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She’s propped against pillows, skin pale, lips tinged faintly blue, one hand pressed to her chest as though she can hold her heart in place by will alone. Her eyes brighten when she sees me. Then she looks behind me. Searching for her brother. My throat closes. Marian goes to her daughter’s side and sits on the edge of the bed, taking her hand.

“Where is Arlo?” Angie asks.

The room goes quiet. Eagan stands by the door with his hands clasped in front of him and his gaze lowered, while Kylian remains beside me. I step forward, but my legs feel unsteady.

“Angie,” I say softly.

She looks from my face to Marian’s. Understanding reaches her slowly, making her chin wobble and eyes fill with tears.

“He didn’t come back, did he?” she whispers.

“Not in the way we hoped for, baby,” Marian says, her voice breaking. “But he came home to us.”

Angie’s breathing changes. She clutches her chest tighter, and Marian reaches for her at once.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Marian says while Angie sobs.

I move forward, panic rising, but Kylian steps past me. He crosses the room and sits beside Angie on the bed. Marian stares at him oddly, and so do I. Quietly, he pulls something from his coat.

Angie stares at him, frightened but too weak to pull away. Kylian’s voice changes when he speaks to her. It becomes softer than I have ever heard it in front of anyone else.

“Your brother loved you very much,” he says. Angie’s lower lip shakes. Kylian holds up a small glass vial filled with dark red blood.

“So much,” he continues, “that he left me with your name in his final breath, and because he would not accept it, I am giving it to you for him.”

Angie looks at the vial.

“What is it?”

“A gift of life,” Kylian says.

Marian stiffens. “My king . . .”

Kylian does not look away from Angie. “It will not turn her,” he says calmly, answering the fear before Marian can finish. “It will heal her, though, and by morning her heart will beat without fighting itself.”

Angie’s eyes widen. “You can do that?”

“My blood can,” he says. “If you want it.”

She looks at me then, and I nod through tears. “Arlo would want you to live,” I whisper.

Angie begins crying harder, but she takes the vial with shaking fingers. Kylian steadies her hand with his.

“Small sips. I’m sorry about the taste. I can’t do much about that,” he says.

She drinks, and for a moment, nothing happens. Then her body arches slightly, and Marian gasps, but Kylian’s hand presses gently to Angie’s shoulder.

“Let it work,” he says.

We’re all holding our breath as Angie’s fingers curl in the blanket, and her body spasms.

Eventually color rises slowly in her cheeks, faint at first, then stronger, the blue leaving her lips, the tightness in her breathing easing until she takes one deep breath that does not catch halfway. Her hand flies to her chest. Angie inhales again. Then again. Each breath comes easier than the last.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispers, staring at Kylian with wide, stunned eyes. “It always hurts, but it doesn’t.” Marian covers her mouth with both hands, her body shaking with sobs.

Kylian stands, but Angie catches his sleeve before he can move away. “Thank you,” she whispers.

He looks down at her hand on his coat.