She waited until he was done, then stepped away and gave him a smile. “I’m just glad you managed to get away from those things under the Sanctuary,” she said. “Did you find out what they were?”

He shook his head. “And I didn’t wait around to ask questions, either. I ain’t gonna lie – whatever they are, they worry me. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“Well,” Tanith said, having wasted enough time on small talk, “the good news is, we both got out, we’re both free and the weapons have been destroyed, right?”

He nodded, then made a face. “Half of ’em, yeah.”

She stared. “What?”

“I melted down the sword and the spear,” he said. “But I figured I might have to go back in there to rescue you, and having the bow and the dagger might not be a bad idea.”

“I told you to destroy all the weapons!”

“Hey, calm down, OK? I was just taking precautions.”

“I didn’t ask you to take precautions,” she said, walking past him, “I told you to melt them all down.”

He caught up to her. “Would you please relax? I kept the furnace going so that if I saw anything suspicious, I could just throw ’em in.”

Tanith ignored him. The furnace room blasted heat at her when she entered. There they were, the bow and the dagger, sitting out in plain view. She picked up the blade, felt its power, felt how even the tiniest of nicks would open Sanguine up and spread his insides across the floor.

Instead, she threw the dagger into the furnace, then pushed the bow in after it. She glared.

“OK,” Sanguine said, “you’re mad at me.”

“If they had followed you back here,” Tanith said, “they could have recovered these before you had a chance to destroy them. Then everything we’d done would have been for nothing, and when Darquesse appeared, they’d be ready for her.”

“It was a precaution,” he said. “That’s all. And look, all destroyed now. All melted down. Problem solved.”

“You risked everything for nothing.”

“I risked everything for you.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

He went to hug her but she slapped his hands away.

He sighed, scratched his jaw. “Listen to me. All you care about is Darquesse, right? But me? All I care about is you. You understand? You are my Darquesse. You’d do anything for her, and I’d do anything for you.”

“But I don’t matter. Only she matters.”

“You matter to me. We can argue about this all day if you want, and that’s OK. I can do that. But it ain’t gonna change the fact that I love you.”

“Billy-Ray... the only reason I’m with you is because of this Remnant inside me.”

“I know that.”