The water was merciless. Much more so than the serpents, although navigating around them posed a non-negligible difficulty. Not least because, like most fliers, he wasn't a skilled swimmer. But he nonetheless located the boy eventually, clutching him to himself and battling the water for every inch upward. His wings were not made for swimming, and he struggled to keep the mist from overtaking his mind. He could not lose control. Not for the sake of pain and not for anything. Nothing was worth more than the boy.

His air had nearly run out when his head finally broke the surface. The flier desperately attempted to maneuver himself out of the water, but he had little control over his wet wings. He couldn't fly. A wave of panic speared him, and a scream at the top of his vocal frequency ripped out of his sore throat. This seemed to stir the serpents even further. The waves that their anger produced had him in their clutches, and the flier could do nothing except be dragged along by the wet rage.

From the corner of his eye, he registered the shine of metal in the tunnel to his right and instinctively spread his wing in an attempt to maneuver. Swept up in a mighty tide, the boy and the flier were propelled forward into the tunnel.

The fuming waves ripped the boy out of the flier's grasp, and when he attempted, in vain, to scream, water entered his mouth. For the first time, he found himself without his sense of direction; there was no up, no down, no left, no right, only foaming, livid waves. He could not fight, not act, not think . . . Then the current smashed him into the ground; he blacked out before it retreated, and he found himself there, lying as refuse on damp stone.

Pain coated the flier like a blanket, stabbing into every inch of flesh and bone. It was everywhere and nowhere, and he knew not whether he had the strength to move anymore.

Unmoving . . . cold . . . eternal. He numbly thought the words. He wished to be unmoving . . . to embrace the cold . . . to be at peace for all eternity.

As the tension in his body slipped, he relaxed his rigidly closed claw. His claw felt . . . empty. There was . . . There should be a hand around it, a hand . . . Her hand. No, his hand. His arm. His . . . lifeless body. In . . . his . . . Henry.

The flier jerked up and released a scream that came out as a hoarse cough. His head throbbed and spun, and he retched, regurgitating a swell of water. The boy. Where was the boy . . . Where was . . . Henry?

Fearing his willpower would run out soon, he mustered all his strength and lifted himself—but collapsed as he tried to support himself on his left wing.

Despite the excruciating pain, the flier could no longer scream. He kept his eyes open somehow, maneuvering himself to lean on the wall. His wing . . . his wing?

In the bioluminescence of the colorful mushrooms that dotted the walls and stood in harsh contrast to the darkness of the cave, he inspected it and realized he . . . they had a problem. Bent at an unnatural angle, the far end of his wing pointed upward, indicating a break. But that wasn't the worst part. Because what else he saw could not be fixed with a mere splint and some time . . . especially out here. The flier stared with horror at the chunk of tissue that was absent from the area surrounding the fracture.

He cautiously raised it to check if he could still move, but when he flung himself in the air to do what he had done his entire life—to fly—he instantly crashed into the opposing wall. His wings could no longer carry him sufficiently, as one now covered more air than the other.

The flier flailed, reeling into another wall, and barely caught his breath. For a moment, he lay still, allowing the pain to permeate every inch of his body. He could not fly . . . Without the care of a skilled surgeon that he didn't have access to out here, would he ever fly again?

Over the waterway, there had been a moment when he had truly and honestly believed that he could make it all the way. Be the first to . . . The flier heaved. He could not lose his ability to fly, not before he had . . . He had wanted to cross the waterway. He had wanted to . . . to fly them out. Them. Himself and . . . His head jerked up as Henry's face flashed in his mind, accompanied by a wave of violent self-loathing. What was he doing here, ruing a meaningless dream, when the boy was here, here . . . somewhere. When the boy needed him. Now he did.

Nobody needs you, a voice whispered into his ear, but the boy needed him. Who else would be there for him now? He had to find the boy because the boy was all that mattered. All that had ever mattered. Where was the boy?

He mattered . . . because he had a future. He . . . was the future. The only future he still had the spirit to picture for himself. He should worry for whether he could fly him out of here, not about his wretched pride.

