“You meant to say that you weren’t being very observant, and correct me if I’m wrong, I wasn’t the one sneaking around,” he teased.

“You’re wrong.” I squeezed him tighter.

He responded by dropping a kiss to the crown of my head. “I remember the first time you revealed yourself. We were in Thierry’s office, and I think Nicolai might’ve choked on his own breath. I remember the first time you gave me a heart attack. It was after you told me about your vision.”

The corners of my lips turned up. Not wanting him to think that I wasn’t, well, capable after dropping the whole going blind bomb, I’d taken off and jumped from one rooftop to the next. He’d acted as if he hadn’t been all that happy with it, but I knew he’d been secretly pleased—excited and challenged.

“And I remember the night you helped get the imp’s claw out of me.” His voice deepened, and this time, my shiver had everything to do with the memory of him and I, in his bathroom and in his bed. “I remember it all now—those feelings and memories are a part of me.”

I couldn’t speak as I squeezed my eyes shut against the flood of emotion. All my senses concentrated on the feel of his skin under my fingers. His body temperature was as warm as before, running hotter than a normal human’s. Hands shaking, I drew them down, over his chest, stopping over his heart.

His heart beat strongly against my palm.

It really did work.

The Throne hadn’t been lying. The Crone hadn’t given me some kind of bunk spell. I hadn’t messed up. It really worked.

Tears slipped free, and there was no stopping them. I broke wide open, and all the hopelessness and despair, the sorrow and grief, crashed into the relief and pounding joy spilling out of me. I tried to rein it all back in. This was a happy moment, a good one, and I didn’t need to spend it drowning Zayne in my tears, but I couldn’t stop myself.

Zayne pressed his cheek to the side of my head. He spoke as my body shook, releasing all the pent-up emotion that I’d barely been able to keep leashed from the moment I’d lost him. I had no idea what he said. He could’ve been telling me that he was part-platypus at this point, and I wouldn’t have cared. I lifted my hands, sinking my fingers into the soft strands of his hair.

“Your tears are killing me,” he said, and that I understood fully. “Killing me.”

It was Zayne.

It was Zayne.

It was Zayne.