Page 109 of Truly Madly Magically

I hold on. I shake and sweat and cry, but I hold on—

Then I see a finger. I feel the wetness on my cheeks. I want to scream with relief, fall apart and sob, but I have to hold the protective shield around me. Around us.

Slowly, interminably slowly, so many moments I barely survive, the finger becomes two, and then half a hand.

After a few more forevers, I feel Elizabeth pour her magic back into our bubble, but her voice in my head isn’t relief or celebration. It’s all warning.

You have to wait, Ellowyn. Wait until you see his forearm. When you do, you’ll need to grab his hand and drop the protection all at the same time. If you don’t do it at exactly the right time, we’re all lost.

Maybe that would have felt like an unbearable amount of pressure—if I wasn’t already under too much pressure to handle. Yet I am handling it, because there’s no other choice. Maybe, too, because her magic is helping.

I nod.

I watch the hand press forward through the fire, knowing without having to be told that it’s Zander. I would recognize one of his hands anywhere, and besides, I know nothing will keep him from me.

Not even a wall of flame.

No matter how much it hurts, and...you don’t just stick a hand through a fire. Even as a witch with protections, it must be agonizing. He’s reaching toward me, but his skin is darkening.

He’s burning right in front of me, and this is the thing I can’t stand.

I might let the fire burn me, but not him—

I nearly reach for him right then, but Elizabeth’s voice holds me back.

You can’t, she warns me. Not yet.

I can’t stand this. He’s hurting.

Sometimes love means letting those we love hurt a little, she replies, and there’s a kind of sorrow in her voice I don’t want to recognize, that speaks of old wounds I don’t want to look for in myself, to save them from suffering far worse.

Nothing in my life has ever been this hard, and I pray to all the gods and deities, seen and unseen, that I’ll never have to endure this again.

Watching Zander hurt himself. For me.

When what we were always best at was hurting each other so much it almost felt good, in the end.

I don’t want that either, but I want this less.

I don’t dare blink, silently urging the rest of his arm to push in just a little more. To give me something to hold on to. I won’t let him suffer a second longer than he has to.

The moments I have to wait for this, watching burns deepen on his skin, are eternities. Each and every one of them, but then at last I see he’s almost there, carving his way through the flame just enough—

I take a deep breath and hold it. I make myself wait longer than I want to, so he pushes his way in just that much more through that wall of terrible fire. I let it out in a rush.

At the same time, I wrap my hands around his wrist and let the protection go.

Then, finally, everything speeds up.

He yanks me through the fire, his strength unwavering even though, when he catches me on the other side, I can feel him shaking.

Suffering.

The fact we’re falling through space when we shouldn’t be feels beside the point next to that.

I’m so weak now. I have so little power sparking in me, but I can feel Zander as well as I can feel me, and I know he has none left.

I try to slow our fall. At least attempt to ease into some kind of landing, but I can’t quite see below us. I don’t know where we are, I don’t know where we’re falling from or to, and it’s taking all of my strength just to wrap myself around him and hold on tight.

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