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“He’s not getting out,” Rafael said. “But it doesn’t matter either way. We’re not killing Nix and Medica too. We can find them all. They’re out there somewhere. They’re alive. We just have to find them.”

“No,” I murmured.

“No, what?” Queen Iliantha asked.

“No, the curse won’t be broken until all the par animarum die,” I said. “You have to kill us, Rafael.”

He rolled his eyes and turned away.

“I’m not being facetious,” I said. “This is where we are. This is what we must do. There is no other option. The others will continue to die and be reborn until wealldie.”

“Well, tough shit,” Rafael snapped. “I’m not killing—”

“Please kill me,” Medica said.

The room cut to silence.

Rafael, again, rolled his eyes and poured a glass of brown liquor from the cart in the corner.

“I don’t think you understand,” Medica said. “I haven’t beenmein a thousand years. I turned into someone else the day that Hya died, and I thought finding him would make me whole again. But evidently, I can’t. I won’t be myself until I’m reborn and I find him.”

“I’m not killing either of you,” Rafael snapped. “Now stop it. Let’s think of something else. Every curse can be broken. We can undo this. We can—”

“We know how to undo the curse,” I said. “We die. That’s how, Rafael. We die, and then we find the other half of ourselves, and—”

“Stop it.” It was Rafael’s voice that cracked that time. His eyes, however, were daggers. “I won’t kill you. Irefuseto kill you. I won’t do it.”

There was no denying the love that radiated from him. It wasn’t only Medica and me who hurt for those we lost. He mourned the par animarum just as we had. Even though we’d been a world apart, I was still his uncle. He loved me, and he didn’t want to lose me.

“I’m already gone, esiasch,” I said. “I have been, since the moment I found my wife and babies on that floor. I lost whatever was left of me when I went to my home, and I couldn’t tell which twin was who.” Tears bubbled in my eyes, stinging their way down my cheeks. “When I picked them up, they fell apart in my hands. Jagged pieces of their burned skin scratched me. I—”

“Stop it.” He couldn’t hold my gaze, shaking his head quickly. “I don’t want to hear this—”

“My dogs too,” I said. “Sadie? That puppy you played with your entire life? She was burned to a—”

“Damn you, Nix, stop it.”

“I’ll beg,” I said. “I willbegyou to do it, Rafael. I can’t keep going. Now I know she’s out there somewhere, and I’m not even the man she loved anymore. Ineedto be reborn. I need to forget all of this, and find her, and start over. Please, Rafael. Please put me out of my fucking misery.”

He was still shaking his head, fingers on the glass trembling. Then he raised it to his lips and chugged it in one gulp.

“I’m nothing without her.” I couldn’t help the tears as I spoke. “I don’t have a reason to live like this. For a thousand years, my goal was to get ahold of your brothers. Then it was to find out what they did to her. Now I know. I know what he did, and I don’t care if it makes me weak. I don’t care if I’m a failure for giving up. I’ve been defeated since that day, and I just want to feel whole again.”

“What about this?” He gestured around, then out the window. “The fucking Angels are invading the world you created, and you don’t care? All that matters is feeling better to you?”

“We can handle the Angels,” Queen Iliantha said.

Dem scoffed. “Ye support this, eh? Ye think—”

“I think that if this is all true, there isn’t much choice,” she said. “Véa will not awaken as her true self until Nix dies. Your daughter won’t either. This cycle will not be broken until someone kills him. I don’t bloody like it, but I’d rather they awaken in a century and be themselves again. They deserve to be happy. They deserve the lives they want. They deserve their children, and they won’t have them until Nix dies and is reborn.”

Alastair, who’d been silent throughout this conversation, said, “I don’t understand why we’re arguing.”

Dem threw his arms in the air. “Because this is madness! This is—”

“It’s our only choice,” Medica said. “And I’m tired. I want to forget. I want to start over with Hya in a new life. I want my husband back.”

“Idiots,” Dem snapped. “The lot of ye, ye’re all fucking idiots.”