“I just realized you died on me twice.” Raphael rolled to his feet and staggered off.

“Where are you going?”

“I need a minute.”

He stumbled into the bushes and I heard him vomit.

A shadow came over me. Roman sat on a log next to me. He was carrying something long and wrapped in plastic.

“Nice guy,” Roman said. “An asshole, but he loves you.”

“I love him, too.” I petted his hand. “Thank you for everything. I had fun.”

“I had fun, too.” He grinned. “Look what I got.” He pulled the plastic back. The Bone Staff.

“You got it?”

He nodded. “Spent an hour digging through that clay. Worth every minute.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you around. You call if you need anything, yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “You call me, too. I owe you some help. As long as I don’t have to sacrifice any babies, I’ll be there.”

“I’ll count on it.”

He walked off and Raphael took his place, rinsing his mouth with water from a canteen. Around us, the shapeshifters were herding the snake people into a group. I was covered in mud, blood, and swampy muck. Raphael looked even worse, his hair smeared with gore. I really wanted to go back home, take a shower, and sleep for a year.

“Help me off the log?” I asked him.

“No. We’re going to get you a nice stretcher and carry you down to the boats.”

“I’m okay to walk. My chest hurts a little, but I can make it.”

“You are certifiable,” he told me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag.

“What’s this?”

“I swore that if we made it through today, I would do this.” Raphael pulled a small plastic box out of the bag and got down on his knees in the mud.

This was crazy.

He opened the box. A white engagement ring with a band shaped like a beast’s paw lay on a small velvet pillow, with a beautiful sapphire clasped in its tiny white claws.

“I’m fucked up,” he said. “I have many faults. But I promise if you marry me, I will love you and take care of you for the rest of our lives.”

I stared at him.

“If you put up with me, I will put up with whatever you can throw my way,” he said. “Bad days, good days, ‘I’ll cut you if you look at me the wrong way’ days. I’ll take them all.”

I knew I had to say something.

“If you kill her with this after everything I’ve done,” Doolittle said behind me. “You will never leave this swamp.”

Raphael searched my face, anxious. “Andi?”

“Yes,” I told him. “In sickness and in health, poor, rich, I don’t care.”

He was still looking at me, as if he hadn’t heard.