"Move, Elizabeth!"

Right, but how do I do that again? How do I breathe? How do I get my legs to do what I want without them shaking?

My left-hand jerks my body back just as one of the creatures brings down a hand made of shadows. I look up at Matthew as he releases our soul tie.

"What the hell are those things?"

"Ghouls, they- watch out!"

I grab our tie to pull him out of the way, but so does he as we split in two different directions. The shadow that tried to strike suddenly falls into the snow, tripping over our soul tie like wire. I warp back to Matthew, then grab the tie nearest to me and drag us out of the circle of monsters. We're far back enough that we can see them, but they seem puzzled as to where we must've gone.

"Nice save," he says.

"Thanks, now what is a ghoul?"

He looks back to make sure they haven't started to follow us.

"They're what happens when a soul gets stuck in Topside that should have gone elsewhere."

"Like Elsewhere elsewhere?"

"No...maybe? But that would mean this place is filled with souls that would have been psychics. That's a statistical impossibility."

"So then where were they supposed to go?"

He lifts an eyebrow at me. I look back at the black figures dragging themselves against the white blanket of snow. They are pitiful-looking things, with round gaps where eyes should be and bodies stretched like obsidian taffy. Almost like heaven and earth are trying to pull them apart.

And yet they seem not to belong in either.

The truth hits me in my chest.

"Near Elysium."

Matthew nods, sadness etched in the lines between his eyebrows. Those things could have been students. They may have gone with me, but they got stuck. I could have been one of them if it weren't for...

"Damn, if we just had an Aqua with us."

"Why an Aqua?"

He raises an eyebrow at me again. Oh. Right.

"Okay, I get it. Purification. Quit giving me the Teacher eyebrow, okay?"

He shushes me and looks back at the ghouls.

"Catherine would be able to purify those things without an issue and heal their ties enough that they could pass on."

So once upon a time, Near Elysium did send heroes to fix the world's problems. What a novel idea. I inspect the ghouls again and see strings drifting off each of their bodies. We need to figure something out, I'm not confident at all in my ability to take Matthew along for a string ride, especially when I'm so nervous and tired.

"We'll have to fight them head-on," he says.

"You just said we needed an Aqua."

"You're as close as we're going to get. If your strain is anything like Catherine's you should be able to heal their ties."

Starvation and exhaustion must have gotten to him. I just found out I had this ability and it's not like I can control it. He takes my hands.

"I believe in you, Elizabeth."

He's telling the truth, I can feel it roll through his fingers. I swallow my apprehension. If I want to be a hero, I need to be representative of all four pillars of the academy.

"Let's do it."

Matthew leaps out first, getting the attention of the group. Five total. Okay. I can do this. I pick up a chunk of snow and shove it and my hand in my pocket. It's freezing, but I need the snow to melt. I need water for my strain to work.

I mean it might not anyway...

No! No time to think about that.

I grab the string closest to me and boomerang back to the spot where we found the ghouls. Matthew is across from me now, surrounded by them so absolutely that I can't see him beyond the black wall. But I know he's there. The red string of our soul tie leads dead ahead.

My hand is frozen in my pocket but isn't wet enough for me to feel the warmth that usually comes from my healing strain.

I pull my hand and snow out of my pocket and shove the ice into my mouth.

This is going to be close.

I grasp our soul tie and let it send me directly to the mountains of darkness, but stop just before I can alert them to my presence. I spit into my hand and will it with everything I have to heal whoever this person once was as I force my hand into the mass.

But it comes out the other side.

They're like shadows. Matthew's raised eyebrows and open mouth mirrors my own shock. The ghoul brings back an arm and flings me backward into a snow drift as stiff as ice.

"Elizabeth!"

I feel him yank on the tie, cold worry traveling through it along with his familiar presence. I pull myself out of the snow and catch his gaze as he runs from the pack of ghouls. He smiles at me, and the warmth of it travels to my pinky and straight to my heart.

Wait.

I grip the soul tie again, letting it pull me just close enough that he should be able to hear my voice. I pull spare thread from my finger, letting it come out as a bright red loop.

"Do you remember that fight with Catherine?" I yell towards Matthew.

