Sabine knelt on the ground next to Marc, her face streaked with tears and his hand clutched in hers. Blood was pooling around her knees, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

“Is he…?” I found I couldn’t say it.

She shook her head, and I saw that his chest was still moving. His hood had fallen back to reveal his face, and I wanted to pull it forward again. Not for the reasons he’d always worn it, but to hide the silent plea in his eyes. A dull ache filled me, and for a moment, it felt like I’d been the one to fall. Like I was the one who couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

“Alive! Thank the stars,” Cécile said. “I can do this. I can fix this. I just need…” She eyed me wildly, then caught sight of the twins limping up the creek bed toward us. “Victoria, hurry,” she shouted. “I need you.”

“No,” I said, taking hold of her upper arms and drawing her back.

“What do you mean, no?” she demanded, twisting to look up at me.

“No magic. No spells,” I said. “Leave him be.”

“But he’ll die!”

I didn’t answer, only held her steady and away from my cousin, my best friend. Victoria was on her knees next to him, shoulders shaking as she wept, but when she lifted her head, her eyes were full of understanding.

Cécile was thrashing in my arms. “You can’t do this, Tristan. You can’t let him die. Please let me help him.”

But she wouldn’t be helping him. For my own sake, not his, I’d forced him to live when Pénélope had died. I wouldn’t do it again. This was his decision, and he’d made it. Whether I agreed didn’t matter. It wasn’t my choice.

“Please,” Cécile whispered, but she ceased struggling. And she wasn’t speaking to me. “Marc, please don’t leave us. We need you. I need you.”

His gaze shifted to hers, and whatever she saw there made her shoulders slump. She nodded once, then stepped away from me. Then taking a deep breath, she sang. It was the lament she’d sung for Élise, and it echoed hauntingly through the ravine and up into the night sky. Sabine and Victoria moved back, and I dropped to my knees and took my friend’s hand.