And so the flier staggered forward, deeper into the cave—he had to get to the boy and get him out. Whether he damaged his wing beyond repair was irrelevant. Whether he would ever fly again after today was irrelevant. All he knew was that he would fly one last time—whatever the cost.

. . . For something worth dying for.

He finally spotted the boy, a few yards further into the cave. They were the most agonizing few yards of his life, yet he would not be stopped by pain. It did not matter. The boy mattered. Henry mattered. Henry . . .

"Henry?" he coughed out as he dropped beside him, acutely aware he had no

genuine confirmation that he was alive. And the boy lay awfully still. He was . . . he was . . . There was blood; the flier jerked back as the outskirts of the bloody puddle the boy lay in reached his claws. So much blood.

The flier drew closer again, unwilling to let the boy slip away. He shoved his head into the boy's side. Once, twice. He always complained when being woken prematurely, but to hear the boy complain now would bring the flier indescribable joy. If only he would complain. If only he would move at last.

The flier bit back the fear of what he would find and rolled the boy on his back. Did he have to resuscitate him? Crusted, bloody white-blonde hair strands obstructed his face. He pumped his chest once, twice, yet he couldn't shake off his reluctance to proceed in fear of causing harm.

Irritated by the realization that he was allowing himself to be held back by fear, he pushed down a third time, and in that moment, the boy stirred.

Henry coughed and gagged, regurgitating a swell of water, and the flier jerked back. Yet as he made out the boy's face beneath his clumped hair, a type of terror that he couldn't swallow clutched an iron grip around his chest. His eyes couldn't leave his face. The boy's face . . . what the serpent had done to his face . . . what it had done to him.

Some delusional, irrational part of him hoped it had been the bad light playing tricks. But he had never been able to neglect what his senses told him was the truth.

Thick, dark blood rained from his face as Henry jerked up and nearly slipped again. Before he could fall, the flier caught his arm and stabilized him. Henry coughed like he was suffocating. More blood flew from his face, staining the flier's fur. His hand found and clamped around the flier's claw—frail, and rigid, and trembling.

Then he leaned over and vomited.

***

Henry threw up multiple times, and even after it ceased, he remained kneeling, bent over the remains of his stomach's contents. Still heaving, retching, shaking, as if what he had meant to get rid of was still lodged in his throat.

His grip on the flier's claw was so desperate that it almost hurt. All he could do was let the boy hold on until he registered that the coughing had turned to sobbing. A helpless numbness overcame the flier because he could not help. Because the boy was crying and he was powerless to do anything. What would he do? The enemy Henry was battling wasn't one the flier could protect him from.

This realization made his gut clump with panic. The boy was crying. The flier heaved. The boy was . . . sixteen? seventeen? The boy was a child. A child who had nearly died. Who needed . . . comfort? His comfort?

He clung to the flier, like that was indeed what he needed. He held his claw like a lifeline, and like he never intended to let go. So he let him hold on and cry. Henry cried until he was drained. His lean form sank against the flier, and he pulled him toward the wall, away from the blood and the vomit. The boy pressed his face into him, and the nails of his other hand dug into the flier's fur. "W . . . ho . . . is there?" he breathed.

"It's me," the flier said, shoving aside the unease about how he would react to his presence after their last encounter. "Me . . . Death," he spoke the unusual yet plausible nickname the boy had given him because . . . how else would he call himself? He suddenly could not recall having ever had any other name.

"Death?" The sheer happiness in his voice drowned him. "You came . . . !"

"There are some things worth pursuing," said the flier with as much emphasis as his hoarse voice permitted.

"I didn't mean it—!" the boy choked out, tightening his hold on the flier's claw. "None of it; I'm sorry I—!"

"I'm the one who should apologize," said the flier numbly.

"But you—not—nobody—somebody needs you," the boy stammered. "Somebody. So many—"

The sincere admission disarmed him and dismantled all the inhibitions that his cynical mind had erected. "You are not meaningless," he whispered back. "You mean so much . . . for as long as there is someone around to whom you can mean something. And there is. There is now. Don't you get it?"

