He smiles. “You must live, Edwina.”

He withdraws his body from mine, leaving an absence, an emptiness that grows bigger and bigger and I know will last forever. He releases me.

“No,” I try to shout, “don’t go!” But he’s already leaving, retreating with increasing speed. He keeps his eyes on mine the whole time, and those eyes radiate love.

“Forgive me,” he says.

Just before he plunges over the edge into space, his gaze darkens into an expression of despair, fear, and formidable determination.

“Henri!” I scream as I awake.

Henri

So this is your choice? the final shadow asks. Like this? Then come.

The shadow loosens its grip on Madelyn. The little dancer freezes. She stares at me for a long time as she treads water, and then the child makes a push for the surface, toward life and light, and I hope that she won’t encounter a glass barrier that prevents her from taking the final step.

I stretch out my hand to the shadow. However scared I am of death, it’s the only solution, the only time I’ve ever made the correct decision and not flinched at the crucial moment. Eddie must live her life to the full, not linger with a man who’ll never be anything but a breathing creature without a will of his own. Sam and Maddie are made for each other. It’s good like this—the perfect outcome.

The shadow drags me through the water. The pain is so all-consuming that I open my mouth and allow the sea to invade and take possession of me. I’m incapable of moving my arms or my legs, and they hurt like hell. Everything hurts, as if all at once I can feel every single cell of my forgotten, abandoned, defunct body. The pain is overwhelming; it roars and stabs, filling me with nausea. A loud, deep rumbling sound reverberates in my ears.

I’m sinking faster and faster, mingling and dissolving into the sea. I touch the sand and stone on the bottom, which opens and sucks me in. But as I disappear something completely unforeseen occurs.

DAY FORTY-SIX

Sam

Everything is in free fall: his temperature, his blood pressure, his pulse. It’s like a stately old oak crumbling to the ground. At the same time his fingers are in spasms, clutching repeatedly at Eddie’s as she stands by his side. His arms twitch, his cheek muscles tense and relax, and his eyelids quiver.