“You’re a murder victim. How can you be more scared now than you were the night you died?”

“I don’t know. There was no time to be scared then. All I could do was react. Fight. But now there’s nothing to do but think about what Avari’s doing to my dad and what he’ll do to your mom and Brendon when he gets them. Or about how we can’t stop it. We’ve been in and out of the Netherworld a dozen times in the past twenty-four hours, and we haven’t seen a single sign of your mom and my uncle since we found those bandages, and what scares me even worse is that Avari hasn’t found them yet, either. How is that possible? I mean, if they were still alive, wouldn’t he have found them, even if we can’t?”

“Maybe not.” Tod’s eyes went still beneath the burden of a fear I understood very well. As did Sophie and Nash. “They’re alive, Kay. And so’s your father. We’re going to get them back.”

“I know. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. But...” I sat straighter in his lap and looked right into his eyes. “You know we can’t do that without sacrificing something else, right? We can’t get them back without casualties.”

He shook his head. “No. No one else is going to—”

“Tod. We’re both as grown-up as we’re going to get, and we have to stop telling each other faerie tales. This isn’t a happy-ending kind of world we live in. Nothing comes without a price, and someone has to be willing to pay.”

“The bad guys are going to pay. It’s their turn to pay.”

“What part of our recent interaction with the Netherworld leads you to believe that’s even possible? If Ira had wanted Sabine dead, she’d be dead, and who knows how many more of us would have died trying in vain to save her. Or even find her. Sometimes I think we’re only alive because they haven’t decided to kill us yet.”

“We’re not alive,” Tod said, but for once, his grin failed to lighten the mood—because it wasn’t a real grin. He was as scared and angry as I was, and there was no way to truly forget that, while those we loved were suffering beyond our reach.

“You know what I mean.” I took a sip from my cup and handed him his, careful not to get them confused. Fortunately, I’d depressed the “diet” bubble on the lid of my own, even though there was no such thing as a diet cherry limeade. Thank goodness.

“I also know you’re wrong.” He took a drink, then set his cup down again. “We’re not alive because they haven’t decided to kill us yet. We’re alive in spite of them wanting us dead. Because they  have tried, and we’ve come through it okay every single time. Because of you, Kaylee.”

“It was a team effort. Besides, not all of us came through it, and that part was because ofme.”

“Don’t.” Tod took my face in his hands and kissed me before I could argue. Then he pulled me close again and spoke into my ear so softly I wasn’t sure if I was hearing words from his mouth or from his heart. “You don’t get credit for killing Alec because you would never have hurt him. Never. You’ve lost everything protecting the people you love. Em and Sophie. Nash. Your dad. And me. I’m here because of you. I’m as close to human as I can be—as I’ll ever be again—because you’re here with me. Every night, I count down the minutes until I can see you. I hate school because it takes you away from me. I wish I could sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, so I could dream about you. My mom and Nash are very important to me. I would do anything for them. But you’re the reason I’m still here. You’re the reason I’m still me—the reason I still see people instead of potential names on a future list.”

He held me tighter, and tears rolled down my cheeks before I even knew they were there. “We’re going to get through this. I promise you, Kaylee.” He pulled away so he could see my eyes, and I saw sincerity in his. Earnestness. I saw how very much he believed what he was saying. “We’re going to get them back. And we’re going to be together forever. There’s nothing in either world strong or evil enough to come between us.”

But he was wrong.

I blinked before he could see the truth in my eyes.

“You want to cross over again?” he asked, and I opened my eyes. “We can go now. I don’t have to be at work until midnight, and I won’t have a reaping until—”

“No. I mean yes, I do, but not yet. In a couple of hours. For now, I just want...you. Us. This.” I kissed him again and ran my hands through his curls, thinking about how soft his hair was. How good his skin felt beneath my hands, smooth and firm, and so very warm.

How this might be the last time...

“Mmm...” he moaned against my skin. He worked his way down my neck while I worked my way up from his stomach, dragging his tee up with my hands, trying to touch all of him at once. When my fingers crawled over his collarbones, he leaned back and lifted his arms so I could pull his shirt off.

I have no idea where it landed.

Tod lifted me and turned, and suddenly I was looking up at him, propped up on my elbows. His eyes churned with an intense blend of pain, and fear, and need, and anger, but at the center, just outside of his pupils, there was a deep spiral of something more powerful than all the others. Something stronger, like it could swallow everything else he was feeling, and with a sudden, startling leap of intuition, I realized that that spiral was me. That deep, bright blue that grew and twisted throughout the other colors—that was how he felt about me.