“Ambrose!”

Eli no longer felt the glass in his hand nor the pain in his head as he dragged himself next to Ambrose. The glow in his eyes was gone now, his veins hidden under the layers of blood. Eli reached for a pulse, but the weak link of the icefall between them had already betrayed the truth—there was nothing to move the icefall in his veins anymore.

Ambrose’s heart had stopped.

Somewhere beyond the trucks, Sherry screamed.

“No.” Eli dropped the neutralizer and started to shake. “No, you’re not leaving us like this. You can’t.”

He balled his hands into fists, feeling the last desperate flickers of icefall boil against the pain. He watched the blood seep into the lines in his palms, then looked back at Ambrose.

“Valenz,” Grim’s broken voice cracked through the comm, Sherry’s sobs cutting into his words, “we don’t have a— he’s gone, there’s nothing you can do—”

Heart stumbling, Eli ripped out the earpiece and placed his hands on Ambrose’s chest, searching until he sensed the dying threads of the icefall in him. He mentally wrapped them around his fingers—delicately, as if they could break at any second—then gathered up the fraying strands of his own power and pulsed it directly into Ambrose’s heart.

Then everything flipped upside down. He felt hands on his chest, pain flashing in every limb, the taste of iron and icefall, asphalt scraping against his back. He wanted to succumb again—it was all far too heavy, each breath like inhaling water—but that was Eli above him, light and tears leaking out of his eyes. God, this was all his fault—he was so sorry, he had never told him, he had to wake up and tell him—

Eli tore his hands away and fell back with a desperate gasp. His heart ached sharply with each frantic beat, but he kept his blurred gaze on Ambrose’s chest, waiting for his bloodied shirt to move.

The fabric shifted as Ambrose breathed in.

“Oh, god.” He collapsed back on the road and closed his eyes. “Oh, thank god…”

As his head swam and his limbs sank into the earth, feet pounded towards him, making the pebbles around his hands shiver.

“How on earth did he—?” Shadows crossed over his face, voices traveled around him. “Look—look, here’s the neutralizer. Grim, if you could…”

Hands pushed Eli to sit. He tried to help, but he couldn’t even lift his head anymore—his neck bent backward instead, his head lolling against someone’s thin shoulder. The cap of the neutralizer popped open somewhere in front of him.

As the memory of the knives in his veins came rushing back to Eli, he weakly scraped his heels against the ground in an attempt to push back. “No,” he mumbled, “is there...is there another way?“

Sherry remained strong against his feeble attempts. “You knew this would happen.”

“I don’t need it—“

“You do.” Glass met his lips, and the jelly-like substance burned on his tongue.

Then mist cooled his face, and his mind shut down before he could start screaming.