “I used to dream about you,” he whispered, his warm breath fanning over my lips. “Then I had nightmares about you. Finally, I stopped dreaming altogether.”
