“I won’t ask you to stand with me,” I said. “I don’t want you to come, because he’s forcing me to challenge him and if you come with me, you would be challenging him, too. I’m not sure I’ll come through this alive and even if I do, he’ll come after me with everything he has. I want you to live and be happy, Curran. I want you to survive. I want to marry you and have your children, but if I die, I want you to marry and have kids with someone who would make you happy. I want you to live. All I ask is that you let me have what’s left of this night with you. Don’t leave me now over this and don’t fight with me about it. I need you. Please.”

Curran pulled me to him. His arms closed around me and for a moment I felt safe. It was an illusion, but I didn’t care.

“We go together,” he said.

“No.”

“I don’t tell you what battles to fight. Don’t tell me when to fight mine.”

“Curran, there is no turning back after this . . .”

He shook his head. “I love you. We go together.”

“But . . .”

“No,” he said. “Not up for discussion.”

Oh, you stupid idiot. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Yes. But I’m a demon in the sack.”

I laughed. “Okay then. That fixes everything.”

“That’s right, it does.”

I fell asleep in his arms by the slowly dying fire in the cold snowed-in field. I wouldn’t have traded it for the most luxurious palace.

• • •

THE MORNING BROUGHT a magic wave and even harsher cold. I opened my eyes. The sky above me was crystalline blue. I pulled back the blanket, leaving the warmth Curran and I had shared through the night, and sat up. Pure white snow stretched as far as I could see, sparkling in the morning sun like crushed crystal.

Beautiful day.

Curran jumped to his feet. I rolled one blanket up, he rolled the other, and we checked the backpacks.

Andrea watched us. “Both of you have your business faces on.”

“We have someplace to be,” I said.

“Rise and shine,” Curran called out.

The rest of the group awoke instantly, all except Ghastek, who seemed dead to the world. One, two, three . . . Naeemah was missing. Well, we rescued her, she helped us get out of Mishmar. I suppose that made us even. Hopefully Landon’s vampires had let her pass.

Andrea was on her feet. “What are you doing?”

“I have to visit Roland,” I told her. “He has Robert and Christopher.”

“Robert is dead,” Thomas said, his voice raw.

“There is a possibility he isn’t,” Curran said.

Thomas froze. A muscle in his face jerked. “Then I’m coming with you.” Thomas grabbed his pack.