Lacey said softly, "Tristan, you need to rest now. There's nothing you can do until you rest."

But he could not leave Ivy. He put his arms around her. She slipped through him and moved toward the bureau, taking the picture in her hands. He wrapped her in his arms again, but she only cried harder.

Then Ella was set lightly on the bureau top. Lacey's hands had done it. The cat rubbed up against Ivy's head.

"Oh, Ella, I don't know how to let go of him."

"Don't let go," Tristan begged.

"In the end, she must," Lacey warned.

"I've lost him, Ella, I know it. Tristan is dead. He can't hold me ever again. He can't think of me. He can't want me now. Love ends with death."

"It doesn't!" Tristan said. "I'll hold you again, I swear it, and you'll see that my love will never end."

"You're exhausted, Tristan," Lacey told him.

"I'll hold you, I'll love you forever!"

"If you don't rest now," Lacey said, "you'll become even more confused. It'll be hard to tell real from unreal, or to rouse yourself out of the darkness. Tristan, listen to me..."

But before she finished speaking, the darkness overtook him.

Auteur: Elizabeth Chandler