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He walked out to the image of Sophia pressing her lips together as she fought not to cry, her body leaning into Max’s as the other man tucked her close to his side.

He knew that despite their own pain, the couple would do what was necessary to protect the remaining two members of the small family Eleri had called her own.

And Adam…Adam was going to throw the dice one final time before he let his wild bird fly free.

The jet-chopper was ready and waiting, and he made sure Eleri was securely strapped into the seat in the back next to him before he made another call. “Dahlia, listen,” he said when his wing-second answered.

···

Bram woke to the sense of his mind buzzing, the pressure atop it a boulder. If he was going to get to the desert, it had to be now. But— “Is there anything else?” he asked Saoirse, who was yet in the room with him, must’ve waited for him to regain consciousness.

Face drawn, the scientist shook her head. “No, that’s it. We’re out of options.”

It was a knife through his gut, but his guilt at his failure was mingled with a sense of peace. He’d done all he could, could let go now.

“Then tell Dahlia I’m ready.” He could hear her nearby, her voice urgent as she had a conversation. He waited for her to walk in, tell him that Eleri was gone, one more J life snuffed out in an endless line of candles no one had ever bothered to cup their hands around, protect.

But when she walked inside, her face was ablaze. “We need to get him to the cave system below the Canyon,” she said to Naia. “I need one of your hover wheelchairs.”

“I can walk,” Bram said, though he wasn’t too sure. It wasn’t that he’d lost his strength but that parts of his brain had started to malfunction. His fingers were spasming every so often, and he could feel his thigh tensing up even as he stood.

Dahlia hovered nearby, as if she’d catch him.

But Bram got upright without a problem, and when she thrust a bottle of nutrients at him, he drank it. “Why are we going to these caves? Do you park the vehicles there?”

“Adam said he’d meet us there with Eleri,” was her nonanswer, but then she touched his cheek with her hand. “The stars are like diamonds outside. An endless sky.”

He hadn’t even known night had fallen, but to die under the banner of the open sky and be able to say good-bye to Eleri? It was a better outcome than he’d expected. “Good, that’s good.” Drink finished, he left the bottle on his abandoned seat, then began to walk with Dahlia at his side.

She slipped an arm around his waist within two steps, and he said to hell with it and put his own arm around her shoulders. He probably could’ve made it without her, but to have her softness so close one more time? No, he wouldn’t reject that.

His pace was slow regardless, but she didn’t rush him. Probably didn’t need to—even in a jet-chopper, it’d take Adam time to get here. Time enough for him to take one last walk with Dahlia.

The heat from her arm burned through the navy sweatshirt she’d brought him from Adam’s closet. “You two are about the same size,” she’d said. “He won’t mind.”

Because changelings were all about the group, all about community. “I need to call Saffy and Yúzé before…” He couldn’t just leave them without a word. “We aren’t a clan, but we’re family.”

“You can call them as soon as we reach the entrance to the cave system,” Dahlia promised. “I just don’t want to be late. You’re not exactly sprinting right now.”

He felt his lips curve. “Nice bedside manner.”

That got him a sniff of apparent annoyance but she still had her arm around him, and when his leg spasmed, she braced him against her side. “Good thing I’m a big woman,” she muttered.

“You’re the perfect size. Endless curves and valleys.”

Her cheeks glowed, her arm squeezing him as they began to walk again. “The way you look at me, Mr. J, I could almost believe myself beautiful.”

Bram didn’t get it. “You are.”

“I’m the first woman you’ve had sex with,” she said, her tone dry as they exited out into the cool desert night. “Of course I’m beautiful.”

He drew in the air like an elixir, the stars an endless horizon over the breathtaking ripples of the canyons and desert of this region—but not more enticing than her. “I wasn’t a virgin when we had sex.”

It was her turn to stumble, then stare at him. “What? I thought hanky-panky was illegal under Silence.”

He shrugged. “I stopped caring about a lot of things during the last few years.” Bram had known the Council didn’t give a shit about them, so what the fuck did he care about following their rules? “I just made sure I wasn’t caught.”

“Oh.” They began to descend the path lined with scrubby grass on either side where it wasn’t bordered by large pieces of broken stone. “So, you’ve been with other women? No, forget I asked that. We’re both grown people and it’s none of my business.”

“Five women,” he said. “Per non-Psy media, sexual contact was meant to be incredibly pleasurable and I wanted to feel pleasure. I chose an accredited professional for the first time, with the view that one of us should know what we were doing. The other four, I walked into a bar and found a woman who wanted to participate in sex.”

Dahlia snorted. “Not that you’re bragging,” she said, but he could hear a smile in her voice.

“I’m not. It’s just what happened.” He thought back.

“The women all had a pleasing appearance per the norms of society, and seemed enthusiastic, but I felt…mechanical. There was release but no pleasure. I could find release myself should I have the need. I decided five was enough for the experiment.”

Dahlia laughed. “Ah, oh to be me, lucky number six.”

“You pleasure me simply by existing.” Turning his face, he nuzzled her neck just because she was there and didn’t seem to mind his touch. “I was drunk on you the first time we met. The sex…it was beyond pleasure.”

“Skin privileges,” she corrected huskily. “Not sex. Intimate skin privileges.”

“Yes, touching you was the greatest privilege of my life.”

Dahlia’s breath caught. “You’re one hell of a charmer, I’ll give you that.”

Bram had never been called charming in his life, but he’d take it from her. As he’d take this strange walk in the night, the stars a carpet out in front of them that vanished beneath the edge of the Canyon the lower they got.

He heard the sound of the jet-chopper before he saw it as a shadow against the night, its lights the only thing that delineated it against the black.

The pilot brought it to a perfect landing down on a flat section Bram could just see.

Someone got out, reached inside…emerged with another person in their arms.

Eleri.

His brain finally processed what Dahlia had said about the entrance to the cave system. “Dahlia, you promised me the desert.”

She looked up, her eyes shining with what he could almost think were tears. “I’ll take you. I had a clanmate park a vehicle next to where that chopper just landed. But please let us try this first. One last tinfoil hat?”

Bram realized then and there that he’d do anything for her. “If I get to spend my last minutes with you, then it’s a fair bargain.”

Rising on tiptoe, she pulled down his head and kissed him until he couldn’t breathe. “Oh and, big guy—there are going to be bats. They’re friendly.”

Bram had never known how to laugh, but that moment, he felt his lips curve, the laugh form in his chest. And as the stars spun overhead, the Milky Way vivid against the desert sky, he laughed with the most beautiful woman in all the universe.