For a moment, the boy stared at him, bewildered. Then he smiled so genuinely that it speared the flier's heart.

"So, forget it," the flier mumbled eventually. "We have greater concerns right now."

"Death, I . . ." He stirred, and the flier lifted him a little, only for his next words to plummet his stomach into a dark pit of despair. ". . . I can't see you."

"Of course you can't," he said numbly, attempting not to look at the reason painted on his face in blood. "Your face is bloody. There is water here; you might want to clean yourself."

Of course, it was only the blood. What else . . . would it be?

He guided the boy to a puddle of water that must have swept in with the two of them and prayed it was clean. It cost him much effort but the boy, at last, released him. He fell forward, bent over the small water body. The flier remained behind, battling his ever-rising panic. Each second stretched into an hour, and he was so terrified of what he would inevitably see whenever Henry turned that he found himself shaking as well.

Then the boy was finished. Red dripped from the tips of his fingers and pooled around his knees, painting a network of lines on the pale skin of his hand. The flier heard every drop like the steady beat of a drum, a heart.

"Death . . . Death, what is the matter with my . . . eye?"

Each word was a blow to the face, a violent crack in his desperate facade. The flier could not answer, even if he had wanted to.

"Why can I not open it?" Henry insisted. "Is it still covered, or . . . ?"

Part of him wanted to still deny what he saw—actually deny the truth—yet all he could do was stare . . . in horror at the boy before him, at the face.

Something was wrong with it. Something had to be. It matched not what he remembered Henry looking like. It had always been two . . . two, but at him, from the otherwise familiar face, stared only a single eye. Violet, and dark, and widened in fear—an unmatched, visceral kind.

He winced at the sound of the single drop of blood that hit the floor, leaving a burning, red trail on the boy's pale cheek. From the . . . the black socket, surrounded by marred, raw flesh. The skin had been ripped off clean by whatever tooth had caught him, and the eye . . . It was a black pit. Or was it red? Was the blood red? The flier stared at it, yet he did not know.

Not the color of the blood . . . not anything.

"Death!" Henry attempted to rise and stretched, reaching for him. "Answer me!"

How . . . did one put something like this into words?

Henry frowned at his silence. "Death—?" When he—in vain—attempted to stand, the flier barely made it in time to catch him. "D . . . Death . . ."

He was losing too much blood. And he had to tell him. Had to . . . do something about it, something to minimize the damage. Had he his backpack? There was disinfectant in it. He cradled the boy in his wing, letting his gaze wander in search of it.

"S . . . Say something! What . . . ?" Henry lay limp, curled in his wing. When he reached his hand up again, the flier closed his claw around it. Somehow, he put together that the boy wanted not physical support this time but confirmation . . . that he was still there.

"I'm here," said the flier. "I'm not going anywhere."

Henry twitched. He raised his other hand to his face. "Death—"

"Don't—!" he hissed. "Don't touch it—it's—" If he didn't tell him, the boy could not treat it.

"But I—"

"Henry, you can not—!" He instantly cursed himself for yelling.

The boy heaved. "Can—?"

"It's gone! Henry, the eye is gone!"

The boy's remaining eye widened, and his mouth fell open. But instead of words, all that came out was a panicked breath. He pulled himself up and cried, jerking his hand up to cup the socket.

Henry whimpered, then he wailed. Words, sounds that didn't have any meaning beyond that of naked, inexpressible panic. He wriggled out of the flier's grip and crawled to a better-illuminated puddle to look at himself, and he lacked the spirit and speed to stop him.

The scream Henry gave at his reflection touched the flier's core and his soul. It shattered the loaded air into a million pieces; sharp and lethal, they dug themselves into ears, mouths, and eyes, then burned into his brain.

The boy was gagging again, but his stomach was empty. The flier watched as he knelt, bent over, attempting to physically vomit out what he couldn't process.

