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Orpheus blinked away his tears and found Gwen.

“Ready,” he breathed.

The size of her hand looked so small within the sigil, but in that juxtaposition, something stood out, a clarity of intention that he wouldn’t have been able to root out on his own. The sigil could work, he realized, if they had the power necessary to fire it. But maybe he was wrong about that too. He’d been wrong about so much already, hadn’t he? And it would serve the story well if, at the end, the apprentice surpassed her master and proved all their expectations wrong.

Then there could be a happy ending for both of us.

A tear fell. Orpheus wiped it away before Gwen noticed.

She knelt before him and took his hand. “You think about it too, okay? Our intention. Let’s do it together.”

Orpheus stared down at Gwen’s hand in his like this was the real spell she’d cast, then said, “Okay.”

Gwen met his eyes, fireball erupting with a little spark within the cradle of their hands, but it was the fire in her eyes that had Orpheus convinced…

Maybe it will work?

Gwen shoved out a breath and slapped her hand down on the sigil with all the strength she possessed.

Netherflame chewed through the sigil in a burst of violet fire. Cold leached all warmth from the air, an icy creep that sank through his flesh and into his bones like it was his lost magic at work. The sigil flickered, a weak pulse that had Gwen whispering encouragement, a mirror to that he’d given her flame when he’d ignited the power cell. He found himself joining in, whispering with her, mesmerized that the sigil retained its power, catching and flaring over and over again in a pulsating beat timed to his heart.

And when beneath his knees the floor began to tremble, just a little—barely there but enough he could feel it—hope flared with a deafening pressure. The sigil sparking, catching, holding—

All hells, Orpheus thought, breath caught in a gasp.

Across the sky, lightning cracked, and in a sputtering hiss the sigil went dim, Netherflame fading, eaten up by the effort of its own existence.

“Shit,” Gwen breathed, shaking before him. “Shit, shit, shit!”

Told you so, Orpheus didn’t say. The effort to be right fled him, alongside the effort to hope. Instead, he sat quietly while Gwen fought off tears, watching how her hands fisted in her lap, shaking like his did when he buried them in his sleeves.

“It’s alright,” he whispered when Gwen began to cry, clawing his nails into his scar. “Don’t cry, it’s alright.”

“It’s not alright!” Gwen shouted at him. “It didn’t work. And if it doesn’t work, how am I—how are we—you can’t die Orpheus. I need you! I need you to have your magic back, so you can save yourself and then save me!”

Then she lunged for him, threw her arms around Orpheus’ neck and—and sobbed.

Oh—

His hands left his sleeves, lifting, hesitating—like he should push her away. Of course he should push her away—

Gwen made a wretched sound, burying her face in his collar and clinging so tightly Orpheus knew he’d never be able to let her go.

Oh, Gwen. He dragged her close. Cheek to her hair, arms around her shoulders, he rocked them both, back and forth, over and over, holding her the way he wished someone had held him at her age. Safely. Securely. Strong so he could be weak. Steady so he could fall apart. Big so he could feel oh so very, very, small…

“I don’t want you to die, Fifi,” she sobbed through her tears.

And, all hells, he didn’t either. But if he had to, at least a part of him might live on in the girl he’d given magic. Because it was hers now—Gwen’s. Not his.

And that was okay.

“You’re alright, Gwen,” he whispered, soft enough to hide the shake in his voice. “We will figure it out, I promise,” didn’t feel like a lie, even though it absolutely was.

The only indication Gwen heard him was a tightening of her grip. She cried and cried, shaking against him with a force Orpheus had felt too many times himself. He held her gently through the storm raging inside her, ignoring the pressure in his own chest because her grief was more important. Gwen needed strength, and despite his broken leg and his lost magic and the prisoner he currently was, Orpheus thought he could offer her that. Wanted to, because he understood all too well how it felt to go without.

Eventually, her sobs turned to sniffs, her shivers to a tremble. Still, he held her, until the sound of pattering rain overwhelmed the quiet raps of Gwen’s sniffles. He couldn’t say how long they stayed like that, Gwen curled into him, Soot a dark shape in the window, Sanctuary’s hymn rising in waves from the rain, running like blood through the veins of a once living city. And outside, atop Sanctuary’s wall, the power cell flickered brightly amongst all their tiny lanterns, beacons in the night, power where power should not exist all thanks to him and Gwen.

“I wish I could have seen it,” he murmured once Gwen’s breathing had gone soft.