No one could ease this pain.

Her eyes burned from the deluge of tears she’d cried. Maybe his being… gone would be easier to take if she’d found the strength to tell him how she felt. Because she did love him. Just thinking it caused a sob to snag in her throat. There was no question about it. She’d just been too afraid to say it. She pounded her fist into the chaise and bit back a scream. What had she been so worried about? That he wouldn’t say it back? He’d already said it to her.

She rolled her forehead back and forth against her knees. Mal had been right about her. She ran from the things she needed to face the most.

How was she going to go to achtice and rescue Damian without Mal? She’d gotten so used to him fighting at her side. They made a great team, no matter how odd a pairing. Her throat closed up again. She cleared it, trying to find a way to breathe that didn’t make her soul ache. Maybe she wouldn’t live through the visit to achtice. Maybe that would be the end of it. Of her. Of this pain.

Anger wormed through the inky black grief suffocating her insides. Anger at herself for not telling Mal how she felt. Anger at the mayor for what she’d done. Anger at Tatiana for being such a thorn in her side. Their sides.

Her hands itched for the red leather hilts of her sacres. To spill blood and ash. What did she have to live for anyway? If she was going down, she’d go down big. Unafraid. She’d start with Lola and finish with Tatiana. She’d make Mal proud.

A new quake of grief ripped through her and her fingers found their way to her throat. She touched the skin where Mal had bitten her, the bite now healed, the flesh as smooth and perfect as it had ever been. She pressed her fingers harder, hoping to find a nick or a scab or something, but there wasn’t anything to find.

She had nothing left of him. Nothing to prove they’d ever shared that most intimate of moments between a comarré and her patron. She ground her teeth together as the anger surged upward. The sun sank teasingly lower. She shot to her feet, hands fisted at her sides. Maybe she should get Doc or Mortalis to spar with her. If she didn’t burn off some of this rage, she was going to do something she might regret.

She almost laughed at that. What would she regret? Certainly not watching the mayor take her last breaths with a sacre stuck in her gut.

The sun disappeared, leaving her in the cooling, sympathetic twilight. Chrysabelle’s hands flexed, almost feeling the hum of the sword hilts against her palms. She closed her eyes and tried to inhale with some kind of evenness, the way she’d been taught as a comarré, but the rhythm wouldn’t come. Chaos ruled her mind. She needed to focus, to make a plan, not just to run headfirst into an unknown situation. Maris had planned for years, taught herself to walk again, built a business, and created a new existence beyond the nobility, all with the hopes that Chrysabelle would one day join her and find a life outside the comarré world. Her mother would not want her to throw that all away. Not after everything she’d sacrificed.

What would Mal do in this situation? What would he say to her?

“Chrysabelle.”

A hard sob racked her body. Holy mother, now she was hearing his voice. She covered her face, unable to bear the madness seeping into her brain.

“Chrysabelle?”

She turned, already knowing it was a trick of her weary, grieving mind.

But it wasn’t.

Her lungs heaved against her rib cage, needing more air to process the rush of emotion threatening to spin her into unconsciousness. “How?” But it didn’t matter how. All that mattered was that Mal was there, standing a few yards from her. Or was he?

“You’re real?”

“Don’t I look real?” He held his arms out.

With no further hesitation, she threw herself into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. “You’re alive.” She was crying again but didn’t care. Mal was alive. Alive.

He laughed as his arms came around her. “Of course I’m alive. Why would you think otherwise?”

She pulled away so she could see his face. “You turned to smoke. The sun hit you and you burned up. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Concern grooved his forehead. “I got a few burns, but nothing a good daysleep couldn’t heal. Don’t cry.” He brushed a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “Your blood saved me.”

“I don’t understand. You told me you couldn’t scatter.”

He shrugged softly. “I can’t. Never have been able to. Not in the traditional sense anyway. But what I can do is exactly what you saw. Turn to smoke.” He took her by the waist and set her feet back on the pool deck. “Watch.”

Then he did exactly what he’d done in the square. Vanished into a swirl of black smoke. A second later, the smoke took shape and he was himself again.

She took a step away from him. “But the sun was out.”

He nodded and stuck a finger through one of several burned holes in his shirt. “Which is how I got these. I slipped into the storm drain as quickly as I could.”

She shook her head, still staring at him, every horrible feeling she’d had over the past few hours disappearing. “The sun reflected off the car and nearly blinded me. I must not have seen you go down the storm drain.” She sat on the chaise as a sudden weakness swept over her. “All this time, I thought you were…”

“Dead?”

She nodded.

He kneeled in front of her and took her hands. “I’m sorry you thought that, but I’m perfectly well.” He glanced at his clothes. “Except for a few burns and these scorched clothes.”