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"Yes! A really strong one, too!" She looked up at me, her face shining with excitement. "Garrik, you're alive!" Then she glanced from my body to my ghostly form and gave a slightly embarrassed laugh. "Well…sort of."

I couldn't help chuckling, despite the extraordinary circumstances.

"Yes, sweetheart. Sort of."

She continued examining my body, looking for any sign that I might wake up. But although my heart was beating and my lungs were working, my eyes remained closed and my limbs lay motionless upon the marble table. It was as though my body had awakened from its century-long sleep but was still waiting for its rightful occupant to return—me, it was waiting for me.

I moved closer to the table, feeling the strange pulling sensation intensify with every step.

"Celeste," I murmured. "I can feel it calling to me."

She looked up.

"What do you mean?"

"My body," I explained. "It's drawing me towards it. Almost as though there's some invisible connection between us."

Her eyes widened.

"Well, that's good, isn't it? Maybe you can just kind of…get inside it now!"

"I shall certainly try," I said.

I stepped closer to the table and reached towards my physical form. At once, the pulling sensation became almost overwhelming. I felt as though some powerful force had seized hold of my spirit and was drawing me towards my body.

For one extraordinary moment, I thought I was actually going to merge with it…but something stopped me.

It was like encountering an invisible wall. I could feel my body waiting for me on the other side, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't cross the barrier which separated us.

I pushed against it again, summoning every bit of magical strength I possessed…but nothing happened.

"Come on!" I growled, feeling my frustration rising. "After a hundred years, surely this ought to be enough!"

"Garrik, be careful!" Celeste exclaimed. "You don't want to hurt yourself!"

"I hardly think that's possible, woman!" I snapped. "I'm already a ghost!"

"Well, you don't have to snap at me!" she shot back. "I'm just trying to help!"

I took a deep breath—or at least, I tried to. The gesture was rather pointless in my spectral state, though somewhere inside my physical body, I felt my lungs obediently expand.

How extraordinary…and how infuriating! I was so close to being whole again that I could practically taste it, and yet some invisible barrier was still keeping me separated from my own body.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," I said at last, looking at Celeste. "I didn't mean to snap at you. It's simply rather frustrating to be this close to breaking the curse and still be unable to complete the process."

Her expression softened.

"I know," she said gently. "But look how far we've come! This morning, your body was just lying here like a statue. Now it's breathing and has a heartbeat. That's got to mean something!"

"Indeed, it does," I agreed.

"And maybe we just need to figure out what the missing piece is," she continued. "I mean, the spell said it would start your spirit on its way back to your body. It didn't necessarily say it would finish the job all at once."

I thought about that for a moment—she was right, of course. The Moon Script had specifically said that the kiss would set my sundered soul upon its path. Perhaps that was all we had accomplished tonight—the first step towards reuniting my spirit with my physical form. And considering that several powerful witches had failed even to accomplish that much over the past century, it was still a remarkable achievement.

"You're quite right, Celeste," I said at last. "We've made extraordinary progress."

She smiled.