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I didn’t care if the storm destroyed the entire world.

Because I’d just watched an arrow lodge itself in Reyna’s stomach.

There was no feeling quite like the utter terror, the sheer agony of watching an arrow tear through the perfect skin of the woman you loved.

I shoved a bolt of lightning into Sebastian’s chest, far beyond caring if the world would be drained of art and light if he died. He slumped back to the floor as I scrambled to stand. I could barely make out Daphne rushing over to tend to him, keeping his miserable heart beating.

Reyna blinked, like she wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Then she looked down and said the one thing that could rip my heart open more than it already was.

My name.

“Adrian.” Pain lanced through my limbs at the openness in her tone, light and easy like saying my name was a good thing. “Why is there an arrow sticking out of my stomach?”

It was all I could do to keep myself calm as I walked toward her on shaking limbs, praying the favor I called in kept the love of my life out of the clutches of death.

?

“I need a favor. Two of them actually.”

Rose nodded, her eyebrows pinching together in the slightest show of confusion. “Of course. What can I do to help?”

I went with the easier ask first, the one that didn’t make me feel sick with guilt. “I need you to go to Olympus and keep an eye on Reyna while I go to Lounion.”

“Okay,” Rose said slowly. I could see the questions bubbling to the surface, but I ignored them. I needed to get this out.

I opened my mouth to ask, then stopped.

Emotion was raging through my chest in indiscriminate color. It was stealing my focus and my breath and making it fucking impossible to just pull myself together and ask what I came to.

After one awful sputter and attempt to speak, Rose seemed to take pity on me. “What was the other favor?”

My throat closed around the words, nothing coming out.

And then Rose just had to go ahead and laugh at me.

“Really?” I asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

Rose laughed, quieter this time like that was the only thing she was going to do to take pity on me. “Why don’t we take a walk, huh? Get you some fresh air. Though these skiesaren’t what you’re used to.”

I nodded, swallowing thickly as I followed her out of the house and around to the field behind it. It seemed to go on forever, just as the Underworld itself did, covered in grass that was just slightly too gray to be truly alive and flowers that adapted to exist off the last licks of life.

Rose seemed content to walk in silence as I struggled to find the words to ask what I needed. We took two turns around the walls surrounding the house, easily taking thirty minutes, by the time I finally found the words, the guilt and shame pushed away by desperate love.

“I need to protect Reyna,” I began. “I can’t leave her. I’m not even sure that will protect her. But I need her safe.”

Rose didn’t even stumble a step. “You need to say it. You need to ask.”

I breathed in, one last breath. “Give me your favors with the Fates. Help me ask them to protect her lifeline.”

Rose stopped walking, so I stepped around to face her. I needed to look her in the eye, to respect the favor I’d just asked for.

Especially when I didn’t even remotely deserve it. Not after what I’d let happen to her.

She was silent for less than five seconds. “Okay. They’re yours.”

I blinked at her, stunned. “Are you sure?”

Not that I wanted her to say she wasn’t. I needed this. I needed Reyna alive and well and happy.