“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, and it was all that I could make out. “I’m so sorry.”

She gargled something back, gruesomely choking on her own blood. I felt strangely detached from the moment, watching myself die in agony. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, as I watched the horror unfold before me. Her body became limp in Will’s arms, his anguish naked on his face, and her eyes lost their focus.

Will bent over her, clutching her tightly to his chest, before he laid her back onto the grass. “I can never save you. You always die like this, in my arms, and I can’t bring you back.”

I watched my dream self shudder into silence, the blood leaking from her like a river. “That’s not me,” I told him, finding my voice at last. “Well, it was me, but I’m right here. This is just a memory. A dream. This isn’t real.”

“It’s always real.” His fingers brushed my dream self’s cheek as his jaw tightened and he closed his eyes. “It hurts so much. You’re dying, and I can feel it like acid through my veins, through my bones. You’re so sad and I know your sadness is for me, not for yourself. I feel everything that you feel.”

“Then feel me,” I pleaded. I knelt beside him, trying to focus on him and not my dream self dying on the ground. I took his face in my hands and made him look at me. Forgotten, the body faded away. “Feel that I’m right here. My heart’s beating. I’m alive and I’m right next to you. I’m not hurt, can’t you see?”

His lip trembled as his eyes roved over me. A tear slipped over his cheek and disappeared. “How? How are you there?”

“You’re dreaming, Will,” I said, smoothing a hand over his hair, trying to stop my own tears from coming. “Believe me. This isn’t real, but I am. I’m right here.”

“You’re okay?”

His voice was so heartbroken that I was breathless for a few seconds. I nodded and drew in a quivering breath. “Yes,” I whispered. “I’m okay.” I took his hand and pressed it to my chest. “Feel my heartbeat? I’m okay, I promise.”

He swallowed hard and his shoulders sagged with relief. He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face into my shoulder, pulling me into him. “Ellie,” he sighed. “I miss you where I am. It’s dark here.”

I hushed him, resting my cheek against his hair. “I’m with you. I’m right here.”

The scene changed and we were on the cliffs of Scotland again, and the misty wind shoved against me, but I didn’t feel its chill. The crashing waves and crying gulls were in the distance and it was just him and me.

He lifted his head, his green eyes bright and gazing up at me. He pulled me into his lap and my knees sank into the cool grass on either side of him. He cupped my face, brushing his cheek against my skin, moving against me, drawing my hair over my shoulders and pressing his lips to the locks as he inhaled. “Jasmine,” he whispered, and smiled wistfully.

I nodded and a soft sob escaped me. I still wore the perfume I’d put on for prom. “Yes, Will.”

“I miss you,” he said again.

“I miss you, too.”

“I keep looking for the light, but I can’t find it. Come back to me.”

My fingers brushed his lips and I pressed my forehead to his. “I will, I promise.”

He tilted his head back and his mouth opened against mine, his lips soft, and I melted into him. He held me as close as he physically could, his hands gentle but tight, as if he were afraid I were a tiny bird that might fly away if it escaped. An overwhelming rush of sadness and longing passed through me, because I knew this wasn’t real, that we weren’t really together. His torment broke my heart and I felt like I was falling through the sky, like the ground wasn’t really beneath me, like my body wasn’t really against his. None of this was real. None of it.

It’s not real.

No matter how hard I tried to believe the words circling in my mind, I could only focus on Will, who kissed me like he needed my lips to breathe, like we were sinking beneath the ocean beyond the cliffs and we’d drown if he pulled away. I could only think of how much time I’d wasted, all these centuries of denying how much I was in love with him, and now he was dying.

Something tugged at my core, pulling my stomach out my back. I broke our kiss and stared into his face, confusion wrapping around me. My body jerked involuntarily and he tightened his grip on me.

“Ellie?” he asked.

“I don’t know what that is,” I confessed, holding on to him.

“Please don’t leave me,” he begged. “Please stay here so I’m not alone.”

A vice clamped down on my heart. “I can’t control this.”

“Ellie—”

Then something yanked me back at a lightning speed and Will’s form blurred to nothingness at the end of a dark tunnel as he cried out my name. The sensation of flying through the air came to a halt when I woke up in a soft bed. I thrashed in the sheets with a desperate gasp of fright and I sat bolt upright. My pulse hammered beneath my skin, which was damp with cold sweat. Once again, I had no idea where I was, but this place was real. I was truly awake this time.

The room around me was dark and unfamiliar, and I pulled back the sheets to find myself still wearing my clothes from earlier. They were ripped and dirty from the fight at the nightclub. As I started to slide off the bed, a door on the far wall opened and Cadan appeared with a frightened look on his face.