Page 49 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time (To Fall Through Time #1)

Time does cruel things when someone you love is dying.

It stretches unbearably, each second an eternity, yet it moves too fast, dragging Dorian closer to the edge of something final.

Selene needs time to pass—she needs Soren to return with the antidote—but with every breath Dorian takes, laboured and shallow, she feels time slipping in the wrong direction, towards a point where he might be beyond saving.

Desperation drives her to locate the house’s totems of the gods. She arranges them around Dorian’s bed, her fingers trembling as she sets each one in place. Then she kneels.

Aurelius, Silver Star, guide him out of the dark. Liriel, Keeper of Waters, heal him. Vannor, Flameforger, take the heat from his skin. Veridia, Green Mother, protect him.

But it isn’t enough. It doesn’t feel like enough. So she prays to the one she doesn’t know, the nameless goddess she believes in more than all the rest. The one who brought her back .

“Please,” Selene whispers, bowing her head so deeply it aches. “Please, you didn’t send me back just to watch this happen.”

But what if that was the reason? What if she was sent back for a purpose, and she’s already failed? Just as she has failed at everything else?

Her hands clench into fists, nails biting into her palms. “Let him live,” she prays. “Let him live, and I will do whatever it is you ask of me. I will be better. I will help as many people as I can.”

A darker thought slithers in, unbidden. It’s one thing to promise goodness. But she knows, in the depths of her soul, that she would commit evil for him, too. Even if he hated her for it. Even if he left her for it. Anything to keep him in this world.

And if he dies…

If he dies, she will go back to the temple and beg to begin again. Even if it means erasing herself. Even if it means he forgets her, if everyone forgets her.

The world needs more people like Dorian.

It does not need more people like her.

Ariella and Rookwood take turns watching over Dorian, forcing each other to rest when exhaustion looms too heavy. But Selene does not move. She cannot.

She sits at his bedside, her hands curled in the sheets, her heart pounding with every slow, shallow breath he takes. He burns beneath the covers, his skin damp with sweat, his face paler than she has ever seen it underneath the burning redness in his cheeks.

She wipes his brow with a cool cloth. Adjusts his pillow. Brushes the hair from his face.

“I like your hair down,” she whispers to him, curling a strand behind his ear. “You should wear it this way more often. If you want to, of course, only if you want to… ”

He doesn’t wake. The poison has settled deep, and Selene cannot tell if he dreams or if he is simply drifting.

His words from long ago come back to her. I make myself invisible so that no one tries to make me disappear.

But he couldn’t stay invisible while he was married to her. He’d put himself at risk for her. This may be the Duke’s fault, but if Dorian dies… that will be because of her.

“You are not allowed to disappear,” she whispers, though she knows he cannot hear her. “Do you hear? You are forbidden.”

Rookwood enters, rubbing sleep from his eyes. His face is lined with shadows. “Go rest, Selene,” he murmurs, as if she is fragile enough to be soothed by kindness.

“I can’t.”

“You need to—”

“I can’t .” Her voice cracks. “You wouldn’t go if it was Ariella, would you?”

Rookwood watches her for a long moment, then sighs. He doesn’t argue. Instead, he settles into the chair opposite her, watching over Dorian with the same silent concern.

The hours crawl by.

The night deepens.

And still, Selene does not move.

Somehow, Selene falls asleep. She has some dim memory of Ariella coming in to relieve Rookwood and trying fruitlessly to get Dorian to drink, but nothing else.

She doesn’t remember closing her eyes, but exhaustion must have stolen her away. When she wakes, dawn is creeping through the curtains, pale and thin. Dorian still lies unmoving beside her, still breathing, still burning.

Ariella sits on the other side of the bed, glancing at Dorian in the way a mother might look over a feverish child. Her face is pinched with concern.

Selene stays still, listening as the door opens.

Rookwood enters quietly, his boots soft against the rug. “Go get some rest,” he murmurs to Ariella. “I’ll stay with him a little while.”

Ariella exhales, long and slow. “I’m fine.”

“Have you slept at all?”

A pause.

“No.”

Rookwood sighs. “Ariella—”

“I couldn’t.” Her voice is tight, fraying at the edges.

Selene keeps her eyes shut, but she can hear the way Rookwood moves—crossing the space between them, the shift of leather and fabric as he reaches for her.

“What do you need?” he asks.

There’s no answer. Just a shuddering breath—then another. And then Ariella breaks, burying her face against his chest as she sobs.

Rookwood says nothing. He just holds her.

Selene doesn’t move. Doesn’t make a sound. She stays still in her seat beside Dorian, falling asleep to the sound of Ariella’s cries and the thin, rattling sound of Dorian’s breathing.

When Selene wakes again, the room is still and quiet.

Rookwood and Ariella are gone—he must have finally convinced her to rest. It’s just her and Dorian now.

She pushes herself upright, her body aching from sleeping in such a poor position, but she ignores it. Dorian needs tending to. His skin is still so hot …

She dampens a cloth and presses it to his forehead. He murmurs something. At first, it’s too quiet to make out, but then he says it again, a little louder.

“Luna…”

Selene stills.

“Luna—please—”

His hand twitches against the sheets, fingers curling as if reaching for something unseen. His face is pinched, pained.

She gives him a few drops of pain relief, carefully tipping them past his chapped lips. He swallows with difficulty, but soon his expression eases.

His fingers flex again. This time, he speaks more clearly.

“Handkerchief.”

Selene blinks. Of all things…

She hesitates only a moment before reaching for his bedside table. The drawer is neat, as she expected, though the sight of it still makes her smile faintly. He keeps everything so carefully arranged—papers, ink, a few old letters. And tucked beside them, a folded handkerchief.

She takes it and presses it into his palm.

Dorian clutches it weakly, drawing it close to his chest. His grip on it is loose, but his breathing evens out slightly, his body relaxing just a little.

Selene watches him, her heart tight.

She wonders what memory he’s chasing in his fevered dreams.

“Don’t you call him back to you, Luna,” she whispers. “Please let me have him a little longer.”

She clasps her hand over his, fingers skimming the silk. She frowns. The handkerchief looks familiar. Too familiar.

She leans in, eyes tracing the delicate embroidery along the edge—small, even stitches in pale silver thread. Her own embroidery.

This isn’t Luna’s. It’s hers .

A strange shiver runs through her. When had she ever given Dorian a handkerchief?

Her fingers brush against the fabric, and then the memory surfaces.

His father’s funeral.

She sees it as if she were standing there again.

She hadn’t known what to say to him then.

They hadn’t been close. Not yet. But she’d seen the way his hands had trembled at his sides, how his eyes glistened.

She’d given him the handkerchief without thinking, pressing it into his palm and curling his fingers around it.

She had never expected him to keep it.

Yet here it is, years later, clutched in his fevered grip like it’s something precious. Selene swallows hard. Slowly, gently, she reaches out and covers his hand with hers again. He doesn’t tremble at her touch anymore, but she doesn’t know if that’s good or bad.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” she tells him, “but I want to be your wife. Truly and completely. I want to share my bed and my life with you. I want to grow old beside you. I don’t need children—but I do need you.

So if your heart is too weak to bear this all alone, take mine. It’s only ever been yours.”