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Danika’s smile was soft. “You asked for help.”
“Are you … are you alive? Over there, I mean.”
“No.” Danika shook her head. “No, Bryce. This, what you see …” She gestured to herself. The familiar jeans and old band T-shirt. “This is just the spark that’s left. What was resting over there.”
“But it’s you. This is you.”
“Yes.” Danika peered at the churning darkness above them, the entire ocean above. “And you don’t have much time to make the Ascent, Bryce.”
Bryce snorted. “I’m not making the Ascent.”
Danika blinked. “What do you mean?”
Bryce stepped back. “I’m not making it.” Because this was where her homeless soul would stay, if she failed. Her body would die in the world above, and her soul that she’d traded away to the Under-King would be left to wander this place. With Danika.
Danika crossed her arms. “Why?”
Bryce blinked furiously. “Because it got too hard. Without you. It is too hard without you.”
“That’s bullshit,” Danika snarled. “So you’ll just give up on everything? Bryce, I am dead. I am gone. And you’ll trade your entire life for this tiny piece of me that’s left?” Disappointment shuttered her caramel eyes. “The friend I knew wouldn’t have done that.”
Bryce’s voice broke as she said, “We were supposed to do this together. We were supposed to live out our lives together.”
Danika’s face softened. “I know, B.” She took her hand. “But that’s not how it turned out.”
Bryce bowed her head, thinking she’d crack apart. “I miss you. Every moment of every day.”
“I know,” Danika said again, and put a hand over her heart. “And I’ve felt it. I’ve seen it.”
“Why did you lie—about the Horn?”
“I didn’t lie,” Danika said simply. “I just didn’t tell you.”
“You lied about the tattoo,” Bryce countered.
“To keep you safe,” Danika said. “To keep the Horn safe, yeah, but mostly to keep you safe in case the worst happened to me.”
“Well, the worst did happen to you,” Bryce said, instantly regretting it when Danika flinched.
But then Danika said, “You traded your place in the Bone Quarter for me.”
Bryce began crying. “It was the least I could do.”
Tears formed in Danika’s eyes. “You didn’t think I’d make it?” She threw her a sharp, pained grin. “Asshole.”
But Bryce shook with the force of her weeping. “I couldn’t … I couldn’t take that risk.”
Danika brushed back a piece of Bryce’s hair.
Bryce sniffled and said, “I killed Micah for what he did. To you. To Lehabah.” Her heart strained. “Is—is she over in the Bone Quarter?”
“I don’t know. And yeah—I saw what happened in the gallery.” Danika didn’t explain more about the particulars. “We all saw.”
That word snagged. We.
Bryce’s lips trembled. “Is Connor with you?”
“He is. And the rest of the pack. They bought me time with the Reapers. To get to the Gate. They’re holding them off, but not for long, Bryce. I can’t stay here with you.” She shook her head. “Connor would have wanted more for you than this.” She stroked the back of Bryce’s hand with her thumb. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to stop fighting.”
