Nostrand's head snapped back from the explosion. A gout of fire erupted from his mouth; shrapnel tore the soft metal of his face, and golden teeth scattered over the steps.

He turned to me, eyes wide with shock… or fear.

Black smoke billowed out of the blasted hole that used to be his mouth. His tongue melted into a pool of molten gold that dribbled over his lips. His lower jaw dangled, attached to fraying strips of metal. He held it up with his left hand.

"YUH! AOWMULS! HOW CUH YOU!"

His red eyes fixed on me. Malicious intent roiled around him, making the air thick. In my state of perfect focus, the signs of conviction were clear.

I braced for his attack.

"ORUUS... ORUUS... ORUUS!!!"

I blinked at the Enchanter. Was he trying to say mortuus? The High Elvish word for the dead.

I grinned.

All the will and High Elvish in the world didn't matter if he couldn't speak clearly.

Behind me, stone ground against stone.

Finnick.

I'd forgotten about him.

Before I could jump out of the way, rocky fingers wrapped around me, lifting me in the air.

Castille shouted from the steps. She had shielded Isla and Thor from the explosion with her body. Isla looked up at me with a wide-eyed, fearful expression. She knew she couldn't stop Finnick. She didn't have the will.

"HELL HEM! YU EH OW!" Nostrand shouted.

Finnick obliged.

His hand tightened around me. He curled his wrist, turning me around to watch me squirm in his grip. My arms were pressed against my sides. My legs dangled, kicking the air in a futile attempt to break free. With perfect focus, I could feel the pressure crushing my bones and bending my joints at the wrong angles.

Is this how I die?

The thought shattered my will. In the darkest corners of my mind, I believed it was true.

I'm going to die.

I was helpless. My arms were restrained. Fire had no effect on Finnick's stone body and any explosion I conjured would be too small. As I listed off the reasons for my inevitable death, what little strength I had drained from my body. I stopped struggling. My head lulled to the side, and darkness rimmed my vision.

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And just when I decided to be a person…

I blinked.

A person?

Finnick's grip pushed the air out of my lungs.

"A person!" I said in a loud hiss.

"The Lagos brothers are not weapons."

I jerked my head in Nostrand's direction.

"Are you going to do what he wants?! Be his weapon?! Did you come to Luskaine just to serve another master?!"

The grip on my body loosened. Finnick stared at me with glowing green eyes.

"WAH AR YU OING?! ENISH HEM! OW!" Nostrand shouted.

Finnick cocked his head at the former King and slowly raised his other hand.

"O! OOO!!!"

Nostrand turned and ran up the stairs. Cracks spiderwebbed up his arms and legs, leaving pieces of himself on the steps in his mad dash to the second-floor terrace.

He didn't see Dugan coming.

The stocky man had repurposed Isla's broken staff into a cane to support his leg. He shifted his weight and swung it with two hands into the Enchanter's face. The impact sent a high-pitched crack through the air and knocked Nostrand down the stairs. His limbs shattered with each bounce on the hard steps, revealing the copper and gold wiring underneath. He skittered to a stop on the first-floor terrace—nothing but a head and torso.

Finnick's green eyes settled on me… and dimmed.

Quintessence leaked from his giant body, joining the golden stream flowing above our heads.

Finnick had come back from the dead to kill me, but he set aside his revenge to put his would-be master in his place. Now that Nostrand was defeated and that goal achieved, he didn't have the conviction to continue being a revenant.

Did Finnick forgive me in the end, or did a moment of doubt lead to his second death?

I would never know. The whole thing had been a gamble, a bet that he valued freedom over revenge and that his contrarian nature would lead him to fight even the assumption of control.

I breathed a sigh of relief and then frowned.

I was still in the air, trapped in the fist of what was now a statue.

I sighed.

Finnick Lagos: an asshole to the end.

"You alright up there?!" Castille asked.

The rest of the party was walking to the first-floor terrace. Castille was supporting Dugan, hooking one arm under his armpit.

"Let's see! I'm poisoned, bruised, bleeding out, crushed-"

"Alright, alright, we get it. Isla…"

"I-I think I can help."

She walked down the stairs to the base of the ziggurat while Castille positioned herself below me.

Don't tell me…

The fingers wrapped around me snapped open, and the sudden weightlessness made my stomach lurch as I dropped into Castille's waiting arms.

My elbow banged against her metal breastplate, shooting a numbing sensation up my right arm. I sighed and relaxed.

What was one more injury?

Castille laid me flat on the terrace floor, one hand under my head.

"Dugan, can you heal him?"

He ran a hand through his beard and frowned.

"Do any of us have enough will for that?" Isla asked, pushing off her knees with each step as she walked into view.

I raised Nostrand's broken staff in my right hand.

"Use this."

She frowned, taking the length of gold.

The world became dull. My vision swam from the sudden onset of dizziness. My stomach clenched from nausea, and the pain from countless injuries burned across my body. I was too tired to scream.

Pain is a neighbour, and the neighbour had broken in and made himself at home.

On my left, Isla rocked back, breathing in with a sharp inhale of breath.

"Perfect focus," I whispered as my breathing slowed.

"He's getting worse!" Castille said.

"Thor. Help me."

Dugan limped next to Castille with Thor, putting one hand on the pack animal's forehead and the other on mine.

Isla's eyes bulged.

"I can see it..." She whispered. "Jacob's guess was correct. You're connected... A living will well."

Castille scowled.

"Are you just going to stand there?!"

The noblewoman blinked.

"Oh... right."

She knelt, touching the back of my left hand that held my cane. She added to the warm sensation flooding into my body. My joints shifted back into place. New flesh knit together the gash in my stomach, and the poison was purged from my body.

I was going to live.

A jolt of fear ran through me.

But what was I going to do with the rest of my life?

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