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His broad mouth was set in a firm line, but there was a tenderness in his gaze that hadn’t been there before. “Are we okay? You and me?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Why?”

“Why?” he repeated with a joyless smile. “What do you mean, why? You ran out on me, Loren. We haven’t…we haven’t talked.” There was a pause, and then he added in a hoarse whisper, “You scared me.” It was this sentence that finally made her identify that unfamiliar look on his face. He wasn’t being this cold and aloof because he was mad at her.

He was doing it because he was afraid. This was the face of a man who was guarding his heart because he was afraid it was being broken without him fully understanding the reasons why.

And in turn, her own cracked in her chest, especially as she remembered what Ivy had said to her before they’d started dating—that Darien had been hurt more times than he cared to admit.

As she fought for the right words, she felt the fissure spread, until her heart was nearly split right in two. “Everything’s fine, Darien.” She tried to sound believable, but she wasn’t sure she succeeded. “I just…I need space, that’s all.” If she stayed around Darien, unable to tell him what was going on, he could wind up in danger. The Pale Man had told her that the Devil would die, and she would do everything in her power to make sure the creature’s prediction would never come true.

It was better that Darien was alive without her than dead because of her. No matter how much it would break her to stay away from him.

“Can I see you tonight?” The question sent a rush of hot tears to her eyes. “I’ll take you to see the stars. The sky’s supposed to clear.”

“It’s Monday.” Her voice broke on the last word.

“I’ll have you back early, I promise—"

“I said I need space.” The next time the imperator summoned her, she needed to have something for him to work with. If she didn’t find a way to use her magic, he wouldn’t just kill her, but would also kill Darien. She added pathetically, “And I’ve got a lot of homework to catch up on.”

The look on his face told her exactly what he was thinking: since when had homework ever kept her away from him?

“If you don’t want to leave the city, that’s fine, we can save the stars for another time. Do you want to do dinner? You said you wanted to try the Lakehouse.”

She lowered her head, eyelids shutting as she forced back tears. Forced herself to get this over with, no matter how much it would hurt. When she lifted her chin and opened her eyes, she kept her expression cool and composed, every trace of the tears gone. “Maybe next week, okay?”

The silence that stretched between them was horribly loud. It weighed on her lungs and heart, those tears she’d just forced away threatening to come back.

When Darien replied, he replied with a single word, and it was as shaky and broken as she felt. “Okay.”

“Can you respect that?” The sound of that question floating off her lips, so horribly flat and remote, made her want to rip her own heart out so she would stop hurting him.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, of course.”

She had to turn around. Had to make herself walk away, shoving her shaking hands into the pocket of her hoodie, crumpling Cyra’s letter in her fist. She moved toward the kitchen, knowing that if she didn’t put some space between her and Darien, she would throw herself at him and forget this whole thing.

It broke her heart that he would actually believe this. That he believed himself so undeserving of true love that she would walk away from him so easily after everything he’d done for her, after he’d put that Fleet ring on her finger—

“I love you,” Darien said. The statement was charged with so much emotion that the air electrified with it. “You know that, right?”

Slowly, so slowly that it felt like she was barely moving at all, she turned to face him.

“What you saw the other night…” He fought for words. “I need you to know that that wasn’t me. That’s not all of me, it’s just—it’s the broken part. But I’m trying to fix it, I promise—”

“Darien.” His name wobbled on her tongue. “It’s okay.”

“I’ll give you all the time you need,” he persisted. “If you need a week, I’ll give you a week. If you need a month, I’ll give you a month. If you need a year, I’ll give you a year. Just—I can’t have you be afraid of me, I can’t have this be the end—”

“It isn’t the end—”

“Then why does it feel like it?” Pain rippled between them, as real as the air they breathed. “Why do I look at you and see you drifting away from me?” Gods, she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.

“You’re imagining things,” she said weakly.

The laugh he gave was cold and unamused. “That seems to be happening a lot lately.” Steel-blue eyes that were brimming with hurt studied her face. “I meant it, you know. What I said in the House of Souls.” The strong column of his throat bobbed. “I want out. For you.”

She broke. Caved. The truth was bubbling up her throat before she could stop it. “Darien—”