I knew he was with me without opening my eyes. Might have known, even without the bond, because Marc’s presence was always a comfort to me. A light in the darkness helping me find my way when otherwise I’d be lost. That hadn’t changed.

And it never would.

“You came back.” I hadn’t intended to whisper, but my words were no louder than an exhalation.

He straightened where he sat next to me on the bed, expression full of the alarm that was reflected in my heart. “Did you think I wouldn’t? Pénélope–”

I squeezed his hand, forestalling him. “I didn’t.”

But his movement allowed me to see beyond to where Tristan stood in the shadows of the corner, shoulders slumped and hands shoved in his pockets as though he were cold. I met his gaze, and he nodded once, the air around him shimmering with magic, blocking away sound.

“He won’t leave,” Marc muttered.

“Good.” I coughed, my throat painfully dry. “You’ll need him.”

“I don’t–” He broke off, shaking his head with irritation that he could not deny that truth. It was no small relief for me, because I didn’t think I could stand to know that I’d broken their friendship and their camaraderie beyond repair. Still, the irritation couldn’t hide the poisonous weight of his guilt that twisted through my skull. I said, “You’ve spoken with my father.”

His chin jerked up and down.

“And he has done the same to you as he has to me: made you feel culpable. Made you feel regret.”

“Yes.”

I hadn’t believed it possible to hate my father more. I’d been wrong. Our child was dead, and as though it were not enough that my death was certain and Marc’s nearly so, my father had felt the need to poison what was good. To make us regret all that we had done. To make us feel guilty for each other’s fate. “Damn him,” I whispered. “He twists the truth into the worst sort of lies.”

“But it isn’t a lie.” Marc’s voice cracked. “He never intended for you to die. If anything… if anything, he intended for you to force me to live if I got caught.”

Somehow, I’d known that. My father bet on certain things, and while he might have banked his plans on Marc bonding me to save me, he wouldn’t have counted on the twist of fate that saw me pregnant. “In a way,” I said, “that would’ve been worse. For you to have had to choose between my life and Tristan’s. Between my life and your cause.”

“But you’d be alive,” he said.

“Alive is not the same as living,” I whispered. “How long until you’d have grown to hate me? And, feeling your emotions every hour of every day, how long until I’d have grown to hate myself? Don’t for a moment believe that our happiness factored into his plans.”

“I shouldn’t have bonded you.”

The words were a knife to my gut, which made them a knife to his, and Marc flinched. “I don’t blame you,” I said, digging my nails into my palms. “Yours has always been the greater sacrifice.”

“Not bonding you would’ve been the sacrifice!” The room trembled, his emotions seeking an outlet in his magic. “You think that I was selfless to bond you, but it was selfishness. All I wanted was to be with you, to live my life with you, and so don’t for one heartbeat believe that I did it solely to save your life. I did it for myself. Because I love you. Because I need you. And because of that, you’re lying here dying.”

All the hate for my father and what he’d done abruptly rushed from my heart, and it felt to me like the greatest of burdens had been lifted from my shoulders. “You’re right,” I said. “If not for you, I wouldn’t be here at all. Perhaps I’d be dead by my father’s hand. Or more likely, living in fear in my family’s home, suffering his abuse while all hope of a better future was stripped away from me.”

“But at least you’d have a future.”

“A future of misery!” The outburst left me gasping for breath. “I’ve been happier in my time with you than in all my life. Because of you, so much of what I dreamed of and hoped for became my reality, and I refuse to regret that. I believe that a short life lived is better than endless years of merely enduring, and given the same circumstances, the same choice, I’d choose you and life and love all over again.”

Exhaustion fell over me, my magic struggling to repair my broken body, but faltering and failing like fingers that couldn’t quite grasp an elusive bit of sand. My heart fluttered, and it hurt enough that tears flooded my eyes.

“Pénélope, please don’t leave me.” His voice was strangled and desperate, and his arms wrapped around me, pulling my body against his. I clung to him with what strength I had, my fingers curving around the back of his head as he kissed me, tasting the salt of his tears. Then he pressed his cheek against mine and said, “All my life I’ve loved you. You’re the only one who made me believe that I was good enough as I am. That I was worth wanting. That I wasn’t just a broken thing better off in the shadows. What will I be without you?”

“Yourself.” It hurt, it hurt. “A man more good and kind and loyal than any I’ve known.”

“I need you.”

Maybe he did. But Trollus needed him more. “You have to keep fighting. You cannot let him win.”

“He already has.”

His hands shook where they gripped me, and I thought of Guerre, the game of strategy that everyone around me played so masterfully, and in which I’d always been a pawn. But I’d be a pawn no more. “Only the battle,” I whispered, turning my head to look in Tristan’s direction. “The war is yet to come.”

My vision was filling with blackness, the world falling away, and I wasn’t ready. Wasn’t ready for it to be over. Wasn’t ready to be parted from him. “I’m afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, kissing me gently on the lips. And though I could still feel him, still hear him, the thread binding us together was fraying. Diminishing. “Pénélope, if there’s a place we go in death, I’ll follow you there.” He sounded so distant. So far away. “I’ll find you.”

Not yet. Not yet.

“Pénélope, please.”

“I love you.” I needed him to know that, even as I was falling. Even as the world was fading. I needed that to be my legacy, the one thing he remembered above all else. “I love you. I love you. I