“No,” I groan, but the word is fruitless, empty on my tongue. “No, you didn’t die before. We saved you before.”

Had we simply postponed the inevitable, then? When Asha’s heart had beat again at the Council meeting, had it been because she simply hadn’t fulfilled her purpose yet, and now she has, so she’s been taken away from me?

I take her hand, and it hurts to touch her limp fingers.

Something comes hurtling for my head. I catch it, the vial of liquid moonlight cooling my palm.

I glance over to Blaise, who shrugs and scrapes her foot against the floor. “I swiped some from a warehouse a while back.”

I stare down at the vial in my hand, and I know then I could have her back. Know that the same process that led to Farin inhabiting Nox’s body could bring her back to me.

It’s then that the plan unfolds. We wouldn’t even have to use someone who is alive to do it. Hadn’t Blaise admitted that Nox’s initial plan for his spell had been to use a fresh corpse?

She wouldn’t look like Asha. Talk like Asha, but I don’t care. It’s never been about Asha’s body. It’s like I told her all those nights ago in Rivre. Her body is the anchor that ties her to this side of the sun. It’s what keeps her here with me.

It’s what keeps her here with me.

Suddenly, I feel as though I can’t breathe.

I can’t be here without Asha.

I can’t survive in a world she doesn’t inhabit.

I know now that my father was right. That males aren’t meant to outlive their females. I’m not made for this, I’m not…

The vial is cold to the touch. Silvery moonlight swirls inside the mixture, and I find it difficult to look away.

“We’d have to burn the body,” says a voice from the corner. Blaise’s.

I turn to look at her, to challenge the judgment on her face, but there is none.

I can tell by the set of her jaw that she understands. That doesn’t mean she approves. But she won’t stand in my way. It’s her fault, after all. Her fault for planting the idea in Asha’s mind. Her fault for putting my wife in the hands of a lunatic.

But Blaise’s use of the word “we” tells me she’ll help.

I can decide how I’ll punish Blaise later, but first I need to know. “Is it so awful?” I ask. “Being what you are?”

Blaise looks down at herself, and for the first time I notice there’s something different about her. Something I can’t place. “I don’t think I can answer that for anyone else.”

A life without sunlight. Would Asha mind, in a place like Naenden, where most of us hide from the sunlight, anyway? In Naenden, where it’s the night that is the most peaceful?

She’d do it for me, I tell myself. She’d live this life for me. But then again, I’m not so sure. In all our time together, I never asked if Asha wished to be immortal. I thought it would be better to wait on that conversation until we knew there was even an option.

I should have asked.

But if I had asked, and she had said no, would I still be grasping onto this vial, thinking of burning my wife’s body to ashes so she might occupy another vessel?

Would I go against her wishes to bring her back?

But then I remember Asha walking in the sunlight back in Othian, enjoying the gentle breeze of the day. I remember Blaise describing the craving for blood, the desire to hurt others.

And I know—I know—this is not what Asha wants.

I crush the vial in my hand, but it’s not the flecks of glass in my palm that bring the tears to my eyes.

The liquid moonlight drips to the floor, slipping through my fingertips.

It’s so very cold.

“You fool,” Azrael screams, but I’m not listening. “It was the only way to bring her back.”

My head is buzzing, and I can hardly stand it.

Azrael cries out, and when I look over, blood drips from two holes in his neck, the same blood dripping from the edges of Blaise’s lips.

“If you’re trying to make me sleep with your venom, it won’t work,” Az sneers, blood slipping down his throat. “Not with the elixirs I’ve been taking.”

Blaise drops Az. While the venom won’t work to put him to sleep, it does seem to keep his legs from supporting his weight, because he crumples to the floor, his back hitting the wall.

Blaise isn’t paying attention to him.

“Not the only way,” she whispers to me.

My heart stops in my chest as Blaise and I lock eyes. As we’re transported by a common memory, back to a cave of shadows and a creature who feeds off the darkness.

“Blaise.” Her name is a warning on my tongue. Because I know what she’s about to say.

And I don’t know that if she gives me the option, I’ll have the strength to turn it down.

Blaise’s expression goes distant. “My heart. That’s what the shadow told you, wasn’t it? That the ashes of a night stalker’s heart could grant immortality? That they could bring back the dead?”

“She could have been lying,” I say, but my words come out flat. Unconvincing, even to myself.

Already I’m considering which course of action gives Asha the best chance: waiting for Blaise to offer her heart on her own, or ripping it from her chest before she has a chance to change her mind.

Blaise shakes her head. “I don’t think she was lying. When I was little, my father used to tell me scary stories. Some were about shadow sirens. He always said they kept their immortality by feasting on the souls of the dead.” She lets out a nervous laugh. “I guess the details got misconstrued by the time the story got to my father, but they were close enough.”

In a blink, Blaise is on the ground next to me, taking my hand and placing it at her chest. Tears brim in her wide brown eyes. “What are you waiting for, Kiran? Get your wife back,” she rasps.

And how I want to. How I want to pry Blaise’s ribcage open before she realizes just what she’s offering.

I want to whisper, “Thank you,” as I quench the life from Blaise’s eyes.

But I don’t. Instead I whisper, “Do you truly hate yourself that much?”

Blaise takes in a deep breath, her ribs expanding underneath my hand, which she still clutches. “No. No, not anymore.” She lets out a shaky laugh. “Please don’t mistake this for self-pity or shame. That won’t bode well for me, trust me. I just… I did this. I signed Asha’s fate when I chose my happiness over her safety, when I handed her over to Az. When I forced her to open the Rip. And Asha’s not the only one who’s paid for what I did. So please. When Nox asks, please tell him it wasn’t self-pity. I just…” She lets out a long exhale. “I just had to grow up at some point. Take responsibility, you know?”

I don’t miss the double edge of her statement, and the meaning saws at my ribcage.