I look back out at the mountain, the vast, uncaring stretch of it. "He’s going to want something in return."
"Everyone wants something," Ian says, then reaches for my hand, squeezing it. “And I don’t care what it is, I’ll give it to him if it means we get Reth out of there.”
The quiet conviction in his voice breaks something openin my chest, and I stare down at our joined hands, at the way his thumb brushes slowly over my knuckles—a small, unconscious comfort he probably doesn’t even realize he’s giving.
I open my mouth to speak when he cuts me off.
"Don't.”
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"Yeah, you were." A beat. "And I'd rather you didn't. Because then I'd have to say something back, and I'm not built for that conversation right now."
I look at the side of his face. At the tired lines of it, the careful set of his mouth, the specific quality of a man who has made peace with something and is living inside that peace without complaint.
"Ian."
"Sophia."
"Look at me."
He does. Slowly. And what's in his eyes when he does—God. It's not longing, exactly. It's something quieter than that. Something that has already been through longing and come out the other side into something more like clarity. The look of a man who knows exactly what he feels and exactly what he's going to do about it.
Nothing.
Because he knows I belong to someone else, and nothing in this world will change that.
Yes, I feel something for him. There’s no use in denying what’s true. And maybe… "In another life," I start.
“Don't do that either.” He squeezes my hand again. “Because another life means this one isn't enough, and thisone has him in it. And that's actually the point, Crazy. That's the whole point."
The words land quietly and stay.
"There is no version of this where I get what I want. And I’m okay with that. Because Reth is my brother, not by blood, but by everything else, and I don’t want it any other way, even in a different lifetime.” His thumb stills on my knuckles. "And you are not a contest. You are not a prize. You are everything.” Then looks at me. “But you are his.”
I don't have words for that. I don't think words are what it needs.
"So whatever this is," he says, quieter now, looking down at our joined hands, "whatever it is that happened in Japan and in that kitchen and on that step in the dark—it lives exactly there. In the dark. And we leave it there, and we go get him, and that's the end of it."
A tear rolls down my cheek, and I catch it before it falls, nodding silently in agreement while the mountain holds still outside the window.
I turn my hand over in his and squeeze once.
He squeezes back.
Neither of us says anything else. We don’t need to. Because the only thing that matters to both of us, the most important thing, is him. And getting him back.
Ian’s phone vibrates, and he lets go of my hand before swiping the screen. “He’s here.”
My heart beats faster. “I don’t trust him,” I say. “But I do trust you.” Then I lean in, giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek. “Bring Nazareth back to us.”
13
RETH
She’s here again.
I know before I open my eyes. The temperature drops. Not real cold—the other kind. The kind that lives inside the skull and spreads outward until your teeth ache with it, until every breath feels like swallowing broken glass.
