“Get up, Barrons!” I scream. “Move, damn you!”

I’m afraid to touch him. Afraid if I do, his body will be cooling noticeably. I’ll feel the fragility of his flesh, the mortality of Barrons. “Fragility,” “mortality,” and “Barrons” all packed together in the same thought feels about as blasphemous as stalking through the Vatican hammering upside-down crosses on the walls.

I squat ten paces from his body.

I stay back, because if I get close I’ll have to roll him over and look in his eyes, and what if they’re empty like Alina’s were?

Then I’ll know he’s gone, like I knew she was gone, too far beyond my reach to ever hear my voice again, to hear me say, I’m sorry, Alina, I wish I’d called more often; I wish I’d heard the truth beneath our vapid sister talk; I wish I’d come to Dublin and fought beside you, or raged at you, because you were acting from fear, too, Alina, not hope at all, or you would have trusted me to help you. Or maybe just apologize, Barrons, for being too young to have my priorities refined, like you, because I haven’t suffered whatever the hell it is you suffered, and then shove you up against a wall and kiss you until you can’t breathe, do what I wanted to do the first day I saw you there in your bloody damned bookstore. Disturb you like you disturbed me, make you see me, make you want me—pink me!—shatter your self-control, bring you crashing to your knees in front of me, even though I told myself I’d never want a man like you, that you were too old, too carnal, more animal than man, with one foot in the swamp and no desire to come all the way out, when the truth was that I was terrified by what you made me feel. It wasn’t what guys make girls feel, dreams of a future with babies and picket fences, but frantic, hard, raw loss of self, like you can’t live without that man inside you, around you, with you all the time, and it only matters what he thinks of you, the rest of the world can go to hell, and even then I knew you could change me! Who wants to be around someone that can change them? Too much power to let another person have! It was easier to fight you than admit that I had undiscovered places inside me that hungered for things that weren’t accepted in any kind of world I knew, and the worst of it is that you woke me up from my Barbie-girl world and now I’m here and I’m wide awake, you bastard, I couldn’t be more awake, and you left me—

I think I’ll scream until he gets up.

He was the one who told me not to believe anything was dead until I’d burned it, poked around in its ashes, then waited a day or two to see if anything rose from them.

Surely I’m not supposed to burn him.

I don’t think there are any circumstances under which I could do that.

I’ll squat.

I’ll scream.

He’ll get up. He hates it when I’m melodramatic.

While I wait for him to revive, I listen for sounds of scrabbling at the cliff’s edge. I half-expect Ryodan to drag his broken, bloody body up over the edge. Maybe he’s not really dead, either. After all, we’re in Faery, maybe, or at least within the Silvers—who knows what realm this is? Might the water here have rejuvenating powers? Should I try to get Barrons to it? Maybe we’re in the Dreaming and this terrible thing that has happened is a nightmare, and I’ll wake up on a couch in Barrons Books and Baubles and the illustrious, infuriating owner will raise a brow and give me that look; I’ll say something pithy, and life will be lovely, chock-full of monsters and rain again, just the way I like it.

I squat.

No scrabbling in the stones and shale.

The man with the spear in his back doesn’t move.

My heart is full of holes.

He gave his life for me. Barrons gave his life for me. My self-serving, arrogant, constant jackass was the constant rock beneath my feet, willing to die so I could live.

Why the hell would he do that?

How do I live with that?

A terrible thought occurs to me, so awful that for a few moments it eclipses my grief: I would never have killed him if Ryodan hadn’t appeared. Did Ryodan set me up? Did he come here to kill Barrons, who was never invincible, merely difficult to kill? Maybe Barrons could be killed only in his animal form, and Ryodan knew he’d have to be in it to protect me. Was this an elaborate ruse that had nothing to do with me? Was Ryodan working with the LM, and they wanted Barrons out of the way so I’d be easier to deal with, and the abduction of my parents was mere sleight of hand? Look over there while we kill the man who threatens us all. Or maybe Barrons had been cursed to live out some hellish sentence and could be slain only by someone he trusted, and he’d trusted me. Beneath all the cold arrogance, the mockery, the constant pushing, had he given over that most private part of himself to me—a confidence I’d never earned, as I couldn’t have proven any more surely than if I’d stabbed him in the back?

Oh, gee, wait, I did. On Ryodan’s word alone, I’d turned on him.

The accusation of betrayal in the beast’s gaze hadn’t been an illusion. It had been Jericho Barrons in there, staring at me from behind that prehistoric brow, baring his fangs, reproach and hatred blazing in his feral yellow eyes. I’d broken our unspoken pact. He’d been my guardian demon and I’d killed him.

Had he despised me for not seeing through the hide of the beast he’d worn to the man within?

See me. How many times had he said that to me? See me when you look at me!

When it mattered most, I’d been blind. He’d been dogging my every step, treating me with that characteristic Barrons’ combination of aggression and animal possessiveness, and I’d never once recognized him.

I’d failed him.

He’d come to me in a barbaric, inhuman form, to keep me alive. He’d set himself up as IYD regardless of what it might cost him, knowing he would be turned into a mindless, raging beast capable only of slaughtering everything in his immediate vicinity but for one thing.

Me.

God, that look!

I cover my face with my hands, but the image won’t go away: beast and Barrons, his dark skin and exotic face, its slate hide and primal features. Those ancient eyes that saw so much and asked only to be seen in return burn with scorn: Couldn’t you have trusted me just once? Couldn’t you have hoped for the best, just once? Why did you choose Ryodan over me? I was keeping you alive. I had a plan. Did I ever let you down?

“I didn’t know it was you!” I gouge my palms with my nails. They bleed for a brief moment, then heal.