Not this time.
Not today.
The pieces fell from her hands and scattered across the dirt. She stared at them, not really seeing.
Maddie dropped beside her, gathering the shards gently, cupping them close.
Elle backed away, shaking violently.
“We can fix it, Elle. I’ll fix it for you,” Maddie said, soft but steady. “I’ll glue it or something. It’ll be better than ever.”
Elira’s face twisted.
“It’s too late. It’s too…” She shook her head, breath catching. The devastation in her eyes splintered something inside me.
“I can’t fix it this time.”
Then her gaze lifted to mine—haunted, hollow.
Her next words came barely above a whisper, soft and small. “I can’t fix him, can I?”
She wasn’t really here anymore. Not on this cliff. Not with us.
“I wanted to,” she murmured. “Gods, Itried. But he hurt me. Helied. He tried to take you away from me.”
My fists clenched at the memory. At the truth in it.
“It was too much… it was too hard… I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t be her anymore.”
“Elle,” Leo said softly, his voice breaking.
“I told him I forgave him,” she said. “I looked him in the eye, and I said the words.”
Her voice cracked. Her breathing hitched.
“But I didn’t,” she whispered. “I lied. I lied to his face while he was dying.”
She turned to me. “Who does that, Phoenix?”
My jaw clenched.
Slade stood frozen—grief carved into every line of him. Tears slid silently down Leo’s cheeks.
“He just wanted things to go back,” she said. “That’s all he wanted. And I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to go back.”
She was breaking in front of us, piece by piece, and I could do nothing to stop the torrent.
“He had no one, and I—I just left him!”
She staggered a step away from us.
“And then he came back… after everything. He came back—and he threw himself on a blade for me!”
Her voice broke again.
“Why would he do that? Why?”
Then she turned to the sea and screamed—
