Page 45 of Night Shift

“I have watched everything end.”

“And I’m sorry.”

“You cannot understand.”

“No, I probably can’t.” She takes my hand, and the simple warmth of it nearly undoeses me. “But you don’t have to understand mortality to love somebody who’s mortal.”

I close my fingers around hers.

“I do love you.”

Her breath catches.

I did not plan to say it.

Perhaps humans are correct about the inconvenience of declarations.

Calliope looks up at me, and for a moment the anger disappears completely.

“I love you, too.”

The words should satisfy me.

Instead, terror moves through me.

Now I have something to lose, and she has given it a name.

Calliope reaches up and touches my face.

“If you love me, you have to let morning come.”

I cannot answer.

Slowly, her hand falls.

That hurts more than if she had struck me.

“Calliope—”

“I’m not asking you to stop loving me. I’m asking you to trust me enough to let the next day happen.”

She waits.

I wish I could give her what she wants.

I wish wanting her had not transformed the oldest duty in existence into an act of surrender.

When I remain silent, Calliope nods as though I have answered anyway.

Then she walks away.

I do not follow this time.

I stand beneath the night I created for her and watch her disappear down Kingfisher Street until even I can no longer distinguish her from the crowd.

For the first time, the darkness does not feel like a gift.

It feels like something I have taken.