Page 135 of Veil of Blood and Bone

Those days were no better than now. They were the same, and different, and familiar.

“What if this is the last one?” I press. “What if Odin doesn’t make good on his word? He might strip her away if we fail to break his curse this time. Somewhere worse than banishment in the halls of Helheim. An honorless death.”

“He wouldn’t.” Nicholas’s pupils expand, swallowing the red glow.

“Wouldn’t he?” Frustration seethes. I won’t let Helene go without making an attempt.

“I'll show her what I remember. Then she’ll realize the enormity of this. She won’t look at us like we’re ball-less, spineless liars.”

And maybe we are. Maybe there is something inherently wrong about us.

Warped by centuries of loss.

Maybe this love is a blight.

Or it might be the only thing in this vast universe worth living for.

“I don’t think she’ll go for it,” Nicholas insists.

“Things will get worse. We have to move now. She'll get herself hurt,” Wren adds.

“Finally, the shadow daddy is talking sense.”

No one laughs.

Wren’s grin falters for half a second before he glances away. “Oh, I’ve always loved your cutesy little nickname for me. You remembered.”

My jaw works. The apartment settles into uneasy quiet. Sleet and snow rattles through the gutters outside.

No one looks at anyone else.

“Show me, Forest.” Helene walks in behind us with her expression set in stubborn lines.

I hadn’t heard the door and rise at her approach. Another flash of lightning paints her face as she tips her chin up to face me.

“It’s dangerous,” I say, resigned.

She sets her knees. “So is anything.”

I groan. This, us, can’t start until she accepts what we are and what we could be.

Nicholas shifts, grasping for her hand and pulling himself up short. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“You’re talking about him sharing a memory with me, aren’t you? What’s the danger in it?” She chuckles. “It’s no crazier than the troll trashing the Longship Festival. In fact, this is probably the least crazy thing that’s happened in the past week.”

“You could be overwhelmed. You could get trapped in the memory and feel every excruciating detail of your death. What do you think that would do to the human mind?” Nicholas argues. His brows set in a harsh line.

The showdown between them stretches, although neither is looking at the other.

He is the first to break, anxiety etched in parallel creases above his hairline.

Helene hides her nervous swallow in a laugh. She waves a hand in my direction as though this kind of reckless decision is normal, the type she makes every day to keep things mixed up.

“Do it, Forest,” she insists. “Show me.”

My expression does nothing to reassure her or any of them while Wren waits for the final verdict to pass down on her authority.

But because the choice is hers, because she is the one we bow to.