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She couldn’t. Not until he opened his eyes. Not until she could tell him that she loved him again.

At some point her friends would show up, but she wasn’t ready for that yet. They would ask so many questions. She needed to hold it together for a little while longer, and she knew that once she even thought of what had happened back in that house, she’d fall apart.

Hours went by. People moved around her, but it was nothing but background noise. Her hand held his, fingers pressed on the inside of his wrist, feeling his pulse. It was the most comforting feeling in the world. She felt it in her own veins—that steady drum of his heartbeat.

Sunlight broke through clouds and then she sensed something in her heart. His eyes opened. For a moment, all she could do was stare into those blue-gray eyes, scared that if she moved, it might be nothing but a dream.

He smiled. “I was hoping I would see your face on the other side.”

Hearing his voice again made her choke up and then she realized what he was saying. She moved closer to him.

“This isn’t the afterlife, Aidric.”

He was still smiling as his fingers moved into her hair. “No? What is it you’d call it then?”

Her tears hit his shirt. “A second chance at life, because I didn’t let you die. You didn’t die, Aidric.”

His eyes narrowed, and his smile faltered in disbelief.

“You’re back at Ivercrest,” she continued. “And I remember. I remember everything.”

He let go of her. “That’s impossible.” His eyes blinked rapidly as if he was making sure this wasn’t an illusion.

She shook her head and held his hand even tighter.

He still looked as if he didn’t believe she was real but merely a phantom of his imagination.

“I held you to your promise,” she said.

“What promise is that?”

“That you’d always come back to me.”

His eyes flickered with emotion, and for the first time, he looked around. If he thought this was the afterlife, he surely wouldn’t be seeing Ivercrest’s infirmary. He stared at the equipment around him, and that look of confusion on his face returned. And then his eyes shot to her with something like awe and shock. He pulled her closer, his fingers tracing her face.

“Is this a dream?” His voice was but a breath.

She shook her head and fell into his arms. He hugged her tightly against his chest.

“Mira,” he whispered into her hair as his muscles tightened around her. “I was so worried about you. I don’t know what I did wrong with the spell. I’m so sorry.”

She lifted her head, placing her hand on his face.

“It wasn’t your fault I fell into a coma. I took a potion against memory-erasing spells and miscalculated the ingredients.”

“I shouldn’t have done that to you. I only wanted to protect you, wanted better for you.”

She swallowed hard, thinking back to the moment at the house on the seaside when she had almost lost him. Had she not taken the potion all those months ago, he would have died all alone.

Her fingers brushed through his silver-white hair. “I’d rather live with the grief of losing you than forget the memory of you.”

Tears welled in his eyes, and he nodded silently. “Forgive me.”

She leaned in and kissed him, and everything else around them fell away as she savored the feeling of having him back, because she wasn’t sure she could survive in a world without him.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he said when they broke the kiss. “I was sure it was the end. Everything went dark.”

The image of him slumped against the wall came back to her, and she had to swallow away her tears. He had died. His heart had stopped beating. Luckily, it hadn’t been long enough that she couldn’t bring him back.