I went to hide them, and Al caught my wrist. Slowly my fingers opened, and he took them, his expression solemn as he held the rings up to the firelight. His glasses were gone, and he held them close, squinting. “How sure are you of his commitment?” he asked, his tone guarded and soft.

I wiped my eyes and held my shaking hand out. The memories of the rings still echoed in me, still coloring my thoughts as I tried to readjust my world. I’d known elves were savage, fighting for their existence under the boot of the demons. I had guessed that the demons were seeking revenge for the elves cursing them into a slow spiral of extinction. But I hadn’t realized how deep it went, how convoluted it was, how old.

Shaking the feeling off, I took the rings from him and jammed them away in a pocket, hiding them. I’d use them, and then when done, I’d destroy them. They were tools, and I wouldn’t let fear rule me. “It doesn’t matter,” I said, answering him. “It’s the choice I make.”

Al sighed and looked into the flames, through them, maybe, at nothing and everything. “Perhaps you should concentrate on saving yourself,” he whispered. “Let us all die. We’re broken beyond repair.”

I thought of Al in his dream, looking nothing like this, more like an elegant bat. Broken? Perhaps, but I had put his butterfly back together with my blood. “I never liked the movie Titanic,” I said, and he grunted, his gaze sharpening on me. “They both could have gotten on that damn door.”

Al smiled, and a weird, kindred sensation filled me. Standing, I took his wedding rings from the mantel and handed them to him. “Don’t try to forget her,” I said, and his hands closed on them, wonder in his eyes as he looked up at me.

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Yes, I do.” I had to leave. The rings were awake, and the sooner I used them, the sooner I could destroy them. “Could you . . . send me home?”

He blinked, then got to his feet with a huge sigh. “My student just reinvoked wild magic, and she can’t get herself home?” He laughed, but it fell flat, and I jumped, startled when his thick finger touched my jaw, turning me to make me look at him. “If he betrays you, I will finish what I started with his fingers,” he said, and I shivered. “Tell him that.”

“I will.”