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A few candles flickered in the wine cellar. I closed the door behind me and stepped around a shelf.

Arcturus was lying on an old bed, head propped on a cushion, one hand resting on his chest. Terebell must have positioned him. She knew the way he slept, like I did. One of the Ranthen had poured salt around the bed, to hold the Buzzers back. Knowing Terebell, it was one of several lines of defence. I stepped over the salt to sit at his side.

‘This is the last time I’ll ever speak to you,’ I said, ‘and I don’t even know if you can hear a word I’m saying.’ I drew my knees to my chest. ‘Isn’t that just our luck?’

For a long time, I was quiet, gazing at the wall.

‘I sometimes can’t believe we only met last year, and now I can’t imagine a world where you’re not with me. Where you’re not there at all,’ I murmured. ‘I don’t know how to explain what you meant to me. I wish I could have found the words in my own time, but … I can’t let the last thing I said to you be that you were a monster. I thought you were, the first time I saw you. And then you spent nearly a year proving me wrong.’

Only silence answered me.

‘It kills me that I’m never going to hear you call melittle dreameragain,’ I admitted. ‘I’d have decked anyone else, but it made me feel like I could be smaller with you. Not in worth or importance, but … like I didn’t have to stretch myself so far, to be so much. I didn’t have to be the Pale Dreamer or Black Moth or the Underqueen or Flora Blake. Every time you held me, you gathered all those people into one. With you, I could just be Paige.’

I remembered being in his arms. How much I had loved and craved that feeling of security.

‘The other thing that kills me is that I’m never going to know if you were ever actually trying to be funny,’ I said. ‘Either way, you made me laugh. You made me feel safe and wanted and warm. You were patient and kind, and you never lost faith in me. I’ve no idea why you thought I was worth it, but in the short time we had, I was happy.’

At last, I worked up the courage to face him.

‘You weren’t perfect,’ I said. ‘But I think you might have been perfect for me.’

No reply. He looked the same as when I had last seen him, his sarx unmarked by weeks in the sea. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought he was asleep.

‘I can’t stand the thought of you trapped in that coffin. Or in your dreamscape,’ I said, ‘while I’m in the free world without you. You would have loved Prague. But you were in so much pain, for so long. Maybe you’ve earned your rest. I hope you can’t feel the scars any more.’

Before I could stop myself, I stroked his cheek. His sarx had always been so warm. Now it was cold as brass.

This body had taken bullets for me, held me without fear or shame, and Nashira had thrown it away. Terebell would bury him out of sight and mind, like the evidence of a crime.

I brushed damp strands of hair off his forehead. They were stiff with salt, like his clothes.

‘I’m sorry I believed the worst of you, even when you’d shown me every day how much you loved me. I’m sorry I was already so broken by the time we met,’ I said. ‘Whatever we’ve been to each other, you were my friend, first and foremost. I failed that friendship when I thought you were capable of betraying me.’ My voice thickened. ‘I think I did work it out, in the end. Cordier stopped me reaching you, but I need you to know that I would never have given up. I meant what I said in Paris. I wanted to be with you. I was ready.’

It felt selfish to cry, but a single tear fell. I had spent years tamping my feelings down, because my father had never known what to do with them, and Jaxon had resented their existence.

Arcturus had been nothing like them. Even though he revealed so few of his own emotions, he had never expected me to restrain mine. When I had broken down after my torture, he had afforded me the space to express my pain, letting me know he was there to listen. No matter how far I had plummeted, he had always been there, ready to break my fall.

‘You wouldn’t have wanted me to avenge you. I can’t make any promises,’ I said quietly. ‘Either way, I will do everything we meantto do together. I’ll bring Scion down, even if it takes me the rest of my life. I’ll fight for Rephs and humans to share this world in peace.’

I was shivering all over now, and not because the cellar was so cold.

No one would ever love me the way Arcturus Mesarthim had.

‘I wish I could have shown you the Golden Vale. I wish we could have gone back to Paris,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could have convinced Domino to give us that apartment, once all this was over. I don’t need a lot to be happy. I just wanted you, and a place where we could be together. That was all I ever wanted.’

My voice cracked on that final word. I rested my head on his chest, so I could pretend I would wake up in Paris, with his arms around me and our whole lives ahead of us, knowing he would be there for as long as I drew breath.

I must have drifted off for a while. When I woke, I glanced up and found Arcturus in exactly the same position.

My watch glowed as I tilted it. It was still the middle of the night, but I needed to leave now, or Terebell would have to put me in the ground with him. I placed my hand over the one on his chest.

‘You gave me an overture,’ I whispered. ‘You’ve left me to write the coda, and I’m no musician. But I’ll try.’ I touched my lips to his forehead, to press the exact feeling of his sarx into my memory. ‘Codladh sámh, a chara, a chosantóir. Mo ghrá go daingean tú, go deo. Maith dom.’

As I stood, tears washed my face. I would never feel his gentle touch or hear his voice again. I had lost my home, lost my entire family to Scion, but this might be the pain that broke me. Step by step, I backed away, only to slide to the floor in a heap, my knees buckling.

I didn’t know how to leave him.

Someone would have to drag me away.