He reaches out and tries to touch me, to run his fingers down my cheek, but I flinch away. He’s dead, and even though it’s not his fault, he’s still dead. Dead dead dead. And nothing can undo that. No Walker spell inside the book can bring him back, return real air into his dead-boy lungs.

Nothing can change what’s been done.

I glance up the shore, where the trees between us and the road are already engulfed, flames winding up into the skyline, catching on treetops, cyclones of heat and ash. Even the path back to my house is blocked. There’s no way out now. We waited too long. I waited too long.

The snow has melted away along the beach, revealing black pebbles and ash-coated sand.

“Nora,” he says. But I won’t look at him because nothing is okay. Because everything is burning. Because the fire is too close, surrounding me now. And he is dead. Tears spill down my cheeks.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” he says, reaching out to wipe away the tears with his dead-boy palms. A boy I can touch and feel but no one else can. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I wish I could make this right.”

“But you can’t,” I say, bitter words from bitter lips.

He’s so close he could kiss me. He could blot out everything with his mouth on mine. But I don’t want him to. Flesh and bone. I don’t want to feel the heat of his skin knowing it’s not real. None of this will last.

He was never mine to keep.

I shrug away from his touch. My heart seizing in my chest, my lungs burning so bad it feels like they’re on fire, encircled by flames. And I am surrounded by flames—the fire too close, the heat unbearable. Singeing my flesh, my hair swirling up into the cyclone of ash. I can’t stay here. I won’t survive.

“Where are you going?” Oliver shouts.

“Out there,” I answer.

He tries to grab my hand, but I slip away, stepping out onto the ice. It’s my only option now—the only place where the fire won’t burn.

On the lake.

“Nora, no,” he calls, his voice broken, crumbling beneath his tongue. “It’s too dangerous.”

“Only for me,” I answer back. I’m the only one who can die, who still has something to lose. I know there’s no time left. No escape. I’ll suffocate from the smoke or burn from the flames if I stay here.

I move quickly, before he can pull me back. I sprint out onto the ice, through the low layer of smoke, slipping once and dropping to my knees, but I push myself up and keep going. The ice is thinner than before—than the night I fell through the surface and the water was needles on my skin.