I shoved him, but he held his place and braced himself as if I might attack again, a smart move because I wanted to hit him and kick him and scratch him, inflict some of the pain his death had brought on me. So he would understand, so he would know what it was like for me. Instead, I sank to the floor, hugged my knees, and stared into the well’s murky waters.

“I didn’t stop to think.” He lowered to a crouch beside me. Dark hair fell over his forehead, nearly covering his eyes. I reached out, brushed it back, and savored the feel of those silky strands beneath my fingertips. How many times had I touched him like that and taken it for granted? “The messenger said to come and get you. I never stopped to think what it would be like for you.”

“What about what it’s like for you? You’d let go of me so easily?”

Thin lines formed around Mani’s eyes and mouth as he frowned. “Easy? It wouldn’t be easy, Solina. I could cut my heart out, and it would hurt less. But this place...” He glanced up at the dark ceiling. “It’s like anesthesia. It numbs and dulls and makes you kind of stupid, if you don’t watch it. It’s deadening. And you are alive, and vivid, and bright, and why the hell do you think I’d want you in this place that would take all that away?”

“Isn’t having a dull me better than having none of me?” I asked, trying for a joke. It fell flat, and he didn’t smile. “How do I walk away from you? Losing you before... I didn’t let you go—you were taken from me. But now you’re asking me to just give you up. This time it will be my choice. My fault.”

“This isn’t real for you. You can’t stay in a dream.”

I rose to my knees and scootched closer to him. He let me take his hand and hold it against my chest, over my heart. “I’ve done something like this before. I’m not dreaming.”

His eyebrow arched. “You’ve done this before?”

“Not this exactly. But I have separated myself and visited another realm.”

He sat back and blinked. “What other realm?”

“Asgard. I’ve been there. I’ve seen the city.”

“Asgard?” The corner of his mouth twitched. “Huh. I guess if this place exists, then why not that one? What was it like?”

“A burnt-out wreck, mostly. Parts of it are growing back though.” I smiled as I thought about my orchard.

Mani gave me a curious look before he rolled to his feet, stood, and tugged me up beside him. He pulled me into another hug.

“This isn’t making it easier to leave,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

He chuckled and squeezed me once before letting go. “We’ll be together again, one day, I promise—unless you figure out how to live forever.”

I kicked a loose stone in the floor. It plopped into the well, and ripples spread across the glassy surface. I shook my head. “I don’t know if I want immortality. I want...” After recovering from the shock of reuniting with Mani, I had to admit staying here meant surrendering. It meant abandoning everyone and everything I had fought wolves and manipulative gods to keep. Nothing I had done before would matter—the sacrifices I had made as well as those made by others on my behalf. It meant deserting Skyla, and Thorin, and my parents, and a lifetime of possibilities. It meant letting Helen get away with murder. “I want a life. One time around is enough, but I want it. The whole thing, beginning to end.”

Mani smiled. “Your eyes are burning the way they do when you’re fired up about something. I didn’t believe my sister was a quitter. Good to know I was right.”

I studied the well’s black waters, ominous and foreboding, and I shivered. “You’re sure I’ve got to go in there?”

“Yup.”

“Then what?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. I’m not the one with the freaky premonitions.”

I swatted his shoulder. “It’s not freaky.”

He blinked at me and twisted his lips into a wry grin.

“Yeah, okay.” I bobbed my head. “It’s a little freaky.” When I stepped closer and toed the water, it coated my foot in oily, wet warmth. “You’ll be all right here?”

I kept my gaze fastened on the well. If Mani’s eyes gave anything away—sadness, pain, regret—I might have stayed and said to hell with everything else.

“I’ll be all right,” he said. “This place is comfort and warmth. It’s easy.”

“What about happiness?”

“It has its moments. Maybe there’s no great joy, but there’s no pain or sadness either. When they call it ‘eternal rest,’ they aren’t kidding.”

I stepped forward, drifting further into the well. The water rose to my knees. “You’re the most nonrestful person I’ve ever known.” In fact, my family had regularly joked that Mani was short for “manic.” “You’re okay with being suspended in eternal rest?”

“Just because it’s not stressful doesn’t mean I’m going stale. I’ve got projects.”

“Projects?” I turned to him, to memorize his face, to ingrain that smile a little deeper in my memory. Mani stood at the edge of the well, not close enough to touch the water, but almost. What if I pulled him in with me, pulled him back into reality? But that probably wouldn’t have worked. Would it?

“I’m not alone here, Solina. There are generations of Mundys in this place. I’m helping one of our great-great-great-uncles on a mapping and exploration project.”

I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”

He swiped a lock of dark hair from his eyes and grinned in his charming way. Girls across the world, and more than a few guys, had gone weak kneed at the sight of that smile. “This place has more secrets than Victoria’s underwear drawer. We’re trying to catalogue everything. There are no records or atlases, and it’s nearly an impossible task because this place grows and changes constantly. Don’t worry.” His grin broadened. “The last thing I am here is bored.”

I backed further into the well, and the water soaked me to my belly button. “Are you telling me the truth or just what you think I want to hear?”

He shook his head, one quick twist. “Nope. I’m being dead honest.”

“Ba-dum-ching,” I said, playing a rimshot and rolling my eyes. But my heartstrings twanged. No one could make me laugh like my brother.

He chuckled. “Go and be happy, Solina. Live your life. Try things and succeed. Try things and fail. Fall in love while you’re at it. I’ll be here for you when the time is right.”

“I didn’t get to say goodbye to you before. It sucked really, really bad.”

“And now you’ll get that chance. We’re luckier than a lot of people.”

I raised my hands from the water, and my fingers dripped as I waved a soggy goodbye. Tears burned in my eyes again, but I blinked them away. “I love you.”

“And I love you.” Mani waved, and despite his grin, he looked like a sad puppy, all big eyed and droopy eared.

I squared my shoulders and backed away, even as the seams in my heart tugged and wrenched, straining as though they might rip apart. But scar tissue is thick and hard to tear, and my heart held together. After inhaling a deep breath, I threw my arms out at my sides—a little dramatic flair—and fell back.

In the moment before the water took me under, Mani’s final words reached me. “Tell Skyla I love her, too.”

Heavy panting of a restless beast, like rhythmic rasps of sandpaper smoothing a rough surface. Sharp squeals of claws raking iron or steel, as shrill as fingernails on slate.

Plip, plip, plip, drips echo in a cavernous interior.

A howl, sung in one long note—cold and trembling it resonates—vibrates the hollows of a tormented heart.

A wolf hunkers, ears tight against his skull, tail tucked. Whimpers underscore each breath.