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She grits her teeth at me and shoves me hard against the wall.

I blink, momentarily dizzy. Laine takes advantage of my disorientation and catches my wrist, keeping me pinned in place. As I struggle, she presses against my collarbone and holds her crossbow up at my face.

I laugh weakly at her and bare my teeth. “Go ahead,” I taunt her. “Do your job.”

“We all have this job!” she snaps. “You know what it means! You know what the sacrifices are!” She sucks in her breath. “Étienne tells me this is what we deserve, this torment, for what we’ve done to you in the name of our patron gods.”

“You’ve known him all this time,” I say hoarsely. “Both of you were in on this since the beginning.”

“You have no idea,” she replies. Now I see the film of tears in her own eyes, a pain that I have never seen in Laine before. Or perhaps I just never looked hard enough. “You don’t know how hard he fell for you. You don’t know how he refused to inflict cruelties on you, how Thorn punished him for that.”

Étienne’s back, covered with scars. Étienne, shielding me from the worst of Thorn’s wrath. He would, of course he would.

You don’t know how hard he fell for you.

At my silence, she plows on. “The way you saved me, how you gave yourself up like that.” Her voice turns thick, and she cuts off, seems to gather herself before continuing. “You didn’t even hesitate.”

“Because you were all I had,” I snap. “Of course I was going to save you.”

She opens her mouth, then shuts it, a thousand emotions flitting through her eyes. Her cheeks are wet now—when had her tears spilled over? I hadn’t even noticed.

“For my mother, I would do it all again,” she says quietly. “But there isn’t a day that passes when I don’t think about what I did to you. Where I don’t wonder if I could have just turned away, or warned you about what would happen in the future, or freed you from this trap. There isn’t a day I don’t torture myself.”

The mention of her mother makes me pause for a moment. I think of all the times she’d come over to me, looking haunted. Had she become a Harbinger in order to protect her mother?

At my hesitation, she says, “I’m not excusing anything. Like you, like any of us—I wasn’t given much of a choice. Die, and leave my mother behind? Or live, and sever myself from her?” She shakes her head. “I think every day about it. Every day, I wonder what I could have done differently. I’ve played a thousand different scenarios in my head, and none of them end well.”

Laine was all I had, because my own mother had abandoned me. But she had hers. And just as I hadn’t hesitated to save her, she hadn’t hesitated to save who mattered to her.

I hate my heart for feeling envy, even now. Hate that she had someone who loved her so much, who she loves. Hate that she is that person for me. Hate that I can’t hate her.

“And what now?” I spit at her. “Now you’re willing to risk everything?”

“Because Thorn’s gone,” she answers. Her eyes are bright and feverish. “Étienne is supposed to ascend to immortality, to become the new god of Lies—but his soul is trapped in the Eternal Tree. We have bigger problems now, Doc, and if we’re going to survive them, I’m going to need your help. But that’s up to you.” Her voice tightens. “Or were we never friends?”

I clench my teeth hard. Because deep in my chest, I know the answer.

“I’ve always been your friend,” I say. “Even now. Even after everything.” I hesitate, swallowing, suddenly afraid. “And what about you? Outside of being a job, was I anything else to you?”

Her expression wavers. She searches my gaze, and then she slowly releases her hand from my collarbone, until she’s no longer holding me back. There, she seems to brace herself for another attack.

“You’re the best friend I ever had,” she says. “I didn’t deserve you then. I don’t deserve you now. But I’m here, because of you. I’m here because I can’t bear to leave you behind again.”

I hold still. For a moment, we just stare at each other. She looks like she wants to say something to me, like an entire lifetime’s worth of guilt is sitting on her chest, aching to get out.

And what do I see?

In spite of everything, in spite of all the time separating us, in spite of everything determined to break us apart … I still see her. I see the reason I found myself again all those years ago, the person who had seen me when I couldn’t even see myself. I see her and feel less alone, like things are possible again. I see her and remember how much I missed her.

At the last moment, her gaze darts away from me and toward the door.

“We need to get you out of here,” she finally whispers. “Raven will be after you the instant he realizes you’ve escaped his estate.”

She glances at me, and for a moment, I see a gleam of that old Laine—full of life and optimism, convinced that there is always potential in a new day. The warmth of her fills my heart, leaving me breathless. She touches the blue pendant around her neck, and it flickers in response, a gleam of light washing across its surface.

And in a flash, I realize that this pendant—my birthday gift for her from so long ago—is her Artifact, warning her of approaching danger.

Laine freezes at the sound of something muffled coming down the hall. Then she seizes my wrist and pulls me with her. This time, I don’t resist—I break into a run alongside her as we head out the door.