His gaze fell from mine, his bulk shifting as he looked away and sat back. The feeling that came from him then shocked me more than anything else I had experienced all night.

Shame.

My breath caught, and I forced myself to my knees. What could it mean? I floundered, at a loss for words. On impulse, I reached for the emerald hand on the floor.

With a quick, smooth motion, he pulled it beyond my grasp. I bit my lip as I craned my neck back to look up at him, and then using the edge of the tub, I pulled myself to my feet.

“Please…” I whispered.

He looked down at me again, and the sadness in his eyes was unmistakable. After a moment, and very slowly, his hand came back down as if he would touch me, but the tips of the glittering claws only brushed the air just above my head.

I took a deep breath and then reached up and snatched the edge of one of his fingers before he could pull away again. His verdant skin was soft and pulsing with warmth under my touch. He was frozen for a minute, and then he lowered his hand before me. I pulled myself into his palm before he could change his mind. For a moment I tensed, expecting his fingers to clench around me like they had with Epistola, but his hand remained open, and he lifted me as gently as if I were made of crystal.

High above the stage, I knelt before his face. The resplendent tentacles swirled about me, encircling my limbs, but staying an inch from my flesh, not one of them actually touching me.

The emotion coming from him then was one of utter amazement and wonder. I understood; I was gazing upon his true visage, and I had not been driven mad. Instead, I felt almost at peace. If it hadn’t been for the pain in my body from the tortures I’d endured, I could have been perfectly content.

“You stopped her,” I whispered. You saved me… “You came…”

“Of course I came, you foolish child.” Again, his voice—his polychromatic song—surrounded me, filled me, with shimmering words that weren’t words that I understood deep within the core of my being. “I had no choice.”

I bit back a trembling breath and I looked down, tucking some of my drying hair behind my ear. I nodded. “You had to save the world…”

One of the tentacles brushed me then, catching me under the chin and gently forcing me to look back up at him. Its texture was softer than satin.

The light in his eyes seemed to flicker. “You are the only thing in this world worth saving.”

I blinked, and my lips parted speechlessly. I shook my head. “But, no… Why?”