Why . . . the boy? It was all the flier had the strength to think. If anyone had to be mutilated in such a manner, why did it have to be the one who still had a future? Because he had not been there fast enough. The thought hit like a blow to the face. Because he had let him go alone. "Henry . . ."

"No!" He whipped around and howled. His arms flailed in frantic spasms, and the back of his hand struck his face. "No! No! No! No . . . n . . . no . . . n . . . o . . ."

"Henry!" He had to be strong. Now, more than ever. He had to think. Henry could not think, so the flier had to. What was it they needed now? His gaze found the spot where he had lain. The backpack!

"Henry, your bag . . . you need to . . . you have medicine!" He dragged himself over to it and kicked it toward the boy. Its contents spilled onto the floor. Wet fabrics, food, a water bag . . . It was Teslas' waterproof container that he shoved toward the boy. "Use it."

The boy stared at him with a widened eye, as if he knew not what he was talking about, but finally, like in slow motion, he unfastened the clasps. The bottle with the antiseptic slipped through his trembling fingers, and he wailed. Only the flier's claw on his hand kept him from flinging it at the wall.

He pointed at the drenched piece of fabric from where the bottle had landed. "Henry, you must do this," he urged.

The flier had never seen the boy shake so much as when he did as the flier said, like in a trance. The bottle disappeared back into the waterproof container before Henry reached for the soaked fabric and brought it up to his injury.

The scream he gave when he pressed it down made the flier squint in discomfort. From the volume and the agony. He shouldn't feel so much pain, he numbly thought.

"We must get out of here," he urged when Henry's scream abated. "The gnawers will have heard us . . . and smelled our blood."

But he doubted the boy could even see him. His remaining eye was misted, turned inward, and he barely caught him before he would have hit the ground—unconscious.

"Henry . . ." He held the boy tighter, pulling him away from the shallow puddle that had collected around him. "Henry, we must leave . . . Or they will kill us. They will kill us. I will not let them kill you."

The boy stirred; he lived, yet he was barely conscious. He twitched and cried, and all the flier could do was cradle him. Each breath he took was like a won battle, but the war itself he could still lose.

Henry could not die, the flier thought. Not now. Not like this. He could not have survived it all to succumb here to a serpent. A serpent that had . . . injured him, mutilated him because—

The truth strangled the flier like a chain around his chest—because he had allowed it. Because he had dismissed him and allowed him to leave. He had called him . . . selfish, he had told him that his goals were meaningless.

"You are not meaningless." The flier cradled the boy and repeated the words over and over, unsure whether he could even hear. "Your survival matters for as long as I live. For as long as I . . ." The boy could not die. He could not die . . . and leave him like they all had. Like the girl had.

He had saved the boy. He had not saved the girl, but he had saved the boy. He had . . . not saved the boy. Not this time. This time, he had . . . condemned the boy. He was not strong enough for a scream.

He needed the boy. He needed him more than anything else. Perhaps even more than anything he had ever needed. But he forced himself to finish the thought; the boy needed him too. It was all a vicious, dreadful, beautiful cycle of co-dependence and desperation, a game that neither could win without the other.

But the full truth gnawed its way into his heart—the boy only needed him because he had been injured. He hadn't truly needed him since before he had freed him from the spinners. But he had come for him anyway. Not because I require your company, but because I enjoy it. The words tightened around his heart like a relentless claw.

He hadn't needed the flier . . . but he had wanted him around. He had found him, and he refused to let him go. He was the last remain of life that still clung to him—all that he had. Without him, the flier would be rotting in some ditch, waiting for death to overtake him.

The boy was his purpose, his reason. The boy was hope, the flier thought. The boy was . . . light. His light. And he held him like it. Like something worth dying for. He could not lose his light. Not again. If he had no light, he had nothing.

"Come up." He shook the boy. "Help me . . . realign and splint the broken wing, and we can get out of here." He eyed his wing with contempt.

The boy followed his gaze and narrowed his eye. "Your . . . wing . . . ?"

"It is fine," the flier assured, hoping with all his might the boy would not see through the lie. "Come, and we will fly. Henry, we will get out, and we will fly, like before. Would you like that?"

