Please still be angry at me, I thought. Please – that’ll make it so much easier for us both. Otherwise, I could hardly stand the thought of what I was going to have to do.

“Seb, will you help, if I need you to?” I asked finally, my voice faint.

“Yes, I’ll help.” But his face looked troubled; I could feel that he hated this almost as much as I did.

When we went inside, Kara was sitting at the kitchen table with her head slumped on one hand, an untouched cup of coffee in front of her. Her chin jerked up as she saw us, her brown eyes going wide.

“Hi,” I said. “We, um...we ran into some trouble.” Remembering the blasts that had trembled through the cathedral – the screams, the bodies – my voice came out sounding thin and unreal.

Kara slowly shook her head; she hadn’t stopped staring at us. “Oh my god, you’re really okay,” she murmured. To my surprise, a broad smile grew across her face. “Listen, I know someone who is going to be very pleased to see you!” She leaped up, sending her chair skidding. “Alex!” she bellowed in the direction of the boys’ dorm. “Alex, Willow’s here!”

Apprehension and longing filled me. I swallowed and took the file out from under my jacket, setting it on the kitchen table. Though Seb was standing several feet away, I could sense his concern. Kara turned to me with a relieved grin. “He was out all night looking for you. He just got back about an hour ago – I’ve never been so worried about him, not even after Jake died. He was sure you’d been killed—”

“Willow!” Alex burst into the kitchen. His gorgeous face was bruised and burned; there were dark circles under his eyes – and his aura had exactly the damage in it that Seb had described. I had a heart-wrenching glimpse of tarnished blues and golds, and then Alex had scooped me up into his arms before I could stop him. “Oh, Jesus, you’re alive—” I could feel him shaking as he held me, and for a helpless moment I couldn’t stop myself from hugging him back. I pressed my head tightly against his warm neck; the hard strength of his shoulder. Alex.

“Willow, I’m sorry; I’m so sorry—” He buried his fingers in my hair as he kissed my cheeks, my eyes, my mouth. “I’ve been such an idiot. Please, please, forgive me.”

Kara had tactfully melted away somewhere. Seb still stood near the table, his face expressionless – and I knew to my absolute dismay that I was going to need him there to make this believable.

It took every molecule of strength that I had to pull myself away from Alex. “Don’t, um...don’t do that, please,” I said, taking a step back.