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It was a sign of how well he knew me that Pritkin didn’t tell me to stop.He didn’t tell me anything.Just pulled me close and held me to his chest, a hand on my head and his arms gentle yet firm around me as I cried and cried and cried.

I didn’t even know what I was crying for.For the burden that never seemed to lift off my shoulders anymore, no matter what happened?For the world that ring represented, full of love and peace and happiness that I wasn’t sure I’d live long enough to see, or deserved to see?For the people we’d left behind, an entire generation wiped off the map, except for the two young witches we’d brought back with us?

All those people weren’t here, feasting, wearing pretty clothes, and watching the starlight on the ocean in the arms of someone they loved.They weren’t anywhere and never would be because of me.And the choices I’d made.

There had been so many—hard ones, painful ones, impossible ones.Had I gotten them right?I didn’t know, and maybe never would.

Could I live with that?

Did I have achoice?

And here was another, an easy one, only it wasn’t.I felt myself tearing up again, because I wanted it so desperately, that beautiful ring, but I didn’t deserve it.I knew I didn’t.

“This isn’t a movie, Cassie,” Pritkin told me softly.

“What?”

“What we’re doing.There’s no script where everything comes together perfectly at the end, and only the villains ever lose.Real life is messy, and painful, and full of terrible choices.And victories come at a cost.But the cost of not getting them is greater.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?The experience we just had, that you’ve been beating yourself up over all week, was one of the cleanest victories possible.Was it perfect?No.But it was damned good.As good as we’re likely to get.And you did that.”

“We all did.”

Pritkin huffed out a laugh.“When you’re a leader, everybody blames you when you’re wrong.Take the wins when you get them.”

“This doesn’t feel like a win!”I said passionately.

“Then what would have?”

“I don’t know!Just… better.Cleaner.Less costly.Something—”

“Perfection?”

“Maybe!”

“Too bad we’re only human, then, isn’t it?”I tensed, but there was no mockery in his voice.Just one soldier to another, who’d seen too much and understood the price we paid for what we did, and would pay again.“I’ll keep it until you’re ready,” he told me, shutting the box.

“I’m never ready for anything,” I said shakily, finally looking up and meeting eyes greener than the stone.Different eyes, and yet the same, too.Pritkin, finally together, all of him, as he was meant to be.

“There’s only one of us,” he said simply, reading my thoughts through the bond.“And he loves you.”

And I loved him—so much.

So what was wrong with me?

“I thought I wasn’t Artemis,” I said sourly.

“You’re not.But you’re not this, either,” he said.“Cowering in the seat of...whatever that thing is...and sobbing your heart out—”

Billy, I thought, startled, and glanced around.

“Two losers trying to make a difference and failing most of the time.But not all of the time.Not when it matters.

“When it matters, we do okay.”

He wasn’t there, couldn’t be there.Yet I heard him, clear as day.And I thought for a moment that the orb in my palm glowed a little brighter.

“Cause you’re Cassie Palmer, and you may go down one day, but it won’t be like a little bitch, crying in a car ...It won’t be running away because you’re too scared to be who you were born to be and to do what you were born to do.

“No.It won’t be that way at all.Now, will it?”

“Cassie?”Pritkin sounded as if he knew something was happening, just not what.That made two of us.

But I knew one thing.

“I’m never ready,” I said again, more strongly, as I took the ring and put it on my finger.It felt good there, right, as if it had always been meant to be.Like the two of us.

“And it’s never stopped me yet.”