I lift my head. His hand slides over mine, clammy and warm, but slightly less feverish, and a small smile teases the edge of his lips.

Suddenly, his chest stills.

His smile falls. My heart sinks as his eyes dart back and forth under their lids, and I know by the sudden spike of his heart rate that he’s remembering.

His head turns on the pillow. I force myself to meet his gaze as his lids flutter open. He reaches for me, his thumb brushing the skin under my eye.

“They’re weird, I know.” My face warms the longer he stares at them. I try to turn away, but he cups my cheek, gently turning me back to him.

“No, it’s just . . . I need a minute,” he says, coaxing my chin up. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again. I just want to look at you.” His gray eyes dart back and forth between mine, as if he’s watching scenes from a movie play out in them.

“You gave me the magic,” he says. “The ice on my skin while I was on the bridge . . . It had nothing to do with the storm. When we kissed at the clock . . . you breathed it into me.”

I nod into his hand. “Kai knew there was magic in you. She smelled it in the alley, when she came out of Auggie’s house.”

“She called me ‘Winter.’ But that means . . .” He frowns as if he’s struggling to piece together what happened next.

I hold his hand to my cheek. His eyes lock on mine as I let my memories fill in the gaps for him, beginning with the moment I materialized in the stasis chamber in the back of the van. I show him how Julio and Amber had rallied the evacuated Seasons to aid his escape. How Lixue had been among them and offered to help when we weren’t sure he would make it past the bridge.

He swallows at my memory of his sleeping face, covered in frost, as blindingly beautiful as sunlight on snow in those moments before the extraction. Silent tears stream down my face as I remember it for him. How he’d bucked and cried out in his sleep as I’d drawn out his Winter magic. How he’d fallen silent after and didn’t wake up.

Kai had been awake during her own extraction. The smaze I drew from her lungs into mine had held a glimmer of Jack, but also pieces of Kai and her sister, and when I’d breathed it into a glass jar Auggie had brought for me, Kai had stopped me before I could seal the lid. She asked me to let it go. Together, we set it free.

But Jack’s . . .

“You held on to it,” he says, wiping a tear from my cheek.