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Elara shakes her head, but she doesn’t let go of Anya.

I crouch in front of them. Anya reaches for me without releasing Elara, so I put one arm around her and the other around Elara, pulling them both against me.

Behind us, Evan continues shouting while Sergei binds his wrists.

I press my mouth to Anya’s hair, then look at Elara. “I saw what you did,” I tell her.

Her eyes close briefly. “I knew you would,” she whispers.

And for the first time since I saw the gun against her head, I can breathe.

I drop to my knees in front of them.

Anya reaches for me first, and I pull her against my chest. Elara is still holding her, so I wrap my arms around both of them, pressing them close while Sergei keeps Evan pinned behind us.

For a few seconds, none of us speaks. Anya is crying into my shirt. Elara’s breath shakes against my shoulder, and then her arms come around me too.

“I thought I’d lost you,” I say. My hands are shaking.

I look over Elara’s shoulder at Evan being restrained by Sergei, at the blood running from his injured hand, at the gun lying a few feet away in the grass. If I had been slower by one second, things would have been very different. If I had aimed a little higher, I could have killed her instead of stopping him.

The thought makes my stomach turn.

“I was so damn scared of losing you.” I don’t care how weak or pathetic I sound. She needs to hear this.

Elara pulls back. Her face is wet, and there is a red mark beginning to form along her neck where Evan held her.

“You tapped his hand,” I continue. “You told me what to do.”

“I didn’t know if you understood.”

“I understood.”

Her mouth trembles. “I love you.”

I’ve imagined hearing those words from her, but never like this, with Anya crying between us and Evan shouting behind my back. I had wanted to tell her when there was time to explain what she meant to me, when I could take her somewhere private and give her more than three words while a man was being held down in the garden.

Instead, I press my forehead to hers.

“I love you too,” I say. “I should’ve told you before today.”

She closes her eyes. A tear slips down her cheek, and I wipe it away with my thumb. “I thought you were sending me away because you didn’t want me,” she whispers.

“I was sending you away because I thought it was the only way to keep you safe.”

“You didn’t ask me to come with you.”

“I didn’t want to decide your life for you.”

Her fingers close around my wrist. “You should have asked.”

“I know.”

She looks down at our hands, and then she takes mine.

At first, I think she wants me to hold her. Instead, she guides my palm beneath her coat and places it against her stomach.

I feel the warmth of her through the fabric. She doesn’t speak.