EMBER’S POV

My eyes snap to him and my chest caves, because I have never heard this, not once, not in all our nights, and he’s laying it on a rogue’s scale like loose change.

But he keeps the pain clean off his voice, and he will not look at me, because if he looks at me, he won’t be able to do it. So I do the only thing I can.

I squeeze his hand, hard. I’m here. I have you. You don’t have to carry it alone. And his hand squeezes back, once, and that’s all, and that’s everything.

Devika studies the memory laid out on the glowing...