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“Monster!” Like the hymn Sanctuary sang every night, the shouts rose in tandem, a screeching wail that cut through the roar of cold fire and froze Orpheus where he stood.

“It’s the monster!”

The Prometheus roared, reaching over its shoulder to swat at a figure that arced through the air. Again, the city shrieked, but it wasn’t the Prometheus’ name Sanctuary screamed.

It was Fenrir’s.

“Monster of the Rim!”

Gold glinted in the violet, a crushing force propelling the figure straight into the Prometheus’ face.

The Prometheus stumbled forward, and Netherflame flared, a convulsive pulse as the Prometheus sucked in the healing energy it’d spent months starving for. But then the figure punched through the creature’s skull, brain matter splattering in an arc so violent the muck reached the square’s obsidian stones, and Orpheus’ heart froze in his chest.

Only one man possessed the raw power to do that. One man had the last-minute timing that should only exist in books. One man would fight such a creature to reach him, because Orpheus had spent the last half dozen weeks desperately waiting for just this.

“Fenrir?” he whispered, collapsing to his knees.

Like a man knelt in prayer, Orpheus watched the figure descend, all wild hair and a sharp toothy grin.

No. Not a grin.

A grimace.

“Orpheus,” Fenrir gasped, landing on the side of the fissure where Atticus knelt, an armored hand held out to the side as if in protection. Brilliant and golden against the raging violet, his hair lifting in a halo, cloak whipping about him with a buoyant power no one else could claim, Fenrir met Orpheus’ eyes not with shock. Not with surprise.

With horror.

“Orpheus,” he whispered. “What have you done?”

All the power Orpheus wielded froze in a rush of cold dread.

“I thought you were dead,” sounded small amongst the screams.

All hells, he wasn’t. He wasn’t.

Fenrir was alive!

The world faded away, sounds droning into a quiet din. He barely heard Red and Farris shouting, Atticus’ hiss, or Gwen’s gasp. All that existed was Fenrir. Fenrir, alive and healthy and here, and Orpheus—Orpheus began to cry.

“Fenrir,” he gasped, voice strangled. Heat replaced the cold in his veins, the tears on his cheeks stinging against wounds weeks in the making, his bad leg unable to take his weight when he stood, but none of that stopped him. Without thought, he lurched forward, the shattered square sliding out beneath him when the power he wielded fled alongside his strength. Obsidian dropped from the air, returning to the Earth to tumble into the chasm, Sanctuary’s fractured stones a mimicry of his own broken heart, reassembling in his chest piece by piece with each step he took, until the chasm was below him, his feet meeting open air.

And like all the other times Fenrir had caught him, he came for him again. He reached for Orpheus’ hand automatically, warm metal closing over the cold skin to haul him over the chasm and into his chest.

There, he buried his face in Fenrir’s chest, breathed in the familiar scent of leather and sweat, and began to sob.

“I’m here,” Fenrir whispered, words stilted, the hand in his hair tense. “You’re okay, I’m here.”

But nothing was okay. Not when, yards away, Atticus stood framed by Sanctuary’s shattered square, pale eyes widened on his beloved city in ruins. Nor when, at his back, he could hear Gwen’s ragged breathing, adrenaline bleeding out to be replaced by a guilt Orpheus well-knew the taste of, the part she’d played in the devastation a wound that would take years to heal.

And not when, against him, Fenrir remained rigid, the heart beneath Orpheus’ ear a hammer against an anvil rather than the warm comforting drum he’d grown so used to.

But Fenrir was alive, and in the end, wasn’t that all that mattered?

“You’re alive,” he gasped, shaking. “Fenrir, you’re alive. You came.”

“Of course I did,” Fenrir murmured, holding him close, stroking his hair, warmth finally breaking through his voice, the stiffness Orpheus clung to relaxing. At Orpheus’ back, Gwen’s breathing crept closer, Soot’s curious yowl carrying all the questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask—not yet. Not now. What took you so long? Why did you send Red? How did you not know about this place? About them?

The only hint at what had kept Fenrir away was the metal hand holding his. Orpheus clutched at it, following the delicate lines of a freshly etched illustration, the metal fittings seamless, the fingers gentle, like they could feel rather than simply touch. Not a gauntlet or a glove, but a limb.