“Helplessly I look at him. He will never be just Rowan again. I will never be just Rhine. Everything has been tampered with.”

“Every word out of your mouth," he pants, "has been a lie, hasn't it?""No," I say softly. "Not everything.""What about your name?" he says. "Is your name even Rhine?”

“Before I can process what’s happening, Deirdre has opened her hands and Linden has taken the ring from her and slipped it onto my finger.“Rhine Ashby,” he says.“My wife.”

“Linden just wants to protect her, is what I want to say. She's all he has. I left him. I'm at arms reach, but I've left him.”

“Rhine. The river that, somewhere out there, has broken free.”

“I never wanted to live forever," she says. "I just wanted enough time.”

“When I call his name, it’s a sound almost entirely out of my control. It soars over the crowd and hits him. Even from where I’m standing, I can tell that he recognized my voice. Hastily he unwinds himself from the girl, stands to attention like an animal sensing danger. And I try to call him again, but that word, that name, was all I had the energy for. I barely have the strength left to stand.I wait helplessly for him to find the sound, and when he does, when his heterochromatic eyes meet mine, my mouth forms the word again, but just barely. The girl at his side disappears. The crowd blurs into senseless shapes and colors. I can’t feel my heart or my body or the heat of the flames.I can only see his face—his bewildered, beautifully familiar face.”