I shook my head. “No.”

“Yes,” he insisted. But I still had enough strength to push back.

“How could I go on, knowing you’d died to save me? The guilt—I can’t live like that, Lucas. I can’t. Don’t ask me to.”

“You don’t have to feel guilty! I want you to do it!”

“Could you?” I asked him. “Could you kill me, even to save your own life?”

Lucas stared at me, trying and failing to contemplate the horror of doing that.

I said, “You have to promise me to lead a good life. Not to sit around mourning me.”

“Oh, Christ.” Lucas grimaced, and I knew he wasn’t far from tears. He buried his face in the blankets on my bed, and I rested my hand on his hair. “Bianca, please. Please do this. Save yourself.” I could see in his eyes that he was wavering in his conviction—that if I pushed harder, he would let me turn him into a vampire. But I knew that to him it would be a sacrifice even greater than dying. I realized then that I couldn’t ask him to do it, not to save myself, not for anything.

“No,” I said, and this time I knew he would understand my answer was final. “Promise me, Lucas.”

“What kind of a life am I supposed to have without you? You were the one good thing, the only good thing I ever found.”

I started crying then, and he gripped my hand tightly. Soon he laid his head on my shoulder, and that was comforting, knowing that at least he was near.

After a while, I couldn’t hold onto his hand as tightly. The shadows in the room seemed to darken. Lucas became very worried, but I couldn’t quite pay attention to what he was saying. Certainly I couldn’t find the strength to respond.

He got me water, but I wasn’t able to drink much. I fell asleep—maybe it was sleep—and came to after what seemed like a very long time.

Lucas stood against the wall, his hands braced against it like he needed that to keep from falling down. His eyes were wild.

When he saw that I was awake, he said, “I nearly called an ambulance. It wouldn’t do any good, but standing here—I can’t do a damn thing.”

“Just stay close,” I whispered. My chest felt so heavy. Speaking was such hard work.

A tremor passed through me, wringing me out. My whole body had become too leaden and feverish to bear. I wanted to push myself away from it. I wanted to be free.

Something in my face must have told Lucas how I was feeling, because his eyes went wide. He came to my side and put his hand to my cheek. For a second, he struggled for words, but then he gasped out, “I love you.”

“Love.” I couldn’t say anything else. Lucas’s face dimmed as the light in the room went away. It would be so easy to let go.

I gave in to the tide pulling me downward.

And then I died.

Chapter Twenty

NOTHING WAS CONNECTED ANY LONGER—THAT’S the only way I know how to describe it. For instance, I still understood that gravity was at work—I could feel the difference between earth and sky—but it didn’t seem to apply to me. I could drift upward or downward, and sometimes it felt like I was doing both at the same time.

After days of feeling my body ache worse, until at the end it had seemed as though nothing existed but weight and pain, I was now feather light and free. Yet it was an empty sort of sensation. I felt hollowed out. Lost.

I tried to open my eyes, but I realized that I could already see. What I saw made no sense, though. The entire world had blurred into a milky blue gray, through which shapes wafted without ever taking recognizable form. I tried to move, but although I was entirely unencumbered, my limbs didn’t seem to respond.

How long has this been going on? I thought. I had no sense of how quickly time was passing. I could’ve been like this for ten seconds or a year, and I couldn’t remember how to tell the difference. Silly, start by counting your breaths. Or your heartbeat. Either one will tell you.

But then I realized I had no heartbeat. Where my pulse should’ve been—the steady, unceasing warmth and rhythm right at the center of me—there was nothing.

The shock slammed into me, a blow that was somehow even stronger for having no body to strike. My terror slashed through the mist that surrounded me, and for a moment the scene cleared and I could see.

I remained in the wine cellar, although I no longer lay in bed. Instead, I seemed to be floating just beneath the ceiling. Below me, I could see myself, lying beneath the covers. My face was as pale as the sheets, and my eyes stared blankly.

Next to the bed, Lucas knelt, his forehead on the mattress next to my motionless hand. He’d covered his head with his arms, like he was trying to shield himself from something, although I didn’t know what. His shoulders shook, and I realized he was crying.

The sight of him in so much pain made me want to comfort him. Why didn’t I sit up and comfort him? I was lying right there.

Wait, that’s not me. I’m me. How could there be a difference between the person I saw lying in bed and the one who was seeing all this? None of it made any sense.

Lucas, I called. Lucas, I’m right here. Look up. Just look up. But I had no voice to speak with, no tongue or lips to shape my words.

To my astonishment, he lifted his head. Yet Lucas didn’t turn his face up toward me, and he didn’t even seem to have heard anything. His eyes were bloodshot and dull. Roughly he wiped at his cheeks with the back of his hand, then reached toward me—the me that lay on the bed. As I watched, both horrified and fascinated, he passed his fingers over my eyelids to shut them. That seemed to take the last of his strength, because as soon as he was done, Lucas slumped forward to lean against the metal bed frame, as motionless as the body in the bed. My body.