Page 71 of Echo North

IDON’T KNOW QUITE WHENI decided. Maybe watching the wolf who was Hal destroy the room behind the obsidian door. Maybe listening to Mokosh’s words to me on the floating island. Maybe even the day before, stitching up the wound in the wolf’s chest I had made with my own sword.

There is one thing you must not do, one rule you must not break.

I scrubbed the tears from my face and swept out of the library. I went back to my bedroom, shut and latched the door behind me.

You must break it.

“Matches, if you please, House.” They appeared on the nightstand. I curled my fingers around the packet, and shoved it deep in my pocket.

That will nullify the enchantment.

I had to force my next request past the lump in my throat: “And oil for the lamp.”

The lamp filled with oil.

That will free him.

That will free him.

My whole body was trembling when I left the room.

ISEARCHED FORHAL ALLday, stepping into one book-mirror after another. He didn’t come and didn’t come and didn’t come. But I kept looking. I couldn’t do what I was about to do without seeing him one last time. It would steady me. Assure me I wasn’t about to make a horrible mistake.

At last, when the time for dinner had slipped away and there were only a handful of hours left before midnight, he came.

He met me on a high hill overlooking a valley that danced in the light of two setting suns. He looked solemn and fair, and stepped up to me without a word. He folded my hand into his, and I felt suddenly stronger.

A faun with flowers in her hair and a silver bear wearing a rose-thorn crown held onto the cords tethering a huge hot air balloon to the earth. It was shaped like a painted egg and decorated like one, too, beautiful designs swirling blue and gold across the violet material. A basket was attached to the balloon and fire roared hot just beneath the fabric envelope.

“One last adventure, my lord Hal?”

He gave me a quick sharp smile and helped me climb into the balloon, then scrambled in after me. I looped my arm around his waist, holding him close.

The faun and the bear untied their cords and the balloon rose into the air, chasing the wind and the falling suns. The valley grew small beneath us. The sky grew large.

I wanted to say “I love you, stranger I met in a book—my white wolf. Tonight, I will free you.” The words echoed in my brain and I could almost taste them. But I didn’t speak, didn’t let them out. I just shut my eyes and listened to the sound of Hal’s breathing, warm and close at my ear.

I love you, stranger I met in a book.

We didn’t speak until the suns were gone and the stars were out, globes of radiant color that spun and flashed through the darkness.

I felt small and lost and empty. I didn’t want that moment to ever end.

“I will miss you, when you’ve gone,” said Hal quietly into my hair. “More than you can imagine.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

He glanced away, wordlessly folding my hand into his, and didn’t answer. He seemed older than I had ever seen him, weighed down with memory and sorrow and time.

“Hal.”Tell me the truth,I wanted to beg him.Please. There’s so little time left.

“I hope so. I hope—” He cut himself off and I dared to lift my free hand and touch his face, turning it once more to mine.

“Hope what?”

He swallowed, but did not pull away. His pulse beat quick and sharp in his throat beneath my fingertips. “I hope that you will not grow to hate me.”

I tried not to feel like my heart was breaking. I tried not to see that his was, too. “How could you even say that?”