“Zip me?” I asked as I stood in front of the full-length mirror that was balanced against one of Violet’s walls. In the mirror’s reflection, I watched Trey step up behind me and pull the zipper of my dress up my back. When he reached the top, he gently touched my shoulder to urge me to spin around to face him. When I did, he pulled me toward him, winding his arms around my waist and holding me against his body while burying his face in my neck.

We stood like that for what felt like several minutes until he whispered, “Can’t we just stay here forever, like this?”

“I wish we could. You know that I wish we could.” I pressed the side of my face against his chest, hearing his heartbeat beneath Mr. Simmons’s sweater.

Trey’s shoulders lifted as he inhaled deeply, his exhale a downward glissando. “Whatever happens today, we’ll be together. Whether it’s here, or somewhere else, later.” Placing his hands on my shoulders, he leaned back so that he could look into my eyes as I felt tears welling up.

“Okay” was all I could manage to say. When we’d parted ways in January, he’d asked me to wait for him. Our lives were intrinsically woven together. We belonged with each other; we were two parts of a larger whole in much the same way that Jennie and I were linked across the divide between life and death. Trey and I had both been a part of this network of evil and consequences for far longer than either of us had been aware.

“Later today, when we get Mischa here, I might need you to… ,” I began, and then the request vanished from my tongue. There was no way that Trey could be the person who would pretend as if he was about to kill me that day—certainly not if he had to follow through on the threat if the spirits who inhabited Mischa called his bluff. He wouldn’t be able to bring himself to harm me; they would know it because I knew it. The undeniable truth, which made my heart ache, was that Trey would hurt himself before he’d ever hurt me. He would sacrifice himself before he’d let me die.

“What?” Trey asked as he looked deeply into my eyes. His face was so perfect, his features so beautiful, I didn’t want to consider the possibility of death depriving me from ever seeing him again. “Anything. You know I’ll do anything for you.”

But he couldn’t do the one thing I needed him to do, and I couldn’t ask him. And so my decision was made, as uncomfortable as it was going to be to ask Henry to own that task.

“Explain all of this—everything that’s happened—to my mom one day,” I said. That was a request I could make of him on which I knew he’d follow through.

Trey solemnly nodded and then pulled me against his chest again. He said into my hair, “Let’s hope we pull this off today so that you can tell her yourself.”