For a moment, I don’t trust my eyes, sure Nox is simply a mirage I’ve conjured in my desperation to get to him.

I’m so good at imagining things, after all.

But I launch myself from my horse and into the dream anyway.

Nox closes the gap between us, and his strong arms engulf me, and there’s nothing left between us but the fabric of our coats.

“Blaise.”

My name is a chime on his lips as he pulls me into his warm embrace.

“I thought I’d never see you again. I thought… I thought…” I choke on the words, unable to force them out. As if saying them might will that particular version of reality into existence, rather than the one I’m somehow living. Nox’s arms around me. Nox safe in my embrace.

He pulls back to get a good look at me, though he keeps me tucked into his firm chest. When he smooths my hair with his palm, my heart aches with the tenderness in his gaze.

But then I catch the sadness glimmering in his pale blue eyes, and my heart stutters.

“How did you escape?” I ask, practically beg, as all of a sudden I realize he’s not wearing a coat, just his typical black shirt, and his bare arms are exposed to the cold. I back away and try to shrug off my cloak to offer it to him, but he just draws me back in and shakes his head.

“I don’t need it,” he says, and I don’t miss that he hasn’t answered my question.

“Nox, how are you here?”

He smiles, but it’s painfully forced and resembles a grimace. “I’m not.”

“What do you mean, you’re not?” There’s a harshness to my tone that I don’t intend, and it comes out sounding like an accusation.

When Nox inhales, I can feel his chest expanding against mine. “I mean I’m not here, not really. My body’s still at the castle.”

“But I can touch you; I can feel you…” My hand clamps over my mouth instinctively. “You can’t be dead, you can’t be dead. Ghosts…I wouldn’t be able to touch you if you were a—”

Nox grabs my hands and rubs them with his thumbs. “I’m not a ghost. I’m still alive; however, I think there is more to bloodsharing than we ever realized.”

I shake my head, not understanding, too relieved by the fact that Nox isn’t dead to form words. He just stands there and pierces me with those dreadfully intoxicating eyes of his, looking me over like I’m the heroine of a tragedy on stage.

“She was cruel and deserved what she got,” Nox says, and for a moment I don’t grasp what he’s talking about, but then I remember Nox’s voice, clear and vindictive beside me, when he held me all night, only to disappear when Evander and Ellie found me.

“You were there?” I half-ask, half-breathe, my breath fogging the chilled air.

He nods. “I can’t explain how. I think it has to do with the bloodsharing ritual, but I could see everything that was happening. It’s like I could reach you, even though I wasn’t truly there.”

My mind whirs. “That doesn’t make any sense. That’s never happened before.”

Nox runs a hand through his black hair. “Distress does odd things to the body. Like giving humans unnatural strength in the face of danger. It makes sense that our bond would go taut during times of extreme emotional duress.”

My heart thuds once against my chest. Nox squeezes his eyes shut, because he knows what he’s just admitted.

“So right now, one of us is in distress,” I say, but I can’t seem to make my voice rise at the end of it, can’t seem to force myself to warp it into a question.

My heart doesn’t seem like it will beat again until he answers.

The edges of his lips twist into a cruelly kind smile, and he swallows. “I’ll take distress any day if it means I get to see you again.” One last time, he doesn’t add, but he doesn’t have to.

Tears sting as they run down my cheeks, soaking in the frigid night air. “Please tell me you’ve had an episode,” I choke out.

His smile is pained, but filled with adoration. “I never can tell when you’re joking,” he says, but I can’t stand to give in to the tug of that memory—the night he first kissed me—not when each moment we spend talking is another moment for Farin to dig his claws into him.

I try to push past him, but he blocks me, the warmth of his torso cutting across my skin.

“Let me past,” I say, but he doesn’t.

“There’s no time,” Nox says, “Queen Abra knows about the ritual for allowing a parasite to control its host. It’s already started, and—”

“I know what’s happening,” I snap. “I don’t need you to explain it to me. I just need you to get out of my way.”

Nox grips my shoulders, and at first I think it’s to restrain me, but then I realize my entire body is shaking, and Nox’s grip is the only thing holding me upright.

“It’s too late, Blaise. We’re miles away from the castle. You’ll never reach it in time. The ritual is almost complete, and you’re half a night’s journey away.” His words aren’t cruel. There’s no accusation in them, only objective calculation.

“I’ll run. I’ll make it,” I insist, but my legs are trembling with such force, I know I couldn’t make it in this state. Even if it were feasibly close by.

“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” Nox says, and when he gently draws me into his chest, I don’t fight him. He tucks his chin onto the top of my head before planting a kiss there. “I’m just grateful I get to see you one last time.”

The tears stinging at my eyes pool over my lids and streak my cheeks, coating his shirt.

“I lied to you. I lied to you, and then I left you,” I whisper. “You gave up everything for me, and I left you. You must hate me.”

Nox sighs, and there’s nothing but honesty in the sound of his exhale. “You had a pretty good reason, from what I can tell.”

“There was nothing there for me,” I say, the image of the abandoned manor creeping into my vision. “You were all I had, and I threw you away for a life that never existed.”

Nox doesn’t say anything for a long while, but when he does, his breath tickles the top of my head. “We can only do the best we can with the information we’re given. Anything more than that is asking too much. Besides,” he says, his chest deflating against my ear, “it wouldn’t have been fair for me to stay angry. Not when I lied to you too.”

“You gave her the parasite, didn’t you?” My words are muffled, muted by his shirt. I’d had hours to myself to work through it during my trek back to Ermengarde. It was the only solution that made sense.

Nox is silent for a long while, his hands clutching the fabric of my cloak at my back. “Yes. And I gave her myself, too. My service, my lifetime, as long as she helped me get you back.”

Salt stings at my eyes, burns even harsher in the frigid climate. “Oh, Nox…” It’s all I can think to say, because there are no words to describe the devastation that rends my chest in two at what he’s given up for me.

“I was ashamed to tell you. I know I ruined our plans.”

We stand there, me wrapped up in his embrace for a long while, until my knees begin to wobble, and my silent tears turn into sobs. “Please don’t leave me,” I whisper.

Nox stills. “I would never, if given the choice.”

“Please.” The word scrapes against my throat, dry and cracked. “Please. Please don’t leave. The lump in my throat threatens to puncture my skin, until all my breath seeps into the freezing air and leaves me suffocating.

“I’ll stay as long as I can,” he says, and he does.