“I always loved you, Will, whatever you did. And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my hear when mine is done with beating.No, said Will wildly. No, no, no. I will not be those things. Your eyes will see, your hands will feel, your hear will continue to beat.But if not, Will-If I could tear myself in half, I would-that half of me might remain with you and half follow Tessa-Half of you would be no good to either of us, said Jem.”

“Faith," said Jem. "That you were better than you thought you were. Forgiveness, that you need not always punish yourself. I always loved you, Will. Whatever you did. And now I need you to do for me what I connot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my heart when mine is done with beating.”

“And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my heart when mine is done beating.”

“Will,” Jem said. “For all these years I have tried to give you what you could not give yourself.”Will’s hands tightened on Jem’s, which were as thin as a bundle of twigs. “And what is that?”“Faith,” said Jem. “That you were better than you thought you were. Forgiveness, that you need not always punish yourself. I always loved you, Will, whatever you did. And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my heart when mine is done with beating.”

“And broken both your hearts? How would that have benefited me? You are as dear to me as another half of my soul, Jem. I could not be happy while you were unhappy. And Tessa—she loves you. What sort of awful monster would I be, delighting in causing the two people I love the most in the world agony simply that I might have the satisfaction of knowing that if Tessa could not be mine, she could not be anybody’s?”

“You remember what else I said to you that day in the drawing room,” he said. “I want you to be happy, and him to be happy. And yet when you walk that aisle to meet him and join yourselves forever you will walk an invisible path of the shards of my heart, Tessa. I would give over my own life for either of yours. I would give over my own life for your happiness. I thought perhaps that when you told me you did not love me that my own feelings would fall away and atrophy, but they have not. They have grown every day. I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that. It is unfair to tell you this, I know, when you can do nothing about it.” He took a shuddering breath. “How you must despise me.”

“I told you before, Jem, that you would not leave me," Will said, his bloody hand on the hilt of the dagger. " And you are still with me. When I breath, I will think of you, for without you I would have been dead years ago. When I wake up and when I sleep, when I lift up my hands to defend myself or when I lie down to die, you will be with me. You say we are born again. I say there is a river that divides the dead and the living. What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so we can cross together." Will took a deep breath and let go of the knife. He drew his hand back. The cut on his palm was already healing- the result of the half dozen iratzes on his skin. " You hear that, James Carstairs? We are bound, you and I, over the divide of death, down through whatever generations may come. Forever." He rose to his feet and looked down at the knife. The knife was Jem's, the blood was his. This spot of ground, whether he could ever find it again, whether he lived to try, would be theirs.He turned around to walk to Balios, towards Wales and Tessa. He did not look back.”