As I walked out to meet him, Kris’s grin faltered. He said nothing, just walked faster. I stopped at the edge of the wooden dock. My mouth opened and I wanted to tell him I’d found the amulet, regale him with the story of how I’d swiped it from under the Nix’s nose and given her a good ass-kicking in the process. But all I could think about was how close I’d come to throwing away the only real thing I had in this afterlife.

I lifted my hand and touched his cheek. Why does skin still feel warm here, long after the blood that gives it heat is gone? Maybe it’s the memory of warmth that we feel, or maybe it’s something deeper than biology.

Kristof put his hand over mine, and pressed it against his cheek. Then he pulled my hand over to his mouth and kissed my palm, the touch so light it sent a shiver through me. I looked around, but there was no one here to see us. There was never anyone but the occasional seagull or tern winging past overhead.

I pulled my hand from Kristof’s grasp and undid the first button on his shirt. Closing my eyes, I slid my hands to his chest, and traced my fingers over his collarbone. No need to look; my fingers knew the way, as they did over every part of him, neural pathways etched into my brain, tread and retread and committed to memory years before, as if I’d known from the start that someday I’d need to rely on my memories to see him.

“I used to dream about you,” I said, undoing the rest of the shirt as I trailed my fingers down his chest. “Long after I left. Right up to the end. Twelve years gone, and I’d still wake up in the night, thinking you’d just left the room, certain I could smell you there. Even the mattress felt warm.”

I undid his pants and pushed them down over his hips. “Some nights it was just that, dreaming you were sleeping there beside me. Other nights…” I shivered and slipped one hand into his shorts, while the other tugged them off. “Other nights I’d wake up aching for you, sweating, so wet I barely needed to touch myself to come. I could never remember what I’d been dreaming, but I knew it was about you, even when I told myself it wasn’t.”