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“Shut up, Fifi,” Gwen sniffed, holding on. “Be careful, okay?”

“Okay,” he whispered. “You too.”

Then there was nothing left to say. No more apologies to make or goodbyes to give. Orpheus stood still long enough to watch Gwen take Atticus’ hand, then a shadow opened beneath their feet, both reappearing at the opposite side of the torn-open square, white cloaks disappearing into the churning mist.

By the time Orpheus turned back to Fenrir, they were alone.

“You ready for this?” Fenrir met his eyes and held out his hand.

“Fought it once and, well, to say I walked away wouldn’t be entirely truthful.” Orpheus limped towards Fenrir, the pain in his re-broken leg nearly sending him back to his knees.

Fenrir caught him before that could happen. “Sounds like a good story for later, huh?”

“To say the least.” Orpheus clung to Fenrir’s arm, the metal warm, the strength underneath undeniable. And of all his egregious failures in these last few weeks, doubting Fenrir felt the most dreadful of all. “I’m sorry, Fenrir. What I did here…I...”

“We’ll have time for that later,” Fenrir said, gentler than anything yet. “But for what’s it’s worth, I’m sorry too. For taking so long to come, and...and making promises I couldn’t keep.”

“You kept it, though,” Orpheus acknowledged. “In the end.”

“Did I?” was a question too loaded with implications for Orpheus to answer right then, not when the Prometheus had abandoned its place at the edge of the tenements and was loping towards them. Not while Red and Farris were off to save what was left of Fenrir’s soldiers. Soldiers Orpheus himself had cut down, even if by accident. Certainly not when the promise Fenrir spoke of breaking may not even be the one he’d made to Orpheus, Fenrir’s speech an echo inside his head.

“So, we protect who’s left,” he said, squeezing Fenrir’s hand, wanting desperately to believe there was a way—any way—to come back from this. For both of them. “It’s all we can do now, right?”

“Right,” Fenrir breathed, the world they both stood upon quaking.

Then it was no longer the world beneath their feet, but open air.

Chapter XLV

Peace

Pressed to Fenrir’s side, wind in his hair, they soared towards the Prometheus together. One giant leap fueled by an impossible strength that could overcome the most impossible odds. Odds Orpheus continued to face down as if the fiction that had once painted his world with magic had been the only real truth all along.

What other explanation did he have for this?

A nudge of his will. A shiver of breath, then cold fire ignited his core; that fractured place inside him Gwen had torn open anew, a wound he’d thought healed, but now realized had simply been sealed away to fester alongside all the pain he’d naively thought he’d healed from the day he closed the chasm. Now the wound bled fresh, another chance or, maybe, another mistake. He didn’t know anymore. Didn’t dare try to guess. Because what he’d told Gwen remained true: he wasn’t sure he deserved this, let alone earned it. Not while the fallout of his magic’s return lay far below as a city in pieces, and a starving population who fought for far more than their next meal to eat.

All because of him.

“Here we go!” Fenrir shouted over the rush of wind in his ears, sword dancing in the mist, their descent coming quick. One enormous arc through the open air and then gravity snatched their weight, Fenrir’s hold on him secure while his gauntleted arm raised his sword to pierce. Face split on a grin, the euphoria of battle as hot in Fenrir’s veins as Netherflame was cold in his, Orpheus put a finger to Fenrir’s cuirass and released a breath.

The sigil etched into the leather with a little happy hiss, shield spell shivering to life around them just in time for the Prometheus’ hand to pluck them straight out of the sky.

Or rather, it tried to.

“That’s a neat new trick,” Fenrir laughed while they catapulted towards a crumbling tenement house, the Prometheus’ roar muffled by the bubble of magic encasing them, a fiery cocoon of ice that deflected, rather than absorbed. Fenrir hit the obsidian boots first. Knees bending, thighs flexing, a burst of strength launched them back towards the Prometheus with the same amount of effort Orpheus spent readying his next spell.

Very little, if he was honest with himself.

This time, the Prometheus didn’t have time to react. Fenrir’s sword sunk into its shoulder and he used the momentum to swing them around to its opposite side, barely ahead of the hand that slapped down where his blade had just been. Orpheus chewed his lip when he watched the wound Fenrir inflicted close before the palm even had a chance to make contact.

Against him, Fenrir made a frustrated sound. “Shit, is that thing healing?”

“Yes, and it will continue to do so this close to a source of Netherflame.”

No matter how strong Fenrir was, his sword was still a sword, and his gauntlet arm was still a gauntlet. They were as likely to kill the Prometheus as they were to grow Fenrir a brand-new limb. But that was fine, because they didn’t need to kill it. They only needed to send it back to Hell, and the distraction they were here for was already working. He could see them, scattering through the mist, little dark spots fleeing towards Sanctuary’s main gate, led by a man and a girl, each cloaked in white.

People. Survivors. Escaping.