A tear slips from my fifth and sixth eye, my human eyes, as my smile widens and the words tumble from my lips, tragic and hopeful all at once.

“Wait for me.”

The wildfire in his gaze roars higher, eating me like kindling. The ring—his ring—around my finger feels so solid, so wonderful, the only unpainful thing in the world as every little muscle in my body strains to force the First Root back together. The tremblings of the ground grow wild, nearly throwing us off-balance, but Lucien refuses to let even the earthquakes tear his gaze from my face. The ceiling of the little cave starts to collapse in places, chunks of dirt and stone leaving puckered holes into darkness that reveal the glowing rainbow tree above. It seems more real, somehow—its branches now strongly shimmering.

Varia suddenly breaks free of Lucien’s spell, her wooden-fingered hand darting out for my throat. She squeezes and squeezes so hard I fear my head will come off—squeezes like I’m the source of all her rage and fury. But Varia’s grip is nothing compared to the iron grip of Lucien’s command, the hunger peeling apart my willpower like it’s nothing more than dry lace. He knew all along, maybe, what I was going to do. But he had a plan, too. He didn’t want to command me, but he knew he would if he had to. He’d pour all his magic into that one command if he had to.

I can’t stop him.

But I can love him.

“If I don’t do this, Lucien,” I gasp, “I’ll be hungry forever.”

It’s not the I love you he wants. It’s not the I’ll stop, and let you do this instead. It’s not the I will consider my own safety above all others’ he wants to hear. He wants me to be with him, to be us, together at last, and in peace.

And I want that, too.

Varia’s grip closes in around my windpipe. I breathe deep, for maybe my last breath, and say, “Please trust me. Wait for me.”

It’s a promise, and a cry, and a prayer.

It’s unfair to ask him. Selfish.

But maybe I’ve earned a little of that, at the end of all things.

Whisper isn’t the type to linger, but Lucien is. So I know it’s Whisper who pulls him away from me, who breaks his eye contact, who is there one moment and then gone in shadow the next. The sound of popping, everywhere, outside the cave. Clattering as swords fall to the floor, as bowstrings unwind sharply, the clank of metal as Yorl’s matronic falls, as every beneather and friend is teleported away by Lucien’s sheer power, the sounds of battle emptying in a split second, and all I can think is thank you.

I love you.