Across from where we sat on the couch, Alastor settled on the floor, his shoulders bowed. He looked less like the mage I’d known and more like a male made of shadow and smoke. I knew better than to speak. His silence was sacred and heavy with the kind of pain no words could ease.
Eiran’s words to him clawed down the sides of my mind.“You will die at the hand of the one you still reach for.”
Alastor’s visions of the female had been killing him long before this mission. Yet he still reached for her, wanting those visions. Maybe needed them as much as I needed my mate. If breaking that space in the astral realm severed her from him, maybe it would end the visions. But maybe that would leave him emptier than before.
Luana walked in, her nails clicking on the wood floor, and without hesitation, she curled onto Alastor’s lap. The tiniest huff of air left him, not quite a sigh but not indifference either. He rested a hand on her head.
When he finally spoke, it was a whisper. “I should take my leave now.” He said it without moving, without any inclination that he actually wanted to leave.
I tightened my hold on Finley. She didn’t speak or lift her head, but her fingers dug around my shirt.
“Stay,” I said just as quietly.
Alastor looked at me, eyes swollen with exhaustion, and gave a single nod. No argument, just quiet acceptance.
For a long time, none of us moved. The thump of Luana’s tail was the only thing to break the silence that the astral realm had left behind.
Finley’s heart drummed against me, uneven. Her magic brushed alongside mine through our bond, thin, flickering threads of life weaving back together.
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and Etienne stopped at the doorway, Frisky rubbing against his ankles, as his eyes swooped over the disaster we’d become.
“It’s over,” Finley said before he could ask. Her voice was raw, small. Final.
Etienne crossed to us and sat beside her. She leaned into him, and he took her hand without saying anything. Similar to the way Teddy treated me with such easy affection.
Alastor shifted as he dug through the inner pocket of his magic and pulled out a book covered in gold. The living book. Its cover breathed, its pages rippling as if aware of Alastor’s hold on it.
I pressed a kiss to Finley’s temple. When I met her gaze, she nodded in understanding. I joined Alastor on the floor, pulling out the tome of the gods from my pocket of magic. The weight of it was familiar although I hadn’t done more than thumb through it.
I set the book beside his. “We’ll find a way to free Blaise.”
The faintest spark shone in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell if it was hope or resolve. Finley exhaled, and in that single, shaky sound was everything we’d lost and everything we had left.
His fingers trailed the edge of the book, his movements slow but precise. “The living book answers better to Teddy,” he said, voice steady, but grief shadowed each word. “Will you allow me to summon her here?”
For a few beats, his words didn’t register. Not because I didn’t understand, but because of how he said them. His voicewas too brittle, too fragile. The mage who’d once forced his way into the astral realm now sounded like a man holding the last piece of something he couldn’t bear to lose.
“Whatever you need, Alastor.”
His gaze lifted, distant but grateful, then he closed his eyes, reaching through his mind-speak magic to connect with Teddy.
“Elias and Teddy are on their way once someone can stay behind with the younglings,” he said.
His gaze dropped to Luana, still curled on his lap, her slow breaths filling the silence the rest of us were wary to break. His fingers moved through her fur, slow and deliberate, like he needed the motion to center himself.
With the kind of bluntness only Alastor could manage, he said, “We should speak plainly before they arrive.”
My stomach tightened. I swear the mage loved being unpredictable and dramatic. Except, I already knew what he wanted to speak of.
He lifted his head, his gray eyes on Finley. Finley shifted, her attention now solely on Alastor.
“Finley,” he began, his tone even but measured with the gravity of his upcoming words. “You already know I’m dying.”
Her throat bobbed with her swallow, and she blinked several times, but her eyes grew glassy with the tears she kept away. “Yes.”
His tone softened as he took her in. “When my time comes, I’ve asked Brenton to lead Respandora.”
Surprise flashed across her features, and she turned her wide eyes at me.
