Piper doesn’t bother looking back at me. Even in the moonlight, she’s impossible not to see. I think that would be the case even without my sharp vision, with that cascading vibrant red hair of hers. “I trust Amity will find a way to save him.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on a child.”

Piper sighs, and pauses a moment with her hand on the branch she’s holding out of my way. “I know. It’s not my preference.”

We travel in silence for a while, when she asks quietly, “How are they?”

I hesitate to reply. I’ve already told Piper about the Rip being opened; I just haven’t mentioned the role I played.

“It’s been weeks since I traveled with them,” I say, but a hint of desperation peeks through her gaze and guilt floods my chest. I shouldn’t have brought this up, caused her more pain than necessary. I don’t even know why I did, other than the incessant need to feel that someone is hurting as much as I am. Or the need to know I’m not alone in making choices that hurt my loved ones. “But last I saw them, Amity was working on something to save him. She thought she might be close.”

“And Marcus?”

“Marcus…” A lie waits on my tongue, but I find it feels crueler than even the truth. “His condition had worsened by the time I left. Though he put up quite a fight when the Others attacked. I…I imagine you would have been proud to see the way he protected Amity. The way he protected all of us.” I admit it to myself more than her.

Piper’s smile is strained, like she’s holding back tears, but she seems grateful all the same. “He’s a protector. He can’t help himself. It must be killing him, knowing Amity is fretting over him.”

I nod, not knowing quite what to say.

After a while and much contemplation, I find I can’t hold the words in. The ones that are dying to burst through my chest.

“Why did you do it?” I ask, because the question is clawing at my insides, chewing on my very soul.

“Why did I do what?”

“Why didn’t you protect the only real hope of saving Marcus?”

“Abra wasn’t the only hope,” Piper repeats, her tone wary. Is she wary of me, or her own motivations?

“I don’t think you actually believe that.”

Piper whips around to face me, her red curls blazing, but it’s nothing compared to the fury in her ivy-green eyes.

As soon as the rage appears, it’s gone, and her shoulders sag. “It worries me. That I didn’t save his only hope of surviving.”

“Then why did you do it? Why save me when you could have tried to stop Nox from killing Abra?” It feels like I’m asking for the millionth time, but I have to know, have to understand.

But that’s not the right question, is it? The one I truly want to ask. How did you do it? That’s the question that’s eating away at my soul. How did you find the strength to give up the person you love the most for someone you hardly know, when I couldn’t even do it for my oldest friend?

Piper shakes her head. “It was the right thing to do.”

She says it like she thinks she’s protecting someone innocent. I wonder if she would have saved me had she known what I’ve done. Had she known it’s my fault Amity was nearly ripped to shreds by an Other. That Evander and Ellie’s child had died for my folly.

That a mother might have died too.

All your fault. Always your fault, sings the parasite from the adamant box at my belt. I could make it go away, you know. The hurt. The pain. Silly silly servant girl…

I ignore it.

As much as I can.

“Abra was a blight on this world,” Piper explains. “I learned her story as we traveled. Abra was willing to go to any lengths to save her son. She allowed her affection for him to blind her to the truth of what he is. Who he might hurt if allowed to live.”

I frown. “You never intended to reform him with your Gift, did you?”

Piper pauses. “No. No, I didn’t.”

“You were going to kill him, even though it meant Abra would refuse to save Marcus. You’d already decided on it.”

Piper’s pale throat bobs. “Yes.”

“But you love Marcus.”

Tears shimmer in Piper’s green eyes. “Of course, I love him.”

Then why. Then how. Please, I want to beg, but I don’t. I simply wait for her to answer.

Instead, she turns to face me, sweeping me over with her gaze.

“How do you know that you love someone?”

I don’t hesitate. “When you know you’d do anything for them.”

“And what if doing anything for them means burning the world down?”

“Then you do it.”

Piper looks contemplative for a moment. “But if you burn the world down, what will there be for your love to return to? What home will be left for them?”

Her words settle in my heart. “I suppose then you’re their home.”

Her eyes pierce me. “And what if, in ruining the world, you ruin yourself, too?”

I open my mouth, but I can’t quite find an answer.

Piper sighs, then leans against a nearby tree. “I once had a man I would have burned the world down for. I loved him. He’d rescued me when I was a child, saved me from freezing to death in the snow. And when even my mother rejected me, he took me into his arms. Gave me a home. So I did as he asked, whatever he asked. Even if what he asked me to do chipped away at my soul. So, I suppose I burned the world for him. Is that love?”

Again, I don’t think I have a response, but I try anyway. “That’s manipulation. It’s not at all—” I want to say it’s not at all the same, to convince Piper that Nox hadn’t asked me to betray my friends, to burn down the world for him. That much is true, but I get the feeling I’m missing something.

So I say nothing.

“Love…” Piper says, trailing off, like she’s searching for the right words. “Love shouldn’t ruin a person, Blaise. If it does, you have to start questioning whether it’s love at all, or simply fear masquerading as something more pure than it can ever hope to be.”

I halt, chewing my lip. “You shouldn’t have saved me.”

Piper looks tired. “And why is that?”

“Because I helped Azrael open the Rip.”