That gets the ghouls' attention and one begins to stalk towards me.

"You know I do, but this is different! Five times different, actually!"

"Well, good thing we have an unlimited supply of string!"

I take off running when one of the ghouls gets too close and pull the string taut enough that it trips. Now for my lasso. I manage to throw it over the ghoul's head and back up to a safe distance. A quick mouthful of melting snow gets my right hand wet enough to slide against the tie. This is it. Moment of truth.

"Matthew!"

He gets a good distance away from the ghouls chasing him and looks back at me.

"Elizabeth, what are you doing? That's dangerous!"

"Just listen to me and pull your side of the tie!"

I can see him scowling across the snow and feel his concern in the string again as the ghoul struggles against it. The feeling I usually get from the tie is fractured, bits of emotions come through like morse code, and alongside those feelings are dark ones. Mourning of lost life, of lostness in general, and desperation to find a place to belong.

They mirror all of the feelings I once had in Near Elysium, but they're coming from the ghoul in loud vibrations. Across the snow, Matthew tries to cover his ears. The feelings, the voice, they're proof that these things were once human. A memory briefly crosses my vision.

Sliding down snow, crowds on each side waving flags, cheers, then-

The string vibrates against my hands and the vision ends.

I hold tight and try to summon the nerve for what comes next. This is what I'm here for, to save her, to save the soul of a girl who died a hero and would have had the chance to do it again if it wasn't for the portal being sealed. I can't give her that chance, but maybe I can do enough to send her wherever she has to go. I'm not an Aqua, but I know what purification feels like. I've learned from Catherine and just recently, Piper. Across the snow, I catch Matthew dodging and slicing through the ghouls, but they only briefly disappear and come back again. Our eyes meet.

"You know I love you, right?" I yell. "Do you love me too?"

The words echo back at me even in the absence of walls and a weight leaves my chest as they travel across the snow. The tingle from the string starts slow, like the caress of a single finger turning to warm kisses. He dodges a strike from a ghoul and hits it so it disappears.

"Now doesn't seem like the most..."

I stumble slightly and feel the tie cutting into my hands.

"Just say it!"

"Always, Princess. I love you now and always!"

The string turns burning hot with our confessions and the ghoul trapped within it goes still, then fades, becoming more and more transparent until it's finally gone.

Holy crap it worked.

I smile over to him and he briefly returns it before the ghouls are on him again. I wrap the tie around my wrist and dash across the snow. Each pair of phantom legs hits the string and the ghouls hit the earth like felled trees.

I make it to Matthew's side.

"Guess I'm just Aqua enough after all, right?"

He grabs my shoulder and turns my body completely to his before crashing his lips against mine.

"Don't undersell yourself. You're more than that."

Snow crunches across from us- the ghouls are pulling themselves up. He looks over.

"I've got the left."

"Then I have the right," I say with a thumbs up.

"Meet you in the middle?"

The ghouls stalk forward.

"Don't I always?" I give him a wink and extend the string as we begin running through the snow, pulling each other out of close calls with our tie, tripping ghouls, and purifying them with thoughts of love.

Maybe it's cheesy as hell, but it works well enough. After the last one disappears, Matthew pulls me towards him. We're both out of breath and have sweat freezing against our skin, but the fight has made us both overheated. I can feel it in the way he presses me against a tree and forces his lips against mine.

There's an urgency there. A consciousness we were missing when we first kissed in that hotel room. My mouth opens eagerly wanting more from him than I got the first time. His tongue is just as urgent as mine and his hands more so. He tries to pick me up, but when I pull away to allow him the room, we come against the tree hard enough to dislodge a drift of snow from an overhead branch.

We both get a heavy dose to our heads.

Talk about a lame way to cool off.

Matthew begins laughing.

"You really are something. Come on, let's get down the mountain and find someplace to continue this before the Topsiders go to bed."

Now that's an idea that warms me up again.

"Should I try and use my strain to get us there faster?"

He chuckles and takes my hand.

"That would exhaust you, so let's wait on that."

He's got a point but damn.

I pull his arm forward.

"Well, don't keep me waiting, let's hurry!"