If I’d had a clue, I would have found another way. Any other way, even if it meant staying encased in stone, locked up with Grace, forever.

I run a hand through my hair, glancing around at the sheer destruction I’d leveled on this forest. I should come out and plant saplings in the spring. Grace would want that.

“If this doesn’t work, I’ll destroy you,” Jaxon snarls at me as the last rock covers her. He’s obviously spoiling for a fight.

But I’m not biting. I’m not going to be drawn into an argument when he wants to act like a child. So I swallow the eight thousand things I could say in response and settle for the pure, unvarnished truth. “If this doesn’t work, you won’t have to.”

Because what the fuck am I supposed to do if Grace doesn’t make it out of that grave? How the fuck am I supposed to live with myself…or just live, for that matter, without her?

“I can’t believe this is happening,” her cousin says, tears still pouring down her face.

Jaxon glares at me. “It shouldn’t be happening.”

I return the look with interest. “Maybe it wouldn’t be if you’d killed that bloody wolf the first time you had a shot at him.”

Okay, so maybe I am biting a little after all.

I can put up with a bloody buggering lot from my younger brother—and I have—but I’m not taking responsibility for something he should have taken care of to begin with.

“You really think my killing Cole would have prevented this?” he demands.

I don’t know. Maybe nothing would have prevented this, short of wrapping Grace in cotton and keeping her as far away from our father as we could. Then again, he would have found her eventually. Whether any of them know it or not, Cyrus has been gunning for her from the moment he first found out she was a gargoyle. Probably before.

“So what do we do now?” Macy asks, her voice echoing in the tense, angry silence that weighs between us. Her tears have finally stopped, but she sounds almost as empty as I feel as she stares down at the stone-covered grave.

“Now we wait,” Jaxon tells her. “What else is there to do?”

Nothing. If I thought there was something, anything else I could do to help Grace, I would be doing it.

“How long should it take?” Macy shifts her weight back and forth, like she’s too nervous to stand still.

“I don’t know.” And I don’t care. I’ll stand here as long as I have to if it means Grace comes out of that ground healed.

“Is there anything you do know?” Jaxon demands, and there’s a distrust in his eyes that slays me even as it makes me want to punch the shit out of him. “Why the fuck did you have to come back anyway? Things were fine before you got here—”

“By fine, you mean everyone thought I was dead, and you were wallowing in your own despair, throwing your life away like a total wanker? Because if that’s your definition of fine, then yes. Things were great.”

“Throwing my life away? I was trying to get my shit back together after everything you did and then what Mom…” He drifts off, but his scar stands out in stark relief against his cheek despite the weather.

And maybe I should feel bad about what our mother did to him, but fuck that. He has no idea how easy he’s had it.

“Oh, did Mummy not love you enough?” I make a fake-concerned face. “Poor little Jaxy-Waxy. It’s so hard to be you.”

“I should have done a better job of killing you when I had the chance.” He glares at me like he’s measuring me for a body bag…again. Big surprise.

“You really should have,” I agree with a deliberately bland expression. “Apparently you have a real history of screwing things up and then feeling bad for yourself. And of expecting everyone else to feel bad for you, too.”

“You know what? Fuck you! I don’t need anyone to feel bad for me.”

“Umm, guys—” Macy tries to interrupt, but this is a fight that’s way too long overdue and there’s no way a sixteen-year-old girl—witch or not—is going to be able to stop it.

“Sure you do,” I taunt, because I can’t stop myself now that I finally have the chance to say just a little bit of what’s been burning in my brain for weeks now. “When we were together, Grace went on and on about how sorry she felt for you. I kept telling her there was no reason to, but you know how softhearted our girl is.”

“My girl,” Jaxon corrects me. “My mate—bond or not.”

His words hit with an accuracy that makes them feel like body blows. The last two and a half weeks have been a living hell for me, and now he’s acting like he’s got all the cards when he’s the one who let this happen to Grace to begin with. It’s shite, absolute and total shite, and I’m sick of listening to him whine about it.

“Your mate? Oh, right. That must be why you protected her so well that there’s not even a bond anymore.”

His hands clench into fists. “You’re a real bastard, you know that, right?”

