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“You okay?” I ask her, even though I can feel the shift in her magic, the unsteadiness rippling across our bond.

“I feel...” she starts, her brow furrowing. “Off-balance. Like I’m missing a part of myself.”

I stop and turn to face her fully, studying the subtle changes in her expression. Even in the dim light, she’s breathtaking—white-blonde hair streaked with blue that catches the last of the starlight, and eyes that shift from deep to pale sapphire depending on which type of magic she’s using.

Not to mention the hum of something greater that clings to her no matter where she stands. It’s like the mortal realm doesn’t know what to do with her—like it’s trying to flatten something that was never meant to be small.

“That’s because you don’t belong here,” I tell her, lifting my free hand to brush a strand of hair from her face, frost patterns forming briefly where my fingers touch her skin. “You never have. You belong in the mystical realm—with me.”

The words come out more possessive than I intended, but I don’t care. They’re true. What I feel for her is starting to outgrow language, and I don’t know what it looks like from the outside anymore. I don’t know if it looks like love, or if it’s become somethingelse.

So, I try to pull the edge back. To smooth the blade, just in case my love has grown into something so sharp it might cut her, too.

Because after what I did in that clearing, she’d be right to fear me. And gods help me, if she ever does… I don’t know who I’ll become in the aftermath. I don’twantto know.

I pray I never will.

“I grew up here,” she reminds me, and I shake myself back into focus, even though it’s getting harder and harder to focus with my soul bound so tightly to hers. “I spent nineteen years thinking I was human.”

“And yet you always felt out of place.” I step closer, until there’s barely a breath between us. “Always knew something was missing. Always yearned for more. I saw it in your eyes the first night at the Maple Pig. You were searching for something you couldn’t name.”

A smile tugs at her lips. “And you found me instead.”

“And I found you instead,” I agree, not bothering to hide the depth of emotion in my voice. “The single thing I’ve ever truly gotten right in my life.”

The air between us buzzes, and I need to be closer to her, mission be damned. She’s the only thing anchoring me to this world. Without her, I would literally be gone from it.

“If you two are quite finished,” Thalia interrupts, her tone sharp with disapproval, “we have a mission to begin and a plane to catch.”

“My wife and I are discussing the effects of realm transition on her magic,” I say coolly, not looking away from Sapphire as I address Thalia. “A vital strategic consideration, wouldn’t you agree?”

The words come out light. Teasing. Calculated.

They’re for her. Onlyeverfor her.

Sapphire’s eyes sparkle with barely contained laughter, and my heart—the one she brought back from death—skips a beat. Because ever since executing my men in the clearing, the sight of her smiling like this is the only thing keeping the weight in my chest from crushing me completely.

“You’re terrible,” she whispers, but she leans in to kiss me anyway.

“I most definitely am,” I murmur against her lips, hating how the words feel truer now than ever. “But you love me anyway.”

“I do,” she says, pulling back with visible reluctance. “Even when you’re deliberately provoking our traveling companions.”

“Especially then,” I correct her with a smirk.

But it’s thinner now. A little forced at the edges. A performance I can’t stop playing, because if I let her see what I really am, and if she ever stops laughing when I need her to?—

I don’t know what will be left of me.

Maeris pointedly clears his throat. “There’s movement ahead,” he says. “Be ready.”

The playfulness evaporates from Sapphire’s expression as she reaches for her Star Disc—Glimmercut—andI draw Frostbite, its familiar weight balanced in my grip, ice magic flowing through the blade.

“Stay close to me,” I tell Sapphire, because even with four different types of magic at her command and the deadly accuracy of her Star Disc, the need to shield her beats in my blood like a second heartbeat.

“Always,” she replies, and through our bond, I feel her resolve spike.

But what she doesn’t feel—what I refuse to let her feel, what I’m trying with every breath to keep from flowing from me and into her through our soul bond—is how I’m barely holding the storm together. Because I won’t let her carry this, too. Not when she’s already carried me through death and back.