“He’s different. Neither one of us murdered innocent people because we were angry or in pain.”

“I did.” Her voice is steady, but the hand pressing against my heart trembles.

I cover her hand with mine. “You were defending yourself. There was no time to ask questions, and we know Melkin was tasked with killing you and taking the device.”

“He wouldn’t have done it.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But there was no way for you to know that.”

She smiles, a small, bittersweet lifting of her lips. “Logan, I’d just found out my father was dead. And I was still reeling from losing Oliver. I was running on nothing but rage and grief and the desperate belief that if I could just make the Commander pay, my pain would be worth something.”

“And yet you were still defending yourself.” I roll onto my side so I can face her. “Rachel, no matter how much pain you felt inside, you never deliberately took an innocent life. I can’t imagine a situation in which you would make that choice. That’s the difference between us and Ian.” My voice hardens. “He’s not my brother. He’s a killer who hurt the people I was responsible for. The fact that he used to be something different, something better, doesn’t change what he’s done.”

“I know.” She brushes a kiss across my lips. “But you should’ve seen the awful expression on his face when he realized he’d done so much harm to make his father’s death mean something, and it was all a lie. And then he helped me. He could’ve killed me, or turned me in, or just walked away. But he gave me his cloak and his dagger. He told me how to get safely out of the swamp. And he defied his leader so that he could rescue your father.”

I absorb her words for a moment, but I can’t find it in myself to soften toward Ian. “I’m glad he helped you, but he has a long way to go before he could ever make up for the things he’s done. He deserves to be punished.”

“Yes, he does. But your father forgave him, and made me promise I would save you both.”

I stare at her. “You promised to save Ian? Why? From what?”

“From James Rowan. And I did it because I needed Marcus’s help to learn about the summoners.” Quickly, she explains that they’re buried somewhere near Rowansmark—probably a safe distance outside the city’s wall, if I had to guess—and that neither Marcus nor Ian knew how to find and destroy the tech.

“So you went into Rowansmark hoping to find the tech before I walked into a trap our little stolen device couldn’t possibly handle.” I lean my forehead to hers and close my eyes as the gift of her love for me, a fierce, indestructible love that would drive her to sacrifice her life to save mine, pours across the broken foundations of my life and lends it strength. “Rachel . . .”

Her voice is a whisper of sound between us. “If you’re about to tell me you feel bad because I put myself in danger for you when we both know you’d do the same for me—”

I press my lips to hers, swallowing the rest of her words as I fist my hand in her hair and draw her as close to me as she can go without sinking beneath my skin.

When I lift my head to draw a breath, she says in a breathless voice, “Are you just trying to shut me up, or—”

“I’m trying to thank you.” I kiss her again, and it’s like diving underwater. The cacophony of insect noises in the forest behind us becomes a muted hum. The brilliant starlight is a distant glow that can’t touch us. Nothing can touch us. We’re floating in a world that belongs only to us, and I don’t ever want to surface.

Rachel breaks our kiss and says, “We could disappear, you know. We could walk into the Wasteland and never look back.”

I lean my cheek to hers as I let myself imagine it. Rachel and me and peace. The seemingly endless expanse of the Wasteland ours to explore and conquer. No more fighting. No more fear. No more risking everything we have left to make sure those who deserve justice get their due.

But if we do that, who will stand for the innocents still in Rowansmark’s path? Who will remove both James Rowan and the Commander from power? The weight of responsibility that lifted briefly at her words settles back on my shoulders, heavier than it was before.

“I want to,” I say.

She smiles. “So do I, but we can’t, can we? Not yet. We have to go back inside Rowansmark and find Quinn. We have to stop the summoners from destroying the troops you gathered. We have to get James Rowan out of power and get rid of the tech that uses the Cursed Ones as weapons. And we need to find your father, because he’d really love to meet you.”

“And then, we finish what we started with the Commander,” I say. “We finish it, and we do our best to live quiet, peaceful lives.”

She laughs, and warmth coils through my body. “Do you really think you and I are capable of quiet, peaceful lives?”

“I’ll settle for a life that doesn’t involve bloodshed.”

Her laughter dies, and I see the warrior she’s become in the steady intensity of her gaze. “But first, we have more blood to shed.”

“We do. But not tonight. Tonight, I have other things to worry about.” I lean down and kiss her again, keeping my hands gentle as I hold her, though there’s nothing gentle about the way she holds on to me. “Tonight, I have you.”

“You said I don’t worry you.” She traces my jaw with her lips.