“It’s been done before,” he says, shrugging.

“It’s been done before,” I repeat. My head snaps up. “But how would we even go about opening it?”

“Now that,” he says, leaning up against the wall, “will be up to you recruiting one of your friends to help us. I’d thought perhaps you would be able to open the Rip yourself, but you seem to have lost the power to do so.”

I frown, and it takes a moment to realize he’s talking about the parasite.

My mouth goes dry. “I’m not sure Asha will be easy to convince. Not with how much her Magic fears whatever’s on the other side of that Rip.”

A sly smile lines his lips. “You don’t strike me as the type to let something like a strong will keep you from getting your way.”

I turn and take one last look at Nox, at the way his eyes beat against his pale lids, and I can see it. Him holding a child that is not mine, embracing a woman who is not me.

There are things I can live without, but he is not one of them. Even if Lazarus’s Comet would work, there’s no guarantee I’ll live long enough to get the chance.

“And what’s your stake in this…?” I realize I don’t know his name.

He gives me a carefree wink, the kind that takes my breath away despite myself.

“My friends call me Az.”

“All right, Az.” I don’t bother fighting the urge to roll my eyes. “What’s your stake in this, and if Asha is your friend, why don’t you convince her yourself?”

For the briefest of moments, I think I catch his eyes narrowing, but then the moment’s over, and he’s back to wearing his carefree persona. “Let’s just say our goals no longer align.”

Hesitation braces my heart, the hope threatening to swell past the point of something I can manage. “And if I’m not able to convince her?”

“Well, then,” he says, sweeping a casual glance over Nox, “I suppose you’ll just have to determine with whom your goals align.”

I follow his gaze, allow my own to land on Nox, his skin pale and littered with speckles of light, his black hair combed back, his eyelids obscuring those beautiful blue eyes of his.

Eyes I don’t think I can wait a century to see again.

It’s in this moment, I know who I am. Though I should have guessed it already. Should have known the moment I chose my happiness over Nox’s wishes to fade into the night, to be erased from existence on his own terms.

Perhaps I should have realized before even then.

The moment the bell clanged above Madame LeFleur’s door.

The moment I woke in a pool of Ellie’s blood and chose to keep that information to myself.

The night I sank my teeth into Clarissa’s flesh.

I wasn’t supposed to be the villain.

But I wasn’t supposed to get my happy ending either, and I’m not exactly known for doing what I’m supposed to.

EPILOGUE

NOX

I am burning.

Fire erupts in my chest, and the air is thick and heavy, but it does nothing to stop the flames from spreading.

They spark in my lungs and lick through my veins until they burst out my eye sockets and singe the tips of my toes.

The air is too heavy, too thick to move, and though my lungs are screaming to let me breathe, the air does nothing to assuage the feeling that I’m suffocating.

I open my eyes to utter darkness.

Something yanks hard at my shoulders, and suddenly the air is thinner.

My face hits the ground, and gritty flecks fill the spaces between my teeth.

It’s then that I start retching.

Water, cold and salty, pours from my mouth in bursts as my chest spasms.

I’m not burning.

I’m drowning.

Or at least, I was.

The last several heaves are dry, like my body can’t quite believe it actually managed to purge me of the salt water.

Finally, when my muscles lose the energy to persist, I slump against the cool sand and feel it scrape against my cheek.

I flirt with consciousness long enough to realize I’m being dragged through the sand by my feet.

The next time I wake, I’m being dragged over jagged rocks instead. It hurts, but I’m too weak to even murmur as much.

When I wake again, it’s to a glow. One that’s warm and soothing and lights up the inside of my eyelids in an orangey hue, the kind that reminds me of the sunrise and makes my chest ache even more than it already is.

I want nothing more than to drift into the darkness once again, but that’s not possible, not unless I want to burn. Actually burn this time. The ground still feels jagged beneath me, so I’m likely still outside, which will mean a painful death when the sun rises.

So I open my eyes and examine my surroundings.

As it turns out, I’m not outside. Well, not really. I’m tucked into a cave, my back perched up against its back wall. I can only just start to see the deep indigo of the sky lining the mouth of the cave, but the cave itself seems deep enough that I’m likely safe for now.

The source of the glow that woke me crackles cheerfully, flames dancing and highlighting the stone’s smooth interior, the patchy earth beneath me. Moss creeps underneath the lip of the cave’s mouth and blankets the ceiling.

And then there’s the man.

He’s broad-shouldered and sandy-haired. He pokes at the fire with a stick, rolling burning branches into the swell of the flame, smashing the crisp edges as they wither into soft ash. His leather-wrapped feet tap methodically against the hard earth.

He’s foolish to leave his back turned to me like this, but he can’t be expected to know why. I’m sure to him I seem half-dead, and even though I feel half-dead, I know better. My body will heal itself of whatever damage the water wrought soon enough.