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“I’ll be okay. My magic may take some time to return, but it will.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. It’s powerful and unpredictable, but I will be okay. It’s the only thing you can do to stop me once I’m inside.”

“Will it hurt you?”

He forced a smile to his lips. “Nothing I can’t get over. You have to promise me you will use it. I have to know you can stop this if it goes wrong.”

I nod, closing my hand around the stone.

“I’ll be able to see what you are doing?

“You’ll be with me.”

“Then, we should do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. We have to do it now. I have to know what they took away from me. I need all the parts of myself back to feel whole.” I hadn’t yet even realized the extent of the betrayal I felt over my parents cutting that part of me off from myself.

“I want you to think about it. You only just started trusting me today.”

“It’s more than trust, Nyx. It’s needing myself back. I can’t go another day if there is a chance this will give me it back. I don’t have to think about it. I do trust you, and I need to know.”

“It’s still dangerous and?—”

I cut him off. “If you trust me, you trust me to know I’ve made up my mind. I want this. I understand it’s dangerous. We have to trust each other.”

“You are the most important person in the world to me, Sol. I do trust you. I wouldn’t have brought it up if I didn’t.”

“Do this for me, then. Give back what my parents took.”

Emotion rolled through Nyx’s expression, but it settled on resolved, and he opened the vial. He took my hand and linked our fingers, while I held tightly to the stone in my other hand.

“Take a deep breath and keep your eyes on mine,” he instructed. “Then I want you to open yourself up fully the way we’ve been practicing.”

I did as he said, feeling him there.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

He tipped the vial between his lips and swallowed.

Within a moment, our mind connection deepened.

I lost sight of our surroundings and found myself standing with him in a space with no end. Light glowed from the center of the space and drew our focus. Our interlinked hands kept us tethered while we walked toward the source.

As we got closer to the light, I could see golden tendrils of it, like little vines and sparks, reaching out. When I looked at Nyx, I found the same tendrils coming from him, reaching for me. They didn’t make contact, though, as if they couldn’t pass an invisible barrier. It felt like a whole other world existed between us.

He gasped. “Do you feel those?”

“Yes, is that?—”

“Go on,” he urged.

“Is that our magic?”