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“Seen what?” Gwen asked, wiping at her nose.

“Sanctuary, alive.”

Gwen said nothing, she remained against him, staring out the same window while thoughts Orpheus was not privy to shadowed her face.

Eventually, when she spoke, it wasn’t the question he expected.

“What was it like having so much power?”

Incredible, he didn’t say. Instead, Orpheus swallowed and pushed Gwen far enough away to see her face.

“I don’t think I truly grasped what I had until it was gone.” And then he asked, because, like all the things in his life that inevitably got him into trouble, his curiosity remained untouched, “What did you feel when you cast?”

“Like it was gonna work. Why didn’t it work?”

“I suppose it didn’t have enough power. But...perhaps we started too large. Maybe, we need to keep our goal small.”

“Small?” Gwen repeated, looking up at him. Her eyes were pink, her upper lip swollen, but there was an edge to her gaze Orpheus recognized. Her mind was working too, putting the same mirrored pieces together. “Like…a smaller crack?”

“Or one that is closer. Somewhere the distance is not as vast.”

“Like where?” Gwen asked, brows pinched. “What’s closer to Hell than Sanctuary?”

“Maybe your Myrkur friend would know?”

Gwen looked up at Soot, brows turning from a pinch to a crease. “Duluth couldn’t tell me if he wanted to. But Daedra would know if there was such a place.”

But Daedra wasn’t here, and the closest place to Hell Orpheus could think of was perched there in his lap.

No, what Sanctuary needed was the chasm, and the only person who had ever tapped into that had been him.

Suddenly, violet flared again, weaker this time. The fireball tiny, the palm that held it small.

Orpheus held his breath.

“Take it,” Gwen whispered, and Orpheus listened. Without protest or hesitation, he obeyed.

The Netherflame flickered in his palm, happy and full. A tiny creature of limitless potential, content to exist as if nothing in the whole universe could stand in its way. Gwen watched it through hooded eyes, breathing evenly against his shoulder, the faintest smile on her face.

Orpheus tried to return it, but tears welled in his eyes before the first sting of heat touched his nose. He wept quietly. Privately. Netherflame held close between them, the failed sigil forgotten on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, whether to himself or Gwen or this teeny tiny flame, he couldn’t say. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Silence fell, broken by his quiet sobs and Gwen’s breath, the thump of Soot’s paws a momentary breach, one made clear when the Hell beast appeared before them to join Gwen in Orpheus’ lap.

Another wave of grief crashed over him, followed by an unlikely warmth. At least he wasn’t alone. At least he still had this—some kind of connection to magic, no matter how small. How dim.

How…not his.

“Thank you for caring,” he finally managed, then, to perhaps both their shock, he handed the flame back.

“We have time to try again,” she offered, but Orpheus shook his head, ignoring the pounding rhythm of his heart, the fading hope that he hadn’t even realized had rooted there.

Gwen spent a long minute fussing over him. She dabbed the wet part of his collar with the cuff of her sleeve, then plucked at a piece of fur Soot had left behind with a guilty grimace. Only once she began fixing his hair did Orpheus bat her hands away.

“Gwen, I’m—”

“Okay?” she finished for him, voice filled with so much hope he couldn’t help but feel a little, himself.