Quinn #2
I nodded. “She’s not awake yet, so we don’t know the extent of the damage. But Marin said she’s doing better. Our cure worked.”
A fleeting smile. The knot in my throat threatened to choke me at the resignation in his gold-flecked eyes.
“If I don’t live and Eva does, I’d say it’s a fair trade,” Tobias choked out. “The years since the first time I died feel like borrowed time anyway.”
His eyes darted to the drawbridge. The fog had crept closer, a steady countdown to what he thought was inevitable. Fear dissolved into fury, and I was drowning in it.
“You don’t need to sacrifice yourself to save Eva,” I hissed, my hand stubbornly tightening on his. “You don’t need to sacrifice yourself to save anyone.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I watched his face go ashen with pain. The fog started to slip through the sunflowers, reaching gnarled hands into the formerly sunny sky—now an ominous gray. Flowers swayed around us as the wind picked up, their petals falling like colorful snow.
“I don’t think I have a choice, sweetheart.”
That healthy glow faded until he stared up at me through shadowed eyes, his face pale and covered in sweat. His heartbeat slowed beneath my hand, like it too was giving up the fight. My own heart was being eviscerated with every irregular beat.
“Loving you was worth every single moment,” Tobias said, his voice ragged. “As much as I wish we had more time, I’m thankful for every minute we were given.”
I glared at him mutinously. “Don’t you dare say goodbye to me, Maris.”
The wind whipped around us, the fog graying the corners of my vision. We were in the eye of the storm. A funnel of swirling gray spiraled inward, narrowing by the second.
He only held me closer. “There’s so much more I wanted to do with you.
I wanted to explore this realm with you by my side, now that the sky feels safe again.
I haven’t seen enough yet…don’t think I could ever see enough of you, not even if we were given all the time in the world.
” His breathing came more labored now, like each one took effort.
“I’ve known you since my first breath, Quinn. And I’ll love you long after my last.”
His hand slipped from my side as he fell back into the flowers. One overlarge sunflower formed a pillow behind his head.
“I always thought the afterlife would be soft,” Tobias mumbled. “After all those nights sleeping on stone, I hoped it would be like this.”
“Tobias.” His name was a prayer and a demand, both begging him to stay with me. “Please don’t leave me.”
“Sorry Sagray,” Tobias murmured blearily. “It-it hurts. I can’t hold it off much longer.”
It hurt. And I couldn’t heal him.
Tears blurred my vision. I reached for him, needing to do something—anything.
My magic sprang to my fingertips, reaching for him as surely as I did.
My mind reeled; my thoughts racing faster and faster. I couldn’t heal him from the outside because the fog blocked my path. But now, I was inside the storm, inside the last circle of safety before that fog fully descended.
And so was our magic. Maybe I couldn’t destroy the fog, but I could reach him.
“Quinn.” The plea in his voice nearly broke me. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop. You need to get out of here before…”
He didn’t have to say it. Soleara had disappeared entirely into the fog. Sunflowers waved violently in the wind, a circle of them tightening around our clearing as the fog moved ever closer.
Our last line of defense before the inevitable.
I raised my chin, squaring my shoulders as I kept my eyes locked on him.
“I’m staying right here,” I said, the words a promise.
His voice was strained and utterly desperate, but a fight finally flared in his eyes. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
I ignored him. “Can you feel your magic?”
Without waiting for an answer, I placed both hands on his chest, my hair whipping into my face.
The blue of my healing magic swirled with the red of my blood magic, their glow leaking through my lashes.
Wielding them together was simple, easy even, like they had always been meant to function this way.
Together, they battled against the virus that had taken hold of his blood.
“What are you…?” Tobias’s voice trailed off as he sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. Color returned to his cheeks, his eyes clearing enough to meet mine. Even the sunflowers seemed to bloom brighter.
It wasn’t enough to cure him, only keep the virus at bay—but it was enough to keep hope alive.
“This isn’t over yet,” I breathed, willing him to believe it too. “I need you to fight this with me, Tobias, because I’m not leaving you. I have no desire to exist in a world without you again. So if you won’t fight for yourself, then fight for me.”
