Remy had hidden herself under her duvet covers. She had cried too much and now she only felt numb, her stinging eyes staring into the darkness hidden beneath her bedsheets. She was just thankful that her mother had not been home when she'd gotten back. The house was so quiet that Remy could hear her own heart pounding in her chest--that was, until she heard a knock at the door.

She ignored it at first, sinking deeper into her mattress. Then, the knock grew louder and she sighed, pulling herself up and wiping her cheeks free of any smudged makeup.

"Remy," she heard him call as she forced her legs to carry her down the hallway. Her stomach turned to water; she recognised his voice immediately. He hadn't left yet. He had come back. "Open the door, please. I know you are here."

She quickened her pace, pausing reluctantly at the door. She shouldn't open it, not after the way he had treated her. She should have been stronger, like Sarah said she was. Only she wasn't strong at all when it came to him, and she never would be. She opened the door.

Worry wavered in her chest when she saw him. He looked exhausted, his blue eyes glistening wearily and his brows furrowed in a permanent frown. He was slouching against the door frame, his hands in his pockets as though he was a teenage boy and not the warlock she knew. The smell of smoke caught the back of Remy's throat and she coughed.

She supposed she did not look much better herself. She had thrown on an oversized sweater and joggers and cried any makeup she'd had on away. His eyes reflected her own concern and he stepped into the apartment, closing the door behind him. His eyes never left her.

"What do you want?" she asked tiredly, leading him to her bedroom. Her brothers and sisters would be coming home from school soon and the last thing she needed was for her mother to throw another fit in front of them or call the police again.

"I couldn't leave," he said, his voice weak as they reached her bedroom. She waited for him to come in and then shut the door behind him.

It felt odd having him here. She had been in his room dozens of times and yet he had never been in hers. Her plain furniture and floral walls were too normal, too mortal, compared to him. It felt as though everything she had ever been was on display in front of him, proving to him that she was just as mortal as he had thought.

She shuffled uncomfortably before her eyes fell to the floor. She couldn't look at him anymore. It didn't feel real to have him here. For half a second, she even wondered if it was, or if it was just some silly fantasy she was making up in her head.

"Why not?" she sighed finally, making her bed to give her hands something to do. Her back was to him and she was glad for it. "You don't belong here, remember?"

"I am sorry."

Remy straightened up, turning to look at him in surprise. She had never expected an apology, not from him. She had always thought he was too stubborn. He didn't look stubborn now, though. He looked shattered, as though someone had scraped out vital pieces of him and now he could barely stand without collapsing.

"I should not have said those things. I was ..."

"You were right." She gulped, feeling her composure hardening as the anger returned. "You don't belong here. You're not a mortal. You're a warlock. You get to leave whenever you want while I stay here, waiting for death, waiting for you. Do you know what that's like?"

"Do you think it is easy for me in Astracia?" His voice rose, his cheeks flushing with colour. "Do you not think that I hate this as much as you do? I think of you always, Remy. I wish you would understand that."

"You don't get it. You still have a life without me. You still have a purpose. Without you, I have nothing. I've come back to a life where nothing ever progresses or changes. I'm weak and I'm surrounded by weakness and the only certainty I have is that I will die and be forgotten, sooner rather than later. There is nothing to achieve for me here but death. While you go and save your realm and fight for your brother and surround yourself with magic, I will be here, bored and without purpose. I might as well have saved myself all of this and died in Nil Lake, like I should have." The words slipped out before she could stop them, the tears returning. She wondered how much longer she could stand it, stand the gaping hole tearing through her chest or the way her eyes felt inflamed from all of the crying. She longed to get the numbness back, but it was gone now.

Maksim inched closer to her, shaking his head vigorously. His eyes blazed with rage. She couldn't look at them anymore.

"Do not say that. Never even think it. It does not matter whether you are here or in Astracia, Remy. There has always been life and magic inside of you. It is something I have known since the moment I met you, though perhaps I would not have admitted it then. It is the reason I loved you even when I wished I would not. Do not let the best part of you die because you are unhappy now. And please, for Refilyn's sake, do not say things like that to me. Seeing you so unlike yourself, it is ..." He gulped, his eyes lowering to the dirt-ridden carpet. "It is killing me."

"You love me?" Remy gazed in bewilderment. Everything felt different in the wake of his words, as though her world had suddenly been flipped and yet she had no idea what it was that was different. The word had never been used before, not until just now, and the shock of it caused her whole body to tremble. What's more, she had never expected him to be the first to say it. How could she, when he was always pushing her away and telling her to leave? It didn't make sense. 

He seemed to have no problem finding an answer to her question, though his unease was clear from the blush that grazed his cheeks. Still, his voice did not waver in his reply.

"Love is not a strong enough word to describe what I feel for you. Love implies of the heart, but what I feel for you is of the innermost parts of my soul. I feel what you feel. When you are in pain, my own body aches, and when you laugh, I cannot help but do the same. You are the best part of myself, and the only part that has ever truly mattered. I do not know if there is a word for that, not even in Refilyn–perhaps love will have to do until I find one."

She had to turn away from him, her eyes settling on the clouds rolling above her through the window. 

