Light flooded my brain like he’d just thrown a switch in my nervous system. All the static and voices and images and stray realities evaporated and there was only Tair.

Only us.

I’d never felt the present so clearly in my life and I ached to stay here. Tair’s pulled me tight to him. He cradled the back of my head, stroking the nape of my neck with a thumb as his gentle lips pressed. I felt him everywhere. Smelled him. Saw only him.

Every part of me tingled, all alive.

I’d never realized how numb I was and how much living out of sync with the present was really costing. This was life. This was what other people took for granted, and what I wanted more than anything.

But it was like Darren said. No one gets everything they want.

Tair’s lips pulled back, but he left our foreheads pressed together. I couldn’t hear his heartbeat over our panting breaths, but I wondered if our connection went so deep that even our hearts thumped the same rhythm.

The doors opened and the fear I’d been holding off finally started crushing in. If I couldn’t timewind again, we were stuck.

And this was probably goodbye.

“Separate and put your hands out,” the guard said, perfectly following his script.

Neither of us budged a centimeter.

It’s not the end. Tair cupped my jaw and more emotions than I could begin to read shone in his eyes, all brown and gold. Your power makes anything possible. We can still fight. We just have to get back to each other. Determination coursed through his voice, and against all the odds, I hoped he was right.

I squeezed him one last time. I’m not giving up yet.

Then came the voice I’d been dreading.

“Separate them,” Darren bit off his words, more angry than I’d ever seen him—his blond hair crazed and his green eyes practically glowing insane.

He’d seen the kiss. I would’ve punched myself if I had the energy. My self-indulgence was going to put us on the darkest possible path.

I had to fix it. Maybe we couldn’t get out of this, but we could at least try for a less bloody future.

I reached for our bookmark in time, but nothing.

No matter how I tried, I couldn’t focus. The moment was still there—still frozen and special, done in darker lines than all the wispy pasts around it—but the page slipped my mental fingers like someone had slopped it with grease.

Time wouldn’t slow, let alone turn back.

If anything, it moved faster, careening toward a future that had me shuddering.

Guards ripped Tair and me apart.