“And the Typhos?”
“They should be safe,” he assured. “For now.”
“Excubitor…” Mesa’s voice cut through, so heavy with anguish that Adequin’s chest seized. She looked across the room toward the Savant, who sat crouched beside Griffith, lying on the ground beside the mainframe interface terminal.
Everything else fell away, vacating her mind completely as she crossed the room and slid to her knees beside him. He grimaced, eyes clamped shut, breaths coming in shallow gasps. His brown skin glistened with sweat, wrinkles deeper than ever. Silver and copper Imprints flickered around his arms of their own accord, seeming unsure of what to do. Mesa disappeared from her periphery.
“Griff?”
“Hey…” He peeled his eyes open. The color of his irises had faded to a muted brown. “It worked, huh?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it worked.”
He let out a short burst of breath, then with an effort, found his voice again. “You were right. That thing fucking hurt.”
“You’ll be okay.”
He grimaced, his voice a crackling, dry rumble. “This is it, Quin.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “I can’t do this without you.”
He gave her a weary, half grin and the corners of his eyes wrinkled. “You’ve been doing it without me for years.”
She laid her head into the crook of his neck, and he wrapped his arms around her. His Imprints buzzed lightly as they trembled along his skin.
“I’m sorry for that, by the way,” he rumbled. “I should have been there for you.”
She opened her mouth to refute it—he shouldn’t have regrets—but the words caught in her throat.
“I know it might not feel important right now,” he said, “but I do forgive you for what happened on Paxus.”
A hard pressure grew in her chest.
“You did what you thought was right,” he continued. “You always do, and I’ve always trusted that wisdom as a matter of course. Relied on it, even. It’ll have been the right call, in the end, I know it. It’s what you do.”
She squeezed his hand harder, but his grip on her continued to slacken.
He hacked out a few short, weak coughs, wheezing as he drew in a constrained breath. “You said one act doesn’t define us … and you’re right. One doesn’t. But this choice you made, to stay here, to save the Typhos … it’s decisive, Quin. And where you decide to go from here will matter just as much.”
With every word, his voice grew thinner, each syllable requiring a force of will.
“So do me a favor,” he continued, “and go make a fucking ton more of these decisions, so it does define you, so it has to. Be the Quin whose shadow I couldn’t escape, even all the way out to the edge of the collapsing universe.”
She nodded as a tear trailed to the tip of her nose.
Griffith wiped it away with a trembling thumb. “I’m sorry, Quin. I guess you’re gonna have to grow old without me after all.”
A jolt of pain fired under her ribs, stifling her breath. More hot tears stained her cheeks.
“Promise me you will, though,” he breathed. “Grow old, I mean. Wherever this leads. Just … find a way to live.”
She swallowed, nodding as she looked back up.
“One more favor?” he asked.
“Anything.”