“Give me the word, and I’ll turn back time. You’ll forget everything you just learned.”
For one insane second, my heart lunges for the offer like a drowning person reaching for a rope.
Yes. Undo it. Let me go back to ten minutes ago when you were just Logan, the man who saved my life and trained me in secret and told me I was the only person who makes him feel alive.
“How?” I gesture at the wall of black flame separating us from the rest of the world. “The Geryon isn’t going to skip over you because you went back thirty seconds, or even a few minutes. It’ll just reveal you again and again, until you break from it.”
“I know.”
“So how would going back change anything?”
“I’ll find a way.” His gaze burns into mine, as if he’s trying to sear the words into my soul. “Yes, I have my limits, but for you, I’ll find a way.”
And he would. It’s written across every line of his face. He would shatter time itself, fracture his mind, and break every rule of magic that exists.
All so I could keep loving him, blind to the truth of what he truly is.
26
JADE
Even now,after all of it, Logan’s still trying to protect me.
My lungs don’t cooperate with that thought. They pull in air too fast, then stall, then try again, like they’ve forgotten the sequence. My hands aren’t fists anymore—they’re just hanging at my sides, useless, the electricity under my skin misfiring in small, disorganized bursts that I can’t pull together into anything shaped like a feeling.
How am I supposed to process a Revenant who wants to burn through time so I can be ignorant and in love with a version of him that isn’t real?
My eyes drop to his chest before I can stop them.
He’s pulled the necklace out from beneath his shirt, the entwined rings hanging down like he’s exposing the most vulnerable part of himself. It’s the glint of metal that I’ve kissed, pressed my face against while his hands tangled in my hair and his breath went ragged and I thought,this is what it feels like to be wanted. Really wanted. Not for what I can give someone, but for who I am.It always felt like it hummed with energy of his own, and I realize with a sickening thought that it’s because it the metal literallydoeshum with an energy of its own.
“The token.” The word comes out too loud in the muted silence of the black flames. “What did the Geryon mean about it binding your soul to your…”
Yourcorpse.
I can’t say it. Because Logan’s alive. He’s here with me, and he’salive,and my brain can’t process anything else.
His hand moves to his chest, his fingers closing around the rings. The gesture is so instinctive and protective that my chest aches with it.
He’s holding onto them the way I used to hold onto his hand—like letting go would mean falling.
“When Ambrogio turns a supernatural, he doesn’t just preserve their magic. He amplifies it.” He’s watching my face the way he watches everything, cataloging my reactions and calculating what to say next. “The surge is violent, and the soul shatters to make room for the extra power. But the token captures the soul during the transformation and keeps it preserved. It lets me feel things—reallyfeelthem, not just echoes.”
“So without the token, what you’d feel for me would be an echo.”
The word feels muted. Not real.
“Without the token, I’d feel nothing.” His eyes hold mine, and they’re fierce and burning. “I wouldn’t feel love, or guilt, or grief. I’d be what everyone thinks Revenants are—a bloodthirsty, power-hungry monster wearing the face of the person they used to be.”
No. This can’t be real. He can’t be saying this. Because I’ve memorized his face. I’ve traced his jaw with my thumb and kissed his mouth and stared into his eyes while he was inside me, thinking this is it—this is what love feels like.
If all of this is true, it means the only thing keeping him human enough to feel it back is a piece of jewelry hanging around his neck.
“Every single thing I’ve felt for you is real.” Logan lets go of the rings and reaches for my hands, but I pull back, wrapping my arms around myself. The hurt that crosses his face almost destroys me. “Because of the token, my emotions are as real as they ever were. That’s why I never take it off. That’s why I told you to never try to remove it.”
“Because without it, you wouldn’t love me anymore,” I finish for him, each word breaking a part of my heart.
His expression shatters. “I can’t imagine not loving you. But I don’t want to take it off and find out.”