The boy smiled brightly, but then his expression darkened. "You . . . you're not fine, are you?"

"We have no time to argue!" the flier urged. "You must help me. Please, I cannot fix this on my own. If I cannot fix it we cannot get out of here. And I will get you out of here, if it is the last thing I do."

He saw that the boy did not believe him, but he still allowed the flier to pull him up and, with some hassle, realign the broken bone. He barely managed to create a splint with the materials from his sparse medical kit before he collapsed back into the puddle of his own blood.

Henry groaned, pulling weakly at the flier's fur, who looked down at him to assess whether he could afford to just haul him on his back—disregarding whether he could even fly, with his wing. But something about Henry's expression appalled the flier.

"You . . . need to leave . . ."

". . . What?"

The boy coughed, and his lid fluttered. "You . . . need to leave . . . One of us needs to make it out of here to see if the others made it. And . . . we both know that you will not fly far with that wing. Especially not with me, weighing you down."

"They're fine." He didn't actually know. He hadn't actually witnessed the battle's end, but what he did know was that the boy in his embrace needed him more. "I'm not going anywhere."

Henry shook his head and frowned. "But you—" His head rolled sideways, and he steadied him, tightening his grip. "You were right." His voice grew fainter with each word. "They didn't need me. I needed them. And so, I paid for it. Leave me," he hesitated, "like you wanted, remember? When we first met, you wanted to . . . to dump me in the Dead Land."

"Henry!" He would hoist him up and somehow get them both to safety if he had to.

But Henry shoved his claw aside. "I can't live like this," he whispered. "Don't you remember that we had a rule for this? I don't know why you even came—I ended our alliance already, and while I did not . . . not mean it then, I mean it now. I'm . . . I'm sorry for what I said, but now isn't the time to argue. It's time to finally follow that stupid rule. You . . ."

The flier's eyes were round in disbelief, his mind unable to form a single coherent thought.

"But you need to do it this time. To let me . . . die on my own terms."

The . . . noble thing would be to let me die on my own terms. The words rang fresh in his mind, as though the boy had spoken them yesterday and not half a year ago. He had asked him to kill him before, as he asked him to leave him to death now. He had not been able to do it—to take a life pointlessly. Not even the life of a stranger. His gaze met the boy; he was not a stranger now. He had not been in a long time. Had he no idea what he was asking?

"Don't risk your life," mumbled the boy, "for some stupid . . . alliance of which neither of us knows what exactly it even is. You have no obligations toward me. I won't hold it against you. Not this time."

Something within the flier stirred—something that threatened to break him into a million pieces and finally make him whole again. And then he knew—

He dropped to lay beside the boy. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "You are not supposed to be here. You wouldn't be here if I hadn't let you go alone. There is nothing to forgive. You did nothing wrong. And I . . ." He took a deep breath and finally looked into the bloodied face of the boy. It was a horrific sight, but it was still him. "I will not leave you."

"You—"

"If you stay, I stay with you." His wings around the boy tightened; they nestled together. "Just . . . like this."

"B . . . but you—!" he tugged on his fur.

"Shut up. Just . . . be still. Just this once."

"But you don't have to waste your life!" cried the boy. "For me!"

He could not live, the flier thought. Not without the boy. Not without his light. He could not do it all over again. He had chosen to live when the girl had died, yet it had not been a life. Not a life worth living. The only thing close to a life worth living in recent times had been this last half-year at the boy's side.

He had not ended himself when the girl had died. And he would not make the same mistake with the boy.

"You . . ." The boy twitched. "Don't . . . blame yourself for my mistake. Please don't—"

"This has nothing to do with blame."

"Then why?" cried the boy. "There's no reason. No . . . reason for you to be here. Don't you get that I want you to live?"

No reason. The words swirled in his head. No reason. He wanted a reason?

"You want a reason?" A lump formed in the flier's throat as he slowly backed up. "Fine. I shall give you a reason. Give me your hand."