“And you’re a pathetic child who can’t protect himself, let alone anyone else.”

“You’re really going to come at me with that?” he demands incredulously. “Can we discuss—just for a minute—who the fuck I was trying to protect Grace from last semester? Oh, right. Your homicidal ex-girlfriend who wanted to sacrifice her to bring you back.”

Guilt slams through me all over again, because he’s right. This is all my fault. Not because I planned it, but because I couldn’t stop it.

So here we are. Lia’s dead, Grace is in the ground, and Jaxon—

“You guys!” This time Macy’s voice is more forceful when she tries to get our attention. “Look.”

The sleet is letting up, and Jaxon and I turn as one, just in time to see Grace’s body finish absorbing one of the stones my brother laid on her chest.

“What’s happening?” Jaxon asks, eyes wide and voice just a little awed.

“I’m not sure,” Macy answers. “But that’s the third one she’s absorbed in the last two minutes.”

“Really?” I watch as another stone starts to quiver and then gradually sinks into her flesh.

Our fight forgotten, Jaxon and I stand with Macy for long minutes while Grace slowly, slowly, slowly absorbs every stone, every rock, every pebble that Jaxon laid over her—hundreds of small shards sinking into every inch of her flesh, one by one by one.

When it’s over, when every single speck of granite has been absorbed into her body, we stand over her, waiting…for a sign, for a breath, for something that proves she’s alive.

Something that proves that this last-ditch desperation on my part actually worked.

Several nerve-racking seconds pass where nothing happens. And then, just when Jaxon starts cursing and I’m about to give up, Grace’s eyelids flicker open. It’s all I can do not to put my head down and sob in relief.

“Oh my God!” Macy’s hand flies up to cover her mouth as shock rockets through us all. “Grace! Grace, are you okay?”

Grace doesn’t answer, but as Jaxon races to sit beside her head, she smiles up at him.

“You’re okay?” he asks, and I’ve never heard such joy in my younger brother’s voice in our lives.

“I—” Her voice cracks and she coughs, licks her lips.

“Here!” Macy reaches into her ubiquitous backpack and pulls out a bottle of water that she hands to Jaxon.

He opens it, then helps Grace sit up in her bed of granite so that she can take a sip.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, slowly walking to the other side and crouching down beside her.

“Okay, I think.” She coughs a little more, then pauses like she’s taking inventory of herself. “Pretty good, actually. I think I’m…okay.”

This time when she takes a deep breath, she doesn’t cough.

“Do you remember what happened?” Macy asks, excitement and concern warring on her face.

Grace thinks and then says, “I do, yeah.”

And just like that, my hands are shaking, when they never shake. I can’t figure out what to do with them, so I shove them in my pockets. And wait.

“I won the game and Cyrus bit me. You guys brought me here and—” She turns to me. “Hudson, thank you. Thank you so much.”

Disappointment racks me, but I ignore it. I’m certainly used to it by now, and—on the positive side—at least my hands aren’t trembling anymore. So what if she remembers the facts of what happened today and nothing else. Certainly nothing that came before. It’s probably better that way.

“Don’t thank me,” I tell her, even as she reaches for me, her hand clutching at my arm as she smiles up at me in a way I haven’t seen from her in quite a while. Now my whole body is trembling…and I don’t have a bloody clue what to do about it.

Especially when Grace is full-on grinning at me despite the fact that her grip isn’t quite as strong or as firm yet as it would normally be. “And why is that exactly?”

A half a dozen answers come to mind, but in the end, I don’t say any of them.

“That’s what I thought.” She rolls her eyes. “Just admit you saved me, Hudson. I promise, it won’t make you any less of a jerk in the long run.”

“I think you’re confused.” I shake my head again, more determined than ever to make it stick this time. The last thing I want from Grace is gratitude. It’s the last thing I’ve ever wanted from her. “I was just—”

“I don’t want to argue with you,” she says. “Especially over something so ridiculous.”

“So don’t,” I answer. “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do right now.” Besides, you know, ripping my heart out of my chest again.

Things like returning to Katmere and taking her rightful place in the Circle.

Both necessary.