Your kind.

It would be a freedom so much greater than just release from Trollus. The lands of endless summer would be theirs again, along with countless other worlds and endless years to explore them. It would be the greatest gift I could give them – the ability to return home.

You.

You don’t belong here.

The cold seemed to bite through my clothing, the wind blowing through the trees a mournful howl. On numb feet, I slowly followed her tracks into the woods.

I found her sitting on a dry patch beneath a fir tree, face buried in her knees, shoulders shaking. “If it’s what Martin wants, do it,” I said, swallowing the tightness in my throat. “And if it works, I’ll do what I can to see every other full-blooded troll goes with him.”

“Every?” Her voice was soft.

“I think most will clamor for the opportunity.”

“Will you?”

I thought of her sharp words, the guilt and the blame. What I had done and left undone, and all the blood on my hands. Our hands. I knew she would forgive me for my failures, because that was her way. But would she ever forgive herself? If I stayed, would I not always be a constant reminder of how she’d forsaken her own kind, however temporarily, for me? Would it be better if I left? Would it help her forget?

“This is all speculation,” I said. “Neither of us know if your spell will work.”

It was the worst of silences, but I felt too cowardly to ask if her heart had veered so far in the opposite direction that she now wanted me gone with all the rest of my kind. And I feared her silence was reluctance to ask it of me.

“Do you have everything you need for your spell to do it tonight?” I asked, needing the moment to end. “One way or another, I need to leave at first light.”

“Gran was gathering what we needed,” she said, getting to her feet and wiping her face with a sleeve. “She should be done by now.”

Cécile started back to camp, and I knew I needed to say it now. “Cécile–”

She stopped in her tracks.

“Given the choice between one lifetime spent with you or a thousand without, I will always choose you.” I took a deep breath. “That is, if you still want me.”

She didn’t turn, kept her back to me and didn’t answer. But this was what made the bond between us worth every risk – she didn’t need to say anything at all. Slowly, she stretched her arm back, palm open, and I took it.

Chapter 46

Cécile

“Do you smell that?” I asked as we approached the camp.

Tristan sniffed. “Smells like outside.”

“Like summer,” I said, hurrying my step. And then stopped dead.

The camp we’d left behind had been all snow and mud, but now it was a lush oasis of greenery. Grass as high as my knee carpeted the ground, bushes were thick with leaves, and wildflowers painted the clearing in a myriad of colors.