Henry's eye opened gradually, and he looked at him with evident bewilderment. The flier extended his claw impatiently, unable to suppress his own tremble. "Just give me your damned hand. Do it!"

Gradually, as though oblivious to the flier's intentions, Henry gripped his claw with his hand. "What are you—?"

"I," the flier cut him off, "am giving you your reason." He knew exactly what he had to say, even though it had been . . . what, a decade? More? For a moment, he pictured the girl's face, smiling in approval. He would not forget her. But the girl was his past. The boy—he thought as his gaze met him—was his future.

The boy's mouth opened again, but the flier was faster.

"Henry the human, I bond to you."

The boy widened his remaining eye as he processed, and Thanatos could have sworn he tightened his grip as he undauntedly continued.

"Our life and death are one, we two.

In dark, in flame, in war, in strife,

I save you as I save my life."

And then and there, he knew for a fact that he was not just doing this because it was the only option to convince the foolish boy to not give up on his life. He meant every word. He would have already meant it had he voiced it months ago. Because what was a bond if not what they'd had all this time?

He actually smiled as Henry stared at him, attempting to comprehend. "Is that reason enough for you?"

The boy gave him another of those heartbreaking smiles. "You . . ." he breathed out. "Death—" He cut himself off as though he only now realized "Death" was not the flier's real name."Thanatos . . . the flier, I bound to you." His voice was weak, but his grip on Thanatos' claw grew stronger with each second.

"Our life and death are one, we two.

In dark, in flame, in war, in strife,"

The smile on his mutilated face widened.

"I save you as I save my life . . ."

His head slumped forward, and Thanatos sensed fresh blood wetting his fur. There was no celebration, no feast, not even anyone to bear witness. But it didn't matter. It was not needed. All that was truly needed were the two of them, and so, Thanatos entirely irrationally found himself thinking that now, like this, everything would be okay.

"You . . . fine, that is reason enough. You madman."

"I may be a madman." With one swift move, Thanatos lifted himself up. "But I am a madman bound to save your life as I would mine, from now on until I die. So get your sorry ass on my back—now."

Henry didn't protest this time. He could even gather his scattered belongings and wrap his head and eye in layers of cloth. Finally, he heaved himself onto the flier's back.

Henry twisted and buried his face deeper in the flier's fur. "You know you'll regret this, right?" Blood was already seeping out of his bandage.

"Oh, yes, I know."

***

The way out of the Labyrinth was by far the most agonizing trip Thanatos had ever undertaken.

It only amounted to around an hour of travel, but to the flier, every second stretched into eternity—an eternity of excruciating pain, as he fought the hardest battle he ever had—against his own body. Yet he kept going, moving, with nothing but the iron of his will.

His wing was barely functional. To say he was flying would have been an exaggeration. He leaped ten yards here, fifteen there. Then he landed and leaped again. Within the coiled, narrow halls of the Labyrinth, Thanatos also fought to avoid repeatedly crashing into walls or stumbling upon dead ends.

Though, through some miraculous luck, he did not encounter a single gnawer. Perhaps the rumors were true and not many of them even came here; maybe they had fled from the serpents or were chasing the questers or protecting the Bane—Thanatos couldn't care less, as long as they left him alone. Left him to his battle.

In retrospect, the flier would hardly remember anything from this one, most agonizing hour of his life. All he would remember was what had kept him going, struggling, fighting, animated him to leap again and again.

The boy on his back. The boy . . . his bond. He was dead silent. He had not uttered a single word ever since they had taken off; he was no more than a limp weight, but he kept the flier going. If only he would speak. If only the boy . . . if only Henry would speak, at last!

After minutes that had felt like hours, the silence became so unbearable that Thanatos himself began speaking. He was perfectly aware it was a waste of his breath, but he could not bear the silence for a moment longer. He spoke to Henry as if he were not bleeding out on his back. As if he were awake, listening.

At first, he mocked. In Henry's own words. Hadn't he wanted to fight for every ounce of life in his body—to live? To be successful? He could not be successful if he quit so easily.

