He realized he’d been squeezing her hand too hard. The ends of his fingernails, ragged from chewing the past few sleepless nights, were biting into her palm. He let go at once, but leaned forward all the same, unable to look away from her face.

“Andi?”

Her eyelids fluttered.

For a moment, Dex feared she was dying. That her stitches had become infected, or the blood that Lon had donated in the few precious moments after their escape had mixed wrongly with hers, universal donor or not. Perhaps even the godstar of death, still so hauntingly present in this room, was laughing as he raised a shadowy scythe and readied himself to bring Andi to the other side.

But then her eyes opened.

Gray as a storming sea.

Dex let out a whooshing breath that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

“Hey,” he said, feeling the tightness flood from him, gone in an instant. “How are you feeling?”

“Dex?” For a moment, Andi simply looked around, as if trying to make sense of her surroundings. She seemed calm, just a person waking from a sound night of sleep.

Then her eyes slowly moved to lock onto Dex’s, and confusion seemed to sweep through her as her forehead wrinkled.

“What...happened?” Andi asked. Her voice was raw from disuse, a whisper trying to break free into something more.

“You’re alive,” Dex said, unable to stop a smile of relief from spreading across his face. “You’re safe.”

“Safe?” Andi asked. She tried to sit up and groaned, a hand flying up toward the white bandages covering the knife wound in her chest.

This was the most awake she’d been in days. Dex took a deep breath, reaching for her hand, still unsure of how to explain it all to her. She may have been gravely injured, but she wasn’t a child. She wasn’t weak in her heart or her soul. She could handle this, though it might come close to breaking her.

“There was an attack on Arcardius,” Dex said. “During Ucatoria. Do you remember?”

Andi’s eyes hardened.

“Nor Solis...she came, and...” Dex’s words trailed off. How could he explain what had happened? How could he tell her that an entire ballroom of people he’d thought dead had suddenly risen and pledged allegiance to the very woman who’d attacked them? The very woman they’d all feared, hated, for nearly ten years?

Worst of all, how could he tell Andi that her crew was among the dead-then-risen who had joined Nor’s side?

“Where is Lira?” Andi asked suddenly. “Breck and Gilly?”

Dex’s heart nearly stopped beating. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

And then he saw Andi’s expression change as she remembered, the memories slamming into her, making her recoil away from him.