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"Of course not! No one can ask you to do that. No one should. If you decide to do this-and I mean you decide, not anyone else-then we'll figure out how to make it work so you come out safe and sound. Besides, I wouldn't let you sacrifice your own soul. It's mine. "
"Uh, I think you mean my heart is yours. That's a little more romantic and less stalker creepy. "
"Well, regardless, you know mine is yours, right? Heart, soul, whatever. It's all yours. "
I smiled and buried my face in the carpet so my cheek was resting against the cool wall. "I know. "
After a few quiet minutes during which I nearly fell asleep, Lend spoke again, his words soft but shaking me to my core. "What if we can never fix this?"
"What?"
"This stupid thing keeping us apart. What if we can't break it? Because I'm not going to accept a life where I can't touch you. "
"I don't know what else to do, besides hitting up the Light Queen for help. And I really don't want to. "
"It just doesn't make any sense! I've been thinking about it-I haven't been thinking about anything else-and why would the Dark Queen do this? I mean, why curse me so that I can't physically be near you? It seems so. . . childish, you know? Like, if she didn't want me to escape or she wanted to punish me if I managed to, why not curse me to die? Or to never wake up at all?"
I frowned, sitting up. "I hadn't thought about it that way. I kind of thought it was a genius evil curse, but with what we know about her, it does seem sort of silly. "
"She didn't strike me as much of a prankster in the short but overwhelmingly terrifying time we spent together. Epically cruel, sure. Cleverly mean, not so much. "
"Not being able to talk to you face-to-face and touch you is pretty epically cruel, Lend. "
His voice came out tortured. "I know. But still. "
"Yeah. Maybe she couldn't just kill you? Because of, I don't know, your mom?"
"Maybe. "
"I should ask Reth about. . . oh, crap!" I was the worst person ever. I stood up. "I totally forgot about Reth. "
"What about him?"
"He got hurt. A faerie tried to attack me, but he pushed me out of the way and it hit him instead. He seemed pretty bad off. "
"How did you get away, then?"
I rolled my eyes in aggravation and glared at the ceiling, hating what I had to confess. Lend knew how much it affected me, taking souls, and I always felt guilty and dirty, like he was judging me even though he tried not to. "The faerie came after me when Reth was down and I sucked out some of her soul. "
"Good. "
"I-Good?"
"Yes. Good. "
I shuddered. "You don't have the creepy, icy thing in you. It's not good. "
"You here, safe and alive? Good. "
I smiled sadly and knocked on the wall three times. "I"-knock-"love"-knock-"you"-knock.
He knocked three times back.
I wavered, then blurted out, "Will you go through if I open the gate?"
"No," he said, but there were a few seconds of hesitation before it slipped out, and those few seconds filled me with dread and loneliness so deep it was colder even than the midnight faerie's soul. He didn't know.
He knocked on the wall again. "Go check on Reth. But be careful. I haven't slept on purpose in way too long, so I'm going to bed. And since I'll be asleep anyway, come sleep next to me when you get back in, okay?"
