No. I try to shake the voice away, but I’ve run the words over so many times in my mind, they’re etched into the very fabric of my consciousness.

I stand, placing my hand against the cool wall of the cavern. As if I need that to guide myself in the dark. As if my fae sight doesn’t adjust on my behalf. As if I can’t make a light source out of the air between my fingertips.

I can save her, whispers the voice, and my heart stops in my chest.

That’s impossible, I mouth back, but I can’t say it aloud, because I know it isn’t true. Not when Blaise, living evidence contrary to my point, sleeps soundlessly across the fire from me, the flames highlighting her features. Though nothing about her pallor indicates health, at least she’s alive.

Here.

With me.

It’s the here with me part that Asha won’t be. Not in a handful of decades, at least.

Bring the girl. She can help too, says the voice, and I find my feet crossing the cavern to obey. When I lean over and scoop Blaise into my arms, I’m shocked that she doesn’t stir, but the thought quickly flees from my mind.

I step over Evander, still fast asleep on the ground, and carry Blaise into the depths of the cave.

The voice calls me, and the further we draw into the recesses of the cavern, the more familiar it sounds, though I can’t quite place it.

Sometimes it’s Asha calling to me, sometimes it’s my mother from the grave. Sometimes it’s a mixture of Lydia’s and Fin’s voices, or how I imagine they would have sounded if they held any affection for me during childhood.

My footsteps hardly make a sound against the damp floor of the cave, though moisture dripping from the stalactites does.

I can help her. I can save her, whispers the voice, and I find I believe it.

The dark tunnels break off into a series of paths, but there’s no question which way is forward, not with that voice tugging on my heart like an anchor to the bow of a ship.

So I follow it into the darkness.

I’m not sure how much time passes before I arrive at what I somehow know in the recesses of my soul is my destination.

The bowels of the mountain swarm with a substance that appears as shadows one moment, a thick mist the next, depending on how the dim lights from the glowing fungi that crust the walls of the cavern shine on it.

You came, my child. You listened. I can help you.

I shake my head. “I don’t need your help. It’s my wife.”

Ahh. Humans die, and Asha is human. This is your fear, your problem.

“Yes,” I say with a shudder, staring into the gaping hole in the center of the cavern, where nothingness swarms in a void.

There’s a sense that pricks at the back of my neck, one that signals that perhaps I should be afraid of this creature, but I am not afraid.

This creature knows me.

It sees and hears the darkness and does not judge me for it.

“How do I save her?” I ask, and though part of my mind wonders how I can expect this creature to know, the thought is quickly blanketed in silky sheets of trust.

Shadows lick from the creature, reaching out. At first, I think they’ll consume me, but then they stop at Blaise, caressing her pale cheeks with the care of an adoring mother.

This child is one of mine, it croons. She does not know her mother, though I wish she would.

“I could wake her for you.”

That won’t be necessary, the being snaps.

“Who are you?” I ask, suddenly dying to know who this being is who promises help to my wife.

I am Marthala, says the shadows, though I suppose it is not my name you wish to hear, but the solution to your problem.

Shame washes over me that I’ve managed to offend this being, the very being who’s trying to help.

You wish your wife would never grow aged, says the creature, curiosity slipping into her tone.

I shake my head. “No. No, it’s not the aging process that terrifies me. I just…I can’t stand the thought of her dying. My life is an eternity compared to hers, and I can’t bear the thought that hers will just be a turn of the page in mine. She’s my story,” I add, worrying that maybe the creature won’t understand. “I can’t have it be over in the turn of a page. What’s the point of the rest of my story if hers has already come to a close?”

Nothing, nothing is the point, muses the creature, and though it seems to understand, I can’t help the dread that snakes up my spine.

Blaise stirs in my arms. I’d forgotten I was even holding her. Perhaps I should wake her. Perhaps if Marthala can save Asha, she knows how to save Nox, too.

As soon as the idea brushes my consciousness, it slips away from me.

The girl you hold embodies a scourge—the bane of the moon trapped on the earth. It is why she cannot bear the light of the sun, why she is cursed to slink in the shadows. Children of darkness cannot withstand the light. It is a wicked thing, exposing our flaws and wishing for us to be grateful to it.

“I don’t wish for Asha to bear the curse,” I say. “But if there’s a way to give her immortality without invoking it—”

There’s always a curse, my child. Always a price that must be paid, says the creature, almost contemplative.

“Then let me be the one to bear it,” I whisper.

The shadows lick in curiosity around my feet, like a cat intertwining itself between my ankles.

What is your limit, my child?

“Nothing,” I say. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.”

Ah. Well, then. I suppose you’ll be eager to hear the price is within your grasp.

I’m not sure why, but my gaze falls to Blaise, her eyes still and peaceful in slumber.

Immortality lies within her, but it can be severed from its master.

“How?”

What steals immortality away from a child of the night, young one?

I think back to the research I did in the libraries at Othian. “Sunlight against the skin.”