“I never wanted it to be like this—” he begins.

“You should go,” I say, cutting him off. “I guess this is goodbye.”

Jost reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, and I shatter, falling piece by piece back to the dome of safety in Arras. Back to stolen kisses. The memories mix together, muddling into something black and viscous, and the words I should say die on my lips.

“No, I’m not saying goodbye.” He walks out, sending my world spinning.

TWENTY-TWO

I STARE BLANKLY AT THE DOOR. THE only light streams in from the opened curtains, and everything around me is washed out and colorless. It feels false, even though this is reality. This is the real world. My real world, and I don’t want any part of it.

I’m still sitting there when Erik pushes the door open and peeks into my room. “Hey, you.”

I can’t manage a reply.

“I heard,” Erik says, the blue of his eyes deep and concerned, “about Jost.”

“I’m so tired of this,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m so tired of fighting with him.”

“But he’s gone now.”

I swallow, trying to digest the bitter truth of his words. “Yes. He is.”

“Which means you don’t have to fight anymore.” Erik moves beside me, hovering next to my vanity and waiting for me to speak.

I glance up at him. His expression is hard, but there’s something beneath it. Conflict.

“Erik—” I start to say.

“Don’t,” he says, putting a finger on my lips. I close my eyes and a tear falls, cold against my heated skin.

“You’re crying,” he says, and his hands drop from my face.

“It’s … it’s not you,” I say, because it isn’t.

It isn’t him. I know how he feels. And part of me wants to crash into him and forget. Forget Jost. Forget everything that’s happened since we left Arras. But Erik deserves more than I can give him. He deserves more than I can give anyone.

“For once let yourself feel something, Ad!” Erik yells, losing his composed attitude. “You can’t push everything down and make it disappear.”

“I feel alone,” I mumble.

“You aren’t.” Erik stands over me shaking his head. “You have me.”

“You deserve better,” I say to him, standing so that he can’t peer down at me like he’s looking into my soul.

“You’re the closest thing to a friend I’ve had for a long time.” He fingers the tear in my sleeve, and I pull my arm back. “So you can’t push me away, because I’m not giving up on you.”

“I feel like a lost cause. I’m tired of running and fighting, Erik. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. They didn’t even take me on the mission because I’m so useless. I guess I’m ready for this to be over,” I admit.

“This isn’t you,” he says. “Adelice Lewys rips the world apart. She attacks Remnants. She’s a little stupid but not helpless.”

“Do you really know me, Erik?” I ask, and the words taste sour. They build in my throat, unleashing themselves with an anger that pushes me forward to stare at my reflection screaming in the vanity mirror. “About him—about anything. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. I don’t know who I am anymore!”

I lash out at the image in front of me, flinging brushes and cosmetics across the room. They clatter to the floor, bottles shattering. The destruction calms me enough for me to break the hold of the mirror.

Erik’s shoulders drop, but his hands curl into fists. “I do.”

I stare at Erik as he bends to gather the scattered glass from the floor, wondering how he can be so certain. Of me. Of what we’re doing here. Isn’t he the boy who was angry for being ripped to Earth? How has he grown so much?

“Look, Ad,” he says, dropping to kneel next to me. “You are extraordinary.”

“I don’t want to be extraordinary,” I say softly, not meeting his eyes.

“I don’t mean your skills. You’re not extraordinary because you can weave, you are extraordinary because you have a good soul. Much better than mine. Or Jost’s. Or pretty much everyone I’ve ever known,” he says.

“A good soul who let her father die, who lets her mom sit in a prison cell. You know why Jost left, because he doesn’t think I can handle Sebrina.”

“Handle Sebrina?”

“Like be her mom or whatever.”

“That’s a lot to ask anyone,” Erik says.

“But if I loved him wouldn’t I have said I could, wouldn’t I have fought for it?” I ask.

I want him to answer me, because this is the question pressing at my chest, bearing down on my lungs. An answer would be my oxygen.

“You mean you can’t fathom how you would respond to someone you’ve never met in a situation you’ve never been in?”

I know the point Erik is trying to make, but it falls flat.

“Ad, he’s scared. Not just of not getting to Sebrina,” he says, “but of losing you.”

“Of losing me?” I repeat.

“You’re in more danger now than Rozenn ever was. People are chasing you. People who want to kill you or use you. He knows that.”

“So he’s protecting me?” I don’t buy it. The pain in Jost’s eyes wasn’t from loss, it was from betrayal. I know that. I betrayed him, and the worst part is that I’m not even sure how.