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Based on Ezra fooling me and the Shadow Breakers all these years, I’m sure Ezra’s sister had covered her real agenda well.

The Fairy Folk were as skilled as demons at deception.

After all theyelling had subsided, I went to my bedroom and lay down beside a resting Rasmus while trying not to jostle him. Thanks to Conn and Zara, the knife wound Rasmus had gotten was already healing, even though he couldn’t comfortably turn onto his side yet.

Zara had further eased his pain with her magick, but whatever she’d done for Rasmus had cost her greatly. She’d been very weak afterward, and I’d actually felt sorry for her. The female guardian hadn’t been that vulnerable since we’d fought and she’d lost.

Despite the hour—and Goddess only knew what I was interrupting—Dylan came instantly when I texted him. He gladly helped Zara climb the stairs to her room.

Dylan looked like he’d bounded out of bed, though. His eyes were hazy and clouded with sleep-deprived confusion. Evidently, it was my night for interrupting everyone’s sleep. It was nearly two in the morning and most of the household remained awake.

I retreated to the foyer to let Zara work on Rasmus in privacy. Sparing everyone else, I’d listened to the centaur bellowing in rage from the floor below. Henry had brought him up to see me and the stabbed Rasmus. He inspected the assassin’s weapon, sniffed at the fairy assassin’s scent on it, and snorted loudly in disgust.

His shocked perusal of the frozen statue of her lasted a few long minutes. I wasn’t sure if he believed our story or was done with messing with her.

We offered to let the centaur stay to speak to the authorities tomorrow. He declined, settled his account with Henry, andwalked outside. Conn mentioned the centaur opening a portal around one-thirty, but the significance of him having that kind of power had barely registered.

What I cared most about was that the person currently lying next to me still lived and breathed. My worry for him eclipsed all other concerns.

I pressed my face against my guardian savior’s arm and sighed. I had given Conn, Zara, and a shocked Henry the same abbreviated story of how Rasmus had gotten stabbed.

Conn retrieved the cage we used for Jack, and we stashed Ezra’s sister inside it in case Mulan’s magick didn’t hold.

When I asked him to bring the cage, I’d taken Conn aside and quietly told him Mulan was responsible for the statue and not me. He hadn’t said a word about it but hadn’t had to. I knew what his worried frown meant. We were both wondering how Mulan could suddenly do something only an angel, a guardian, and an immortal dragon mage could do.

But Mulan hadn’t been the only one dropping a surprise tonight.

Even with my face pressed against his arm, what Rasmus did for me lay between us in the bed. It was this great unsaid thing. One of us needed to speak it aloud so we could deal with it.

I finally decided it was up to me. “Ya stopped time and restarted it again, Rasmus. And I knew exactly what ya were doing the whole time ya were doing it. I know what happened before that. The fairy stabbed me. It was a mortal wound because I felt my life fading.”

Rasmus nodded against his pillow and blew out a long, soft breath. “I shouldn’t have done it, yet I would do it again.”

“I’m not intending to reveal yer power over time to anyone.”

His sigh of resignation was soft, but I heard it. “The three of us will always know. It only worked because the fairy assassin was so highly motivated to kill you that she attempted to stabyou a second time when given the chance. She did not expect my intervention, but she could have if her mind had figured things out quickly enough. Luck was on our side that she did not do so.”

I rubbed my cheek against his upper arm like a cat. I wanted him to pet me and say I was worth all the trouble. I wanted to soothe him and show him how much his intervention had meant to me. And there was one other thing I wanted.

“What if there were only two of us who knew what happened? There don’t have to be three. I’m within my rights to take her life.”

“Killing the fairy will not change the fact that one day my memory of it will betray my actions. The revelation can be delayed but not stopped.”

“Are ya saying that ya can’t hide it from yer brethren forever?”

“Yes. When you are gone from this life, and the brethren restore me to my full guardian self, I will mentally merge with them once more. My team will learn it then, and I will be held accountable for my actions and my lack of regret. But I would do it again, Aran. I could not stand by and watch you die. Your loss would be the end of me in ways I cannot explain.”

I sniffed against the tears burning my eyes. “I love ya too, Rasmus. I could never stand by and watch ya die, either. This painful conundrum is what happens when humans love someone so intensely. If ya died, I would have killed the fairy for sure.”

“Would you have killed someone for trying to kill Jack?”

I sniffed back the tears I refused to cry and laughed as much as I could manage. “Yes, but only because of Fiona. He’s her father. That’s a fact I have to live with. But ya’re the one I would give my life to protect. I would miss ya if ya left this world and never came back to me. I don’t want to live my grandmother’ssad life. Please don’t just disappear and never return. If something bad happens to ya, make sure someone tells me the whole truth so I won’t die wondering.”

Rasmus couldn’t turn to me, but he reached down and pulled my hand into his. “I have great empathy for Orlin’s suffering now. He suffered through his own death and then the death of the human female he loved. Orlin’s resurrection could not restore the most important things he lost.”

“Why couldn’t he have turned back time for her?”

Rasmus shook his head. “The lapse in time between his healing and her death was too large. What happened is sad. Missing each other so completely is even worse. Though he never mentions her, I think Orlin secretly looks for your grandmother’s return.”