"I can't say it back," she muttered quietly, forcing herself to swallow the lump in her throat. "Not when I know you're going to leave again. You shouldn't say those things to me. It isn't fair."

"Nothing is fair," he whispered. "Nothing has ever been fair, but you must know how I feel, for I might only be able to say it once. I do not expect anything in return. I do not expect you to say it back. I just need you to know that it is true. I need you to know that if you died as you wished to in Nil Lake, I am not sure what would have become of me."

She inhaled sharply, feeling as though she had awakened from a dream. The glassiness in her grey eyes vanished. Her guard had returned, more solid than ever. "You should leave."

"No." His voice was firm. "That is what you want. That is what you expect of me—that I will just leave you and never think of you again, because it easier to run from this."

"Because it's what you do!" she shouted, running her hands though her hair and causing wisps of it to fall around her face. "I can't live like this. Not two hours ago you spoke to me like dirt; you told me to leave, to go home and I did. Now you're telling me that you love me, that you don't want to leave. I don't know what you want, Maksim!"

"I want you. I need you, Remy." His voice was desperate. She realised then that he was breaking just as much as she was, his whole body trembling, his eyes filling with unfallen tears. "Astracia is no longer home to me. You are—and my name is not Maksim. It is Max."

"You said—"

"I was wrong. My name belongs to you now." Somehow, they were stood only centimetres apart now, though she had not felt herself moving towards him. His hands found her cheeks. They felt dry and hot on her tear-stricken face. "I belong to you."

His lips were on hers before he had even said the words. It was not like it had been before; then they had been afraid. Now they were desperate in another way, a way that forced their bodies to crash into one another until they could not be any closer than they were, until they merged into one entity and everything else fell away. Remy's spine was met with the wall as they tumbled backwards from the force and she gasped for breath as he broke away to remove her sweatshirt.

She pushed his jacket off his shoulders, frantic in her need to remove the remaining barriers. They had been separated by realms and now they were separated only by clothes, by flimsy material that kept their skin from touching—until it didn't. His hand wrapped around her wrists when the jacket fell to the floor, his lips finding her neck and her shoulders, places she had never even noticed about herself before.

She was unbuttoning his shirt when she felt it.

"Max!" She let in a sharp intake of breath as a jolt of pain crawled up her arm. She pulled her arm away, wincing as the skin around her wrist blistered. It felt as though he had left a ring of flames where his hands had been a second ago and she tried to hold back another whimper.

Maksim stumbled back in shock, looking down at his hands as though he had never seen them before. They were blackened in the way Ackmard's had been when he had used his magic. A cold shiver that cancelled out all of the heat prickling through her shot up her spine.

"No," Maksim croaked. Panic contorted his features, his hair falling in front of his face so she could barely see him. "No."

"It's okay." Remy pulled her sweater back on self-consciously, realising that he might have seen the key if they were not so wrapped up in the moment. She grabbed his face in her hands when she was sure he had not noticed, ignoring the pain in her wrist. "It was an accident."

He pulled away from her and then she was the one panicking because she could see his guard returning until he was no longer Max, the boy who had just told her that he loved her, that she belonged to him, and kissed every inch of her skin as though he would never have enough of her to touch. He was the boy who pushed her away, who left her here because it hurt too much otherwise.

"No. I hurt you," he spat, his voice thick with self-loathing. "Look at you. Look at your wrist."

"It's just a burn. It will heal. You didn't mean to hurt me."

She didn't understand it. Last time she had seen him his magic had been as silver as the flecks in his eyes and now his hands were covered in blackness. And yet she knew that he would never practice dark magic like his brother and sister. She knew he was not supposed to be this way, and the soot looked out of place on his translucent skin.

"I should not have come back." It was as though he couldn't hear her. He was trapped somewhere in his mind. She took his face in her hands again, forcing him to look at her. 

"It was an accident. You didn't mean to hurt me. You're okay. I'm okay. Please don't leave me again, Max."

There must have been something in his voice because he softened. "I have to leave. I have to go back to Astracia. I cannot harm you again."

"No," she pleaded. "Stay just a bit longer. Talk to me. I can help."

She could see the exhaustion, the hatred for his own flesh, weighing him down and she lead him to her bed. He collapsed onto it with his head in his hands. His voice was muffled when he spoke again.

"I am so sorry. I do not know who I am becoming, Remy. I am like them. I am like my brother and sister. I am like my mother."

"No. You've just been through a lot, that's all. You're good, Max. You're filled with light. The darkness won't win, not with you. I know it won't. I know you won't let it."

She pulled him to her, closing her eyes as he held her silently. She pretended not to feel the throbbing heat in her wrist or see the darkness caking his fingertips. She pretended that he was not going home in a few hours, where she could no longer help him, touch him, hear his voice. She pretended that her heart was not about to break for the hundredth time in the last few weeks. She pretended that cold fear was not seeping into her bones like ice. 

"I love you," she said finally. She had never said it before, not the way she said it now—as though it was the last time she would ever say it. Perhaps it was.

[AN: I posted this today because I'm not sure if I'll have time tomorrow and I also only updated once last week. IT WAS  A ROLLERCOASTER but I couldn't stop writing this chapter so I hope you guys liked it. ALSO Spellbound is almost at 25k reads and that's crazy! thanks so much!]