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I could let this moment pass me by, the sound of his voice, the scarlet of life in the Dark of night. But then my mother’s words from hours before etch themselves on my mind like a verse.

Your heart was always yours to repair.

I have lived like this for so long. Hope is terrifying. Hope is perilous. But it is also bright and piercing and the only thing that breaks death. I could hope. I could live.

Fate has not been my friend. I’ve been spitting in her face this whole night. But if I could carve a new fate, if I could shape my own . . .

I fight.

My soul rages. My mother was right about the anguish. As hard as death is, fighting it is worse. The pain is unbearable, so sharp I think I’ll lose my mind. I want to relent. But that one word pulls on the shattered pieces of my heart. Lonan.

He’s an anchor, and I drag myself toward life through him.

Lonan.

He’s the echo of my pain and the promise of relief.

Lonan.

Not my reason for living, but my reminder to live.

Memento vivere. Memento mori.

The threads on my neck disintegrate to nothing, my promise fulfilled.

“Aren’t you clever?” the crone purrs in my ear. “Giving me my verse and twisting it into a choice.”

“Words are tricky things,” I rasp. “They do not often mean what they seem and seem to mean what they don’t.”

The first thing I see is his face, just the edges of it, the scarlet Light of his sword reflected in his eyes and on the planes of his handsome face.

I wield both the Dark and the Light again, except this time, I’m stronger. I pull the Dark from deep within me, pain and emotion and instinct. But also hope. Also joy. Also this strange, bright, beautiful feeling that unfolds like a flower when I’m with Lonan. And then I draw on the Light—thought, intention, reason. It hones the Dark into something sharp and lethal. I wield my scythe together with the silver stake in my fist.

My magic erupts, a great burst of lavender Light and midnight Dark. The force of it nearly knocks me off my feet, but I manage to hold my stance as it slices through the slithering Darkness. The shadows scream. The night is fractured. I can see again. The barest bit of Light breaks through his power.

Lonan is standing across the dusty floor of the clocktower, sword in hand and breathless. But he’s staring at me with an expression like awe and shock. His face, his courage, his steadiness are like a new anchor for me. I lock eyes with him, sword burning so bright it looks aflame, before we turn as one toward my godfather.

He stands opposite us, early morning light filtering through the rafters cutting across his face. His eyes are bright with rage. His Dark writhes around him, barely visible movements in the darkest shadows. “This is anathema.”

All pretending is gone. All guise of caring has evaporated. I realize now, with clarity I’ve never had before, that he only tolerated me, only loved me, for my compliance. Now I stand in his way. And he is furious.

Darkness lashes toward me, great streams of shadow like whips. Lonan and I are crashed together, back to back, the Darkness surrounding us. It’s his scarlet and my lavender together. Exhaustion and pain ache in every inch of me. But through sheer force of will, I fight.

My godfather’s Dark assaults from every side. We cut it down, sensing each other’s movements. It’s instinct to fight with him like this. He parries an attack to his left. I move to his right, fighting off the Dark at his back. He swings his sword over my head and stabs one of the Dark serpents through the torso. I sweep my scythe at his feet, executing the Dark slithering around his ankles.

We cut my godfather’s Darkness to shreds, ruthlessly, systematically. But then something catches my scythe. It’s the small, sinister blade of my godfather’s ring—his anchor. It’s cunning and hidden and easy to forget about, devious and duplicitous as he is. Lord Van Asten used his shadows to obscure his movements. Now he pushes against the edge of my scythe. Lonan swings toward Van Asten, but my godfather’s shadows attack him from the other side, blocking him from me.

Darkness swirls all around us, pressing in. I hold my feet firm. I force breath through my lungs even as the shadows constrict.

“You weren’t meant to be an obstacle,” my godfather says through gritted teeth. “Please, Nightingale.”

My heart is repaired. And, Saints, I feel like I never did before. Even now, even for this man. Empathy tears at my heart, echoes of the memories I have of him when he was kind and I so desperately needed a parent. Hurting him is like hurting myself.

But he trained me that way, didn’t he? To be loyal to him. To care about what he cared for. To fight his battles.

I’m done fighting for him. All this time, he convinced me that I needed him. But the truth is, he needed me. He kept me small because he was afraid of what I could become, what I am.

I am the Light, and I am the Dark—the shimmer of silver in between. Something unseen for too long. I lift my scythe high and arc it down to slice through my godfather’s wrist.