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“I have to die.” I closed my eyes, letting my heavy eyelids rest for one moment, then two, before forcing them open again.
Simon said, “Which means I must also die?”
“No, Simon,” I said, lifting my shaking, blood-sticky fingers to his cheek. “You already did.”
His eyes dropped to the talisman around my neck, the sombersweet-shaped bell and its crystal-teardrop striker. “I know this relic,” he said, eyes widening. “I’ve seen drawings of it. Mentions in old texts . . .”
Realization tugged the corners of his lips down, tightened the skin around his eyes. “I see. Where you’ve come from, Zan is alive. But I am not.”
I nodded. Then said, “There’s still time for you, Simon, if you want to save yourself. I can set you free. I did it for Kellan. I broke the blood bond between us.” I shook my head as if to rattle the memories out of it, but they remained: the thud of Fredrick’s sword. Kellan’s cry. The snap of our connection, severed completely, shattered forever. “I could do the same for you. Now, before it’s too late.”
“My dear girl,” Simon murmured, “I’m so sorry. For you, and your knight.”
“You know what it takes to break it?”
He nodded grimly. “Yes.” Then he swallowed. “If I don’t accept your offer, how much time do I have, from this moment?”
“Days.”
“And how do I go?”
“I die in Zan’s arms,” I said. “His life force, or godspark, or whatever the mages call it . . . his recognizes mine as his own. So when he touches me . . .” I let the senten
ce fade, unable to finish it. Here I was again, at the start of another loop: I was now telling Simon all the things he’d go on to tell me. “It’s over before I know what’s happening.”
“It was never magic making you ill.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t. Simon, I . . . I’m so sorry. It was so fast, so sudden . . .”
“You didn’t know.”
“But you do,” I said. “There’s still time to change your fate. I just have to find something you fear more than death . . .”
“The only thing I fear more than death is eternal life,” Simon said. “And that is not something you can give me, even if I wanted it.”
I thought of Rosetta and glanced up at the coffin above us. “You want to die?”
“Not particularly,” he said. “Do you?”
I closed my eyes. “I must. I’ve been told too many times to count now. One or the other. It’s me or Zan, and it can’t be Zan. The Empyrea has spoken.”
“And when have you ever trusted the Empyrea?” He rocked back. “You didn’t answer my question. Do you want to die?”
I tilted my head toward the ceiling and opened my eyes. Above, the vaults had been painted in the indigo tones of the night sky and studded with golden stars.
“No,” I said. It was the truth—my truth—spoken aloud for the first time. Si vivis, tu pugnas.
He nodded. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“When you came to me, after I . . . when you . . .” I cleared my throat. “. . . died . . . you told me to find a third way. This is the third way.”
“What do you need?”
“First, I’ll need you to make sure I get this.” I pulled Galantha’s grimoire from my cloak and pushed it into his hands.
Wincing, I dragged myself to my feet, leaning heavily upon the casket. I tried to wipe away some of the dust but succeeded only in streaking red fingerprints across the glass. Despite the grime and blood, I could still make out the silver surface upon which Cael had lain in stasis for centuries. “Then I’ll need you to cleave my subtle body from my material one,” I said. “And lock it in here until my consciousness can be sealed back into it.”
Simon was stunned. “That’s an undertaking of monumental proportions—”
