This was my chance. I sprang forward and, inserting myself between the two, as if that could do anything, I flung my arms wide, giving them each one of my bandaged palms.

“Leave, Lucas!” I screamed at top volume, recognizing fully that the only reason Lucas was still alive was because Erik had so far decided to keep his promise. With Lucas instigating this way, though, goading Erik, how much longer could I hope for that resolve to remain?

Instead of listening to me, Lucas squared off from his enemy and let loose more words—his only weapons.

“You’re dead!” Lucas yelled. “You don’t belong here.”

“Lucas, please!”

“Even if you were alive and not some thing of nightmares, she would never choose you!”

“Erik, no!” I screamed as, with that, the hooded figure darted forward, lunging past me toward Lucas, who only narrowly avoided the swipe of the blade that sang as it sliced lengthwise through the snow and air. Lucas delivered a return swing with his fist. The cloaked figure dodged it, the motion fast enough to cause his hood to fall back—and reveal the flawless face I had not seen since that night in the boat. Erik’s.

The sight of it, even twisted with hatred, caused something within me to shift and upend. Because unlike the horrible silver death’s head mask, this face was one that I had come to know. And the pain beneath the beauty in those features, beneath the fury—it echoed my own.

“Erik, he’s leaving,” I said. “He’ll go. Lucas?”

With a growl, Lucas rushed Erik again.

“Stop it!” I shrieked at both of them when, in response, Erik slashed Lucas’s sleeve open, sending a spatter of crimson over the snow. That strike had been yet another warning—no doubt Erik’s final. Lucas had to know this. Why, then, was he swinging at Erik yet again? Did he think being in a dream protected him? Did he think he could win?

Erik’s face. What about it had tipped Lucas out of defiance and into rage?

“You belong in hell,” said Lucas through gritted teeth even as Erik shoved him against one side of the stone sepulcher. “And even if it kills me, I swear I will be the one to send you there.”

The words stunned me, cracking my heart in two. Not just because they were filled with hate but because they proved that, in this moment, what Lucas cared most about . . . was revenge.

Dropping the knife, Erik seized Lucas by the throat with both hands.

Lucas cringed, clawing at the gloved fingers that squeezed harder, threatening to crush his windpipe.

“Erik!” I ran to him, latching on to his arms as if I had the strength to pry them off. But now he wasn’t listening, either.

Lucas’s knees buckled. But Erik held him fast against the stones, fury contorting his expression past the point of recognition.

“You swore!” I shouted at him.

Erik froze. He held his crushing grip a moment longer. Then, with a roar of rage, he released Lucas and, still glaring his hate at him, backed away several steps. Gasping for breath, and before his knees could meet the frozen ground, Lucas vanished, no doubt waking up wherever he had gone to sleep.