“I know.” That was said without an ounce of arrogance as he tugged me down to his lap. When he lifted his hands, he did so slowly, making sure he didn’t startle me as he gently clasped my cheeks. “It’s been six days, four hours and roughly twenty minutes since I’ve been able to really talk to you and to see you through my eyes. Others have gone longer. Weeks. Months. Years. But those days and hours and minutes have felt like an eternity. I can’t even imagine what it’s been like for you.”

I placed my hands against the warm skin of his chest. “I always thought losing my vision was the scariest thing that could happen to me, but then I...I lost my mother, and that was worse. I dealt with it, but then I lost Misha, and I thought everything he’d done was the worst thing I could possibly experience. I was wrong. Each of those things has been terrible or hard or life-changing in its own way, but losing you felt like every breath I needed to take was stolen away before I could inhale.” The back of my throat burned again. “It was worse than Hell, and it wasn’t even the healing part. That sucked, but being awake was worse. Being aware that you...you were gone was the worst part, and you know, I didn’t know how I could go on, and I was planning to...”

“Planning what?” He carefully smoothed his thumbs under my eyes, and it was then that I realized I was crying. Again. I really needed to stop doing that. Jesus.

I stitched myself together. Sort of. “I was planning to go to Grim—to the Angel of Death—and force him to bring you back.”

“You were going to do what?”

“Go to Grim and force him to bring you back. I didn’t know how I would do it, but then I...I didn’t know if that was the right thing, you know? Like what if you were at peace and I was pulling you away from that? Bringing you back to life and for what? To fight Gabriel. To possibly die again?” Those feelings—that confusion—still pooled in the back of my throat like battery acid. “But I knew that if I survived Gabriel, I don’t think...I don’t think I would’ve survived losing you. A part of me would be forever gone—the part that belongs to you. And that night you came back? I was in that park trying to figure out what would be the right thing to do and if I could live with myself no matter what I decided.”