Page 281 of Sinister

“And you did that.”

He nods.

“And? What happened after you did it? Did anything change?”

“Something did change.” He lets out a dry laugh. “You died. Then I died.”

I stare at him. Then stare some more.

“What?”

“Don’t look so shocked, sweet Petra. I told you I would never leave you, and I meant it. Perhaps I was a little late, but I was never going to leave you to face that alone.”

I blink in shock.

“Explain.”

He looks slightly uncomfortable as he fidgets in his seat.

“I went to find my mentor because I knew he was trying to perform that wretched ritual. It took me a few tries to find the location. Luckily, when I did, he had not gotten too far along with it. I managed to stop it just in time, but he was so mad at me . . .”

He takes a deep breath.

“He tried to fight me, telling me I ruined everything, that life had no meaning without Leah by his side. And as much as I wanted to argue with him, I could not. Because I would have felt the same way if it had been you in that situation. Retrospectively, I can see I had the wisdom of an outsider, and not someone who was deeply suffering.

“That was affecting his judgment, and I cannot blame him for it. But I also knew that if I allowed him to do it . . . everything he yearned for would be forever lost.”

“What happened?”

“He eventually realized that the only way for him to ever be with her again, her and not some paltry substitute, was to give up the ritual. But that did not mean he wanted to live on. So the next challenge was stopping him from killing himself.”

Sin gulps down uncomfortably.

“I told him what the entity told me, that the act of killing oneself would interfere with the timeline of his future incarnation and that he might not be able to find her again.”

He presses his lips together. “So instead, he asked me to kill him.”

I gasp. “And you . . .”

“I did. It was that, or he would find a way to kill himself. At least that way, I could help him.”

“You . . . killed . . . him.”

He nods, not meeting my eyes.

“Did it hurt?”

“I tried to make it as painless as possible.”

“No, I mean did it hurt you?”

He gives me a sad smile. “It did.”

A few seconds of silence pass, and he clears his throat.

“I was trying to find a way to bury both of them when I heard the commotion in town. I rushed over there, but . . .” He chokes up. “You were tied up, on fire.”

The memory of the pain flashes through me with stunning alacrity, and I physically wince.