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This was too much. He was asking me for too much—

“I can’t—”

“You can.” He slid a look my way. “I need you to promise me, Avery, or else I don’t think I can go.”

The sun rose above the sea, the flaming curve of it spreading gold across the waves.

“I promise,” I gritted out, choking around the words.

He took a long, easy breath. “Good, that’s good,” he said, more to himself than to me. “It’s funny,” he said, though there was no humor in it at all, “I longed for this moment. Begged and pleaded for it, but now that it’s here…I find myself wanting to stay.”

I almost begged him to. I almost folded to my hands and knees and begged him to figure out a way to stay with me. I loved him too much. Enough that I knew that the best thing for him would be to let him go, to let him finally rest after so many years of isolation.

“Unfair,” he murmured, bowing his head. “So unfair that the world has dealt us this hand, but you are brave and you are strong. I know you’ll be okay.”

My laugh was weak, watery. “I’m not so sure.”

“I am.” He turned to face me once more. “I know it as surely as I know myself. You’re far too stubborn not to be.”

I choked out a laugh, tears dripping from my chin. “I am going to miss you.”

“Not as much as I’ll miss you.” He tried to gather my hands, that crackling vibration and energy surrounding me once more. “Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you,” I protested. “I don’t know what I would have done—”

“I do,” he said, cutting me off. “You would have risen, because it is what you were born to do. My love.” He twisted his signet ring from his finger and slid it over the ring finger on my left hand. “My greatest joy. I’ll find you in the next world, Avery, I promise. That is my vow to you.”

I stared at the gold on my finger, the brilliant green gem that captured the fields and trees around us.

He touched my chin and lifted my face to the sun. He leaned forward to kiss me, a zap of energy moving across my mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut drinking him in one last time.

“Take my picture. My journals. The pocket watch. It’ll help me to know that there are some fragments of me that will always remain with you.”

I dropped my head into my hands and sobbed, shoulders shaking.

I thought I knew loss. Loneliness. Sadness.

Nothing compared to this.

Having to say goodbye to him.

He leaned close, the faint scent of spices and honey clinging to him.

“‘See me now,’” he quoted softly, “‘and know that I am yours.’”

The quote from the first book we read. At the time, I hadn’t realized how prophetic the words had been.

Something shifted in the air around us and Wolfe scrambled to his feet. I followed, nearly losing my footing. He stared at a point over my shoulder with something like awe on his face. Over the sea, gold moved across the waves in a slow roll. I felt caught, ensnared, in whatever magic was shimmering in the air around me. It touched my face, my hands.

It was warm.

Peaceful.

Soft.

I wanted to collapse into it, but a small voice told me it wasn’t my time.

Not yet.