But then I realized that, while I could feel David nearby, I sure couldn’t see him, and the cave seriously didn’t seem to be all that huge, so where—

And then I saw it: another little opening in the back of the cave, so small that I thought I might have to hold my breath to squeeze through.

David, I reminded myself again, which, seriously, was starting to feel like another kind of mantra. Like, if I could just keep repeating his name, picturing his face, I could get through this thing.

I took my pack off, knowing it would make it harder to squeeze through, wondering how David had managed to get himself in there. He wasn’t a big guy, but he still had to be wider through the shoulders than I was, and I eyed the crack in the rock speculatively.

My pack made a loud clank as it hit the rock floor, and I pulled the sword out of it, moving forward.

Luckily, the passage wasn’t as narrow as I’d thought, and once I got inside, I moved through fairly easily, the sword clutched in my hands, pressed tight against my body. For a second, I had a vision of those old tombs of knights you sometimes see, their swords laid out along their torsos, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry.

If being a Paladin had taught me anything, it was that you could never really prepare for everything. I could think about it, of course, and I had, a lot, over the course of this trip. There had been nights lying in motel beds, staring at popcorn ceilings, and wondering what I would do when I finally saw David again.

Blythe hadn’t lied when she’d said that I’d known it might come to killing him. Of course I had, no matter how many times I tried not to think of it. For the past six months, I’d gotten so good at telling myself that I could handle everything, that the worst would never happen.

It seemed like I’d been wrong every time.

As I made my way through that narrow tunnel, taking deep breaths, my palms sweaty around the sword, I reminded myself that I had no idea what I was about to come face-to-face with. That for all I knew, I was minutes away from having to drive a sword through the heart of the boy I loved.

So, yeah, I was prepared for a lot of things when the passageway finally opened up into a wider space.

Prepared for anything but what I saw: David, standing there in plaid pants and a black sweater. Light was pouring in from a hole high in the ceiling, and it made his sandy hair look gold.

But that was the only gold thing about him. There was no light in his eyes, nothing but the normal blue irises behind his glasses, and when he smiled at me, the sword slipped from my suddenly numb fingers.

“Hi, Pres.”

Chapter 33

I SWEAR I could still hear a faint echo from where the sword had clattered to the ground, but over that, there was the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears and a slight, broken sob coming from my lips.

He was here. He was here and he was fine. Just the David I had known, and my own relief carried me forward until I was right in front of him, my arms around his neck before I could let myself think.

“You’re okay,” I said, breathing him in. He smelled familiar, like soap and the ink from the printers in the newspaper room.

It was weird, I thought, burying my face in his neck, that after all that time, that smell should still cling to him, that he would be wearing clothes much more suited for the winter than a southern summer, and even as I hugged him tight to me, I knew.

I knew.

“Easy there.” He laughed against my temple even as he hugged me back. “You’re going to wrinkle my sweet sweater.”

I laughed, the sound watery because tears were already choking me. “Couldn’t make it any worse.”

He pulled back then, his hand coming up to cup my face. “I missed you,” he told me, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. This wasn’t real—I wasn’t sure how he was doing it, or if it was even him doing this particular trick—but just for a moment, I didn’t care.

“I missed you, too,” I told him, and then I was on my tiptoes, pressing my mouth to his.

His kiss was as familiar as that soap smell that clung to him, and I tightened my hands on his shoulders, thinking back to that first night he’d kissed me at Cotillion.

He had kissed me then because we’d thought one or both of us might die that night, and this kiss had some of that same desperation. If this was just an illusion, it was a good one, and I’d take it.

When we parted, David looked down at me, smiling fondly, his thumb running across my lower lip. “This seems like a time for egregious felicitations,” he said, and I sucked in a breath. It was an old joke between us, using the words we’d each missed in spelling bees growing up, and one that made me think, just for a minute, that maybe I was wrong about him not really being him. He looked like David and smelled like David, and now he was making jokes like David. In that moment, I suddenly wanted him to be David so badly that it hurt.

That was the worst part. Admitting that after all of this, after trying to find him and stop whatever Oracle-induced craziness he had going on, what I’d really wanted was to see him again. It felt like such a hard thing to admit for some reason, that it had been the girl in me driving this whole thing on, not the Paladin.

Raising my head to look at David, I studied his face. It was a face I’d seen every day of my life, seemed like, and one I couldn’t bear to think of not seeing again.

“I wish we hadn’t wasted all that time hating each other,” I told him, and he laughed again. It was his laugh, his eyes, his freckles scattered across his nose, even if it wasn’t really him.

“I never hated you,” he said softly, and I smiled even as my heart broke. If this wasn’t the real David, was there some part of him still in this? Was he somehow projecting the him he’d been? I kind of hoped so.

“Oh, I totally hated you,” I told him. “Didn’t fake that a bit.”

He made a sort of huffing, disdainful sound that I had heard a thousand times, and I wondered if I’d ever hear it again after today.

Then David tilted his chin down, and for a second, I thought he was going to kiss me again. I definitely wanted him to.

But instead, he looked into my eyes and murmured, “Leave me here, Harper.”

“Is this even the real you?” I asked, and he sighed again, the corners of his mouth quirking down quickly. Another familiar expression that made my chest hurt.

“Does it matter?” he asked, and I stepped back, my head starting to clear. It had been nice to believe in this for a little while, but I couldn’t keep pretending, no matter how much I wanted to. This was just another distraction, and while I didn’t know how he was doing it, I knew I couldn’t give in anymore.

“Yes,” I said, and now there was a good two feet of space between us. “Because I can’t just walk out of here and pretend I said good-bye to the real you, when actual you is still in here.”

A crease appeared between David’s brows. “Harper, isn’t it better to remember me this way?” he asked, and look, I wanted to say yes. I wanted to kiss him one more time and not have to confront whatever scary things might be waiting for me in this cave.

But that wasn’t who I was, not as a Paladin, not as a person.

“I can’t,” I told him now, and his frown deepened. It seemed like he was shimmering for a second, and I suddenly realized I could see the rock wall of the cave behind him. Through him.