I could barely hear him, and I leaned on his shoulder as I scooted closer. He gasped at the added weight, and the pain in my head doubled. “I couldn’t pull you out into reality,” I explained. “I had to move to the ever-after to do it.”

“I’m out?” he said, and his jaw clenched as he opened his eyes. He’d lost his glasses somewhere, and his eyes were black—like Newt’s. He closed his eyes at my fear.

“We’re out,” I said, still panting at the pain. We were out, but I didn’t think it mattered.

“I’ll get us home,” he said, and then we both screamed as he tried to jump to a line. Fire burned down both our synaptic lines, and I fell back, groaning as I forced my lungs to keep working. If I was breathing, I was alive, right? How could it hurt so much? I was on fire. We were burning to death from the inside out.

“Oh God. Oh God,” I moaned, looking in my hand in wonder. It looked the same, but it felt like it was burning, charring. “Don’t. Don’t do that again. Please.”

“I can’t jump us, Celfnnah. I’m sorry. Save yourself.”

The heartache in Al’s voice cut through the agony, and I focused on him, seeing him curled up against the pain. Celfnnah? “You want me to leave?” I said in disbelief as my tears started again, but whether they were to clear my eyes of the grit or because of Al, I couldn’t tell.

Al groaned, and with a sudden jerk, he finally got the ring off his finger. My breath sucked in as the pain vanished. He took one last shuddering breath, and then he passed out, his entire body going limp. My hand flashed out as Al’s ring pinged against the rock and I caught it.

Silence filled me, the cessation of pain almost unreal as the wind shifted a lank curl into my line of vision. There was only a fading ache, deep in my tissues as if I had been in a fever. “Al?”

I touched his shoulder, my hand coming away with a sheen of sweat bleeding all the way through his clothes. He still breathed, but he was out cold. “Don’t you go to sleep, Al!” I shouted, shifting to kneel before him. “Stay with me!” I might as well be talking to the dead, and I put his ring on my thumb so I wouldn’t lose it. Stretching, I reached for my parasol, holding it over both our heads. Damn it, we were in big trouble now.