Soon he went over to words of comfort. Endless promises to stay, to care for him, to be with him in life and death and war and strife. To be the one to whom he would matter. To whom everything he did and accomplished would always matter.

Then, Thanatos spoke about affection and admiration from others, the way he always desired. About following after more quests to make themselves into heroes. Maybe that was their fate after all, he thought. Maybe one like Henry could only be content if he was one or the other—a villain or a hero. "You will be a hero," he said. "And someday you will tell this story like you now tell that of Goldfang. They will admire you. They may even need you one day."

Eventually, he trailed off to speak about the future—about all their plans and the endless possibilities that still lay ahead. All the things that were unachieved but not unachievable. Not if they made it through this night.

"We will fly again," mumbled Thanatos. "We will fly . . . over the waterway. We will, I promise. We will fly together. You are a master of the aerial, no? So, we will fly." He said it like he was not unable to do just that now. Like he was not leaping awkwardly and narrowly avoiding walls. Like his body was not wailing in agony during every second in the air.

Would he ever truly fly again?

Thanatos crashed into the floor and struggled up defiantly. He vaulted, leaped . . . and fell again. Well, now he had promised it. Now he had to.

It was only then that his misty brain processed that he wasn't just speaking for the boy's sake. He was speaking to give himself something to focus on. Something to carry him through this trip. He spoke because the boy did not . . . could not instill hope in his current state. Everything the flier had said so far was drenched with the stuff. It was all . . . was it not what the boy would say? Was it not . . . the light he may share, were he conscious?

It really was mutual need. Henry needed Thanatos to carry him out, to fight this battle for his life, and Thanatos needed the boy to be his light. To be his source of purpose and strength. Of hope. Only the boy had enough hope to make up for his own lack thereof.

When Thanatos finally flung himself around a corner and staggered out into the largest cave he had seen since he had entered the Labyrinth, he did not trust it. He couldn't—not yet. Only when the tunnels remained wide and open did it slowly sink in that he was . . . out. But of course, he was not there yet. Here was not safe. No water. He would not land until he saw water.

Despite his painfully surging wing, Thanatos relished the openness beyond belief. He left two more caves behind, and when he entered a wide, straight passage, he suddenly recognized where he was. He mobilized the very last of his strength and leaped out of the tunnel, plummeting at the bank of the river—no, not the one that ran through the Core, but the one where he and Henry had first spoken to each other.

The cliff was somewhere ahead, and this was still technically the rat's land. But he could not get up anymore. Thanatos lay heaving at the riverbank for a seeming eternity, relishing the tide of relief that was drowning him. He thought of the cliff, of catching Henry and pushing him into the blood puddle, of carrying him here. The images were so vivid, as if it had all happened only yesterday.

He inhaled deeply one more time, then opened his eyes and stared into the tunnel ahead. He recalled the emotions of that night—the suspicion, the desperation—and Henry's obnoxious joke, his word, that had . . . had sealed his fate in a way. Of course, the flier nearly laughed. Of course, the boy had expressed his desire to live through a damn joke. And such a dumb one! Even now, it made him smile.

The flier allowed himself to peek at his wing for a moment; he could almost not feel it anymore. He would have to do something about the tissue soon . . . but later. He felt like his body would split apart if he so much as moved a muscle. But there was still the boy on his back. He would move. He had to, for the boy . . . for Henry . . . for his bond.

"We'll stay here," he whispered.

Silence.

Despite the instinct that told him not to move Henry, Thanatos slid his body off his back and cradled him again. The bandage around his head was wet and blood-soaked.

He did not look. Instead, he held him tighter until he heard his heartbeat, quiet and even. He was still warm. As long as he had not grown cold with death, he would not cease fighting for his life. Our life and death are one.

"It will be okay," he said soothingly. "Everything will be okay. You are not done yet. Your story isn't over. I already told you why." He smiled. "Can you be the first one awake tomorrow? You are the master of the aerial. So you must remind me that I promised we would fly. Fly . . . together."

The boy would be awake when he opened his eyes. He would be . . . he had to be.