Those two words somehow managed to make my heart soar and break, all at once. Because he was here, now. But he didn’t belong here. He had to go back to his own world someday. And he knew it. I could hear it in his voice, in the unspoken words at the end of his sentence. I had him—for now.

And it occurred to me, for the very first time, that losing Isaak would kill me as much as losing Ceilos.

I reached up, my fingers brushing his chest, hooking around the folds of his shirt like an anchor. He looked startled, but he didn’t pull back. Instead he smiled and pulled me close to him, arms wrapped around my waist in an embrace.

My pulse staggered, and for a panicked moment I was afraid he was going to try to put his mouth on mine the way Ceilos had. But he didn’t. He just held me, until my heartbeat steadied, and my tense muscles relaxed, and my fears evaporated one by one, leaving nothing but calm. Safety. I breathed in the smell of him, warm and familiar, and for once in my life, I didn’t worry about anything. I didn’t think of what could be, what was coming. There was only here and now: Elytherios, and the rain, and Isaak.

I never wanted it to end.

“Isaak,” I said. My voice came out muffled against his shirt, and I felt his chest vibrate as he laughed. Grinning, I leaned back, looking up at his face. “I know—”

“Nadin.”

Isaak jumped, dropping his arms from around me and stepping back. The air felt suddenly cold without his warm presence filling it.

Gitrin stood at the edge of the clearing, holding a lantern. Her expression was unreadable in its flickering amber glow. A second, taller figure stood beside her, but I couldn’t make out his face.

“There’s someone here,” Gitrin said. “To see you.”

I peered through the shadows, and the figure stepped into the light.

Ceilos.

Chapter 31

The door to the guesthouse banged open more loudly than I intended it to—my face was still burning, my mind racing with what had just happened, so I wasn’t paying attention. It didn’t really matter, though. There was only one other occupant in the guesthouse at the moment, and I didn’t really care if I inconvenienced him.

My dad was lying on his side in his bed, and he rolled over to look at me as I came in. I shut the door more gently and looked around before deciding to flop onto the farthest bed from him as possible. I reached down to pull off my shoes—slick boots made of an unfamiliar material that Nadin had brought me in the hospital—and tossed the first one in a heap on the floor.