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Arlo swallows, and blood bubbles at the corner of his mouth.

A sob tears through me. “Please, Arlo.”

He looks at me, and his hand moves slowly, shaking badly, until his fingers brush my cheek.

Kylian’s hand tightens around his bleeding wrist, still offering the one thing that could save him if Arlo would only take it.

“Please,” I whisper. “Please, if you ever loved me, don’t make me lose you.”

Arlo’s breath shudders. “That’s why,” he says.

I pull back enough to see his face. His eyes move over me, memorizing, soft despite the pain.

“I do love you,” he whispers. “And that’s why you’ll let me go.”

“No,” I say, because the word is all I have left, because every other thought has burned away.

Arlo’s fingers slip down to my hand, and he presses something into my palm.

A folded, blood-stained letter.

His mother’s letter.

“Take me home,” he says, his voice thinning. “Let Mom bury me. Tell Angie I tried.”

“Arlo, please.”

His gaze shifts once more to Kylian, and Kylian leans closer and Arlo whispers something I can’t quite catch but when Kylian leans back he nods slightly.

“Love her better than I knew how.” Arlo murmurs.

Kylian goes still. His eyes close for half a second, and when they open, there is something broken in them that I have never seen before.

Arlo looks back at me.

His breath catches.

His chest rises once.

Falls.

Rises again with effort.

Then his eyes lose focus.

His hand falls from my face.

For a moment, I do not move.

Then the whole deck seems to tilt around me.

Guards are shouting in the distance, wood burning, waves slamming against the hull, Kylian says my name somewhere beside me, but none of it reaches the place where I have gone.

Arlo’s blood is still wet on my hands, and I can still feel his hand on my face as if it is imprinted there, only now, instead of warmth, it feels ice cold.

“Alessia,” Kylian says, his hand touching my shoulder.

Something in me goes cold. Something inside me is cracking open. It is a jagged, violent fault line tearing through the center of who I thought I was. I know grief well. It’s always surrounded me, hollowing me out more each time. I thought I was desensitized to it, so why does this void echo so loudly? Why does this feel colder?