“Are you sure I can’t help?”

Leo suppressed a shudder.

“No, no. Just – just promise you’ll keep this safe, okay? Just for a few hours, until I come back.”

Faye was holding the box with the necklace to her chest, the light of the gem lighting it with duller-than-usual light. Even if she couldn’t cry anymore, she lost her friends, too.

Leo couldn’t even stay long enough to comfort her.

Faye looked down at the box. “Okay,” she said quietly. “If you’re sure.”

Leo wasn’t. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore – not after Molly and Kat died. The safety of the ritual was his responsibility. The success of it was his responsibility.

He had failed in both.

He was making a choice now, too, between Faye’s safety and their chances. One more person to replace the two who’d died, or keeping Faye away from the darkness and danger of it.

She’s already dead, Orion had said, but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Leo knew best how fragile her second life was. A hit to the gem with her soul, a powerful enough magical interference… Even their success was likely to kill her.

No, Faye was the one thing he refused to sacrifice.

“Stay safe,” he said, leaning down to kiss her cold porcelain forehead. He mustered the remnants of his magic to whisper a protective charm onto her, and didn’t think of how selfish he was being by worrying about her above the entire world.

“You promise you’ll be back soon?” she asked, and Leo was suddenly twenty-three again, coming back home to the funeral of his parents and to a tiny girl in mourning attire clutching at him as if she’d never let go.

“I promise.”

The lie tasted of blood and burnt magic.

————

Lots of stuff tying in with this one, here we go. Faye’s background: Fever, Like clockwork and Handmade Miracles. What happens to Faye later: The Cold Awakening, The Dead City More on Leo’s ritual: The Ritual, The Sacrifice Another perspective on the ritual: The Flame of the Countless Deaths