I saw the moment he realized he wasn’t going to convince me to go; the way the glassiness in his eyes gave way to pure determination. The sunflowers had multiplied, their swaying stalks reaching up to the white sky.
“You’re the best problem solver I know,” Tobias murmured. “So solve me.”
“You’re not a problem.”
That dimple winked at me. “Debatable.”
I let out a choked laugh, blinking away tears.
“Right now, Sagray,” he ordered.
Closing my eyes, I made myself focus. I could sense the cure we had so carefully created together, the components and magic somehow not enough to stop this virus from invading his blood, even if I could hold the fog back from his brain.
I needed to think. There had to be another way.
The virus hadn’t affected him like the others.
I thought it was because of the changes that Silvius made to it, but now I wasn’t so sure.
Tobias had stayed conscious after the nosebleed, not because of me but because he had his own defense against it.
His magic may have been blocked, but it was still present in his body… and in his blood.
It wasn’t until he depleted his power that he finally succumbed.
His light, the heat he told me he had learned to fear…that had to be the missing piece. The lightning that lived in his veins that liked to jump between his long, dark eyelashes. The light that swirled around me like tiny stars, playful yet destructive.
That was the key to this.
Heat can kill viruses, I had told him not long ago. That’s exactly why the body’s natural response is to raise its temperature. But the effectiveness depends on the virus, the duration, and how hot you can get without killing the host along with it.
What he had done to recreate the mirror gateway hadn’t been enough alone, because it hadn’t been focused on the right place.
But this time, the components of the cure were in his system.
I could wrap my healing magic around him like a shield while using my blood magic to target his lightning exactly where it was needed.
Unlike the last time I thought I lost him forever, this time I had the means to save him.
This time, I wouldn’t let him die.
“I have an idea,” I whispered. Granted, it was a desperate, reckless idea verging on pure insanity…but I was out of options.
“I’m in, Sagray,” Tobias drawled. “Should I be worried or just mildly terrified?”
The wind whipped my hair around me, flowers flying into the air as my eyes met his. “Burn it. Burn all of it. I need more than a lightning strike this time—I need a storm.”
This could work. It had to.
Tobias looked up at me, startled. “Burn…”
“The fog.” I gritted out, pouring my power into him.
“You were able to use your magic despite the fact that the virus should’ve blocked it.
Even Eva wasn’t able to use the magic of the land against it, and yet you were able to stay conscious.
Your light…I think Silvius left a sort of magical loophole for his master’s stolen light when he originally made this virus.
Or maybe it’s just the biology of heat and viruses, considering that lightning lives in your veins.
” I swallowed, praying I was right. “My magic may not be able to stop it…but I think yours can. Or at least they can together.”
Lightning danced between his eyelashes. Every muscle in my body went tight as I felt that power flow through his veins—each and every blood cell burning as electric, white light gathered inside him.
For some reason, I expected his magic to hurt, to burn. Instead, it swirled around mine, the light a warm embrace—the gentle touch of a lover. A few bobbing balls of light fought against the wind as they joined the sunflowers standing guard.
“Now, Tobias,” I urged. “If you want me to live, if you want us both to survive this, then I need you to burn it all away.”
The moment stretched taut. The wind intensified, a hurricane of yellow petals whirling around us.
Tobias’s eyes glowed an unearthly white. My own squeezed shut as his magic exploded.
A crack resounded in my ears as lightning split the sky, tearing into the fog in a million tiny strikes. His light flooded all around me in a vicious torrent—consuming me, though it didn’t burn.
The world turned red as my blood magic reached out, locking onto his. Carefully, I guided his power into his body to where the virus hid within each host cell. His magic burned it from his blood as I immediately healed the damage.
Working in tandem, it didn’t take long to destroy every last trace. After all, we had always worked best together.
Sunlight warmed my face; the last of the fog burned away. The sweet scent of sunflowers filled my nose as an army of them swayed around us. His arms held me close, even our breathing in sync.
I searched Tobias’s face for any sign of discomfort—any trace of the pain he endured while fixing the shattered glass of the mirror—but that dimple flickered on his cheek.
The last of my magic faded, its glow beneath my fingertips weakening into nothing. I could only hope it would be enough as the world around me dissipated into the warm, bright light.
My arms tightened around him, refusing to let go—no matter what came next.