"I was going to ask if you wanted to keep it."

I didn't quite hear him. In handing the necklace back to him, my thoughts had wandered far away, to the story of a man who had once loved a woman so much that he'd had something so beautiful and unique crafted, especially for her. A symbol of love that refused to die.

Standing in the yard with their son, years after their own tragic deaths, the thought brought a twinge of sadness.

"Luce?"

Lockwood's voice drew me back into the present, where we were standing close together, illuminated in the light of the sunset. When night fell we would have a fight on our hands, but for now the sun was still shining. I blinked up at him, searching desperately for my bearings. Had he asked me something? I was certain he had. "I'm sorry, what?"

I considered myself a bit of an expert on Lockwood's smiles, but the smile he was giving me now was unfamiliar to me. It held some of the warmth and fondness that I'd seen in our quieter moments, but there was something different in this smile, a fragile quality that almost suggested he was nervous.

That definitely got my attention.

"Do you want to keep it?" Lockwood asked again, holding that little box back out to me. The words didn't process any better for having heard them. Hadn't he just been telling me how important this necklace had been to his mother? And now he was offering it to me? The question was simple, but the words didn't feel that way. They were weighted and foreign, as if there was something hidden in the them that I wasn't quite able to make out.

Of course, it wasn't helping that he was watching me so steadily, his gaze intense and focused and warm. It was impossible not to be completely drawn in by him, by his light and energy. He was radiant tonight, but not his usual confident self, and that was really what was drawing me in, setting my heart beating just a little bit faster.

I proceeded with caution. "You . . . want me to have your priceless family heirloom?" I asked slowly, looking for clarification.

My question seemed to both surprise and agitate him, which only served to unsettle me further. When he answered, his words were rushed, almost flustered. "Well, yes, that is what I'm asking, only . . . only you wouldn't have to think of it like that."

"I wouldn't have to think of it like what, exactly?"

Lockwood was scrubbing one hand through his hair in his agitation. "Like it's some necklace my mother used to own. Like I'm asking you to hold on to it for a little while. It's not like that."

"Isn't it?"

"No, it's not. Listen, Luce . . ." He glanced down at the box in his hand, which was still extended towards me. As I watched him, he shut his eyes and took two, deep breaths in an effort to collect himself. I was already in a fragile enough mental state, what with the looming danger, the stress of the day, the terrifying possibility of another trip to the Other Side, and how strange this conversation had suddenly become. I was not even remotely prepared for the tender expression he turned on me next. "I'm making a mess of this, and I'm not entirely sure how, but let me start over. Would you consider keeping this, Luce? I was hoping you would see it as a gift." He paused, but there was more. I could see the hesitation, the desperate desire to continue. When he did, finally, his voice was impossibly soft. "A gift from me."

It's funny the things that we notice at critical moments in our lives—and I was growing more and more certain this was one of mine. At first, all I could think of was how much of a difference there was between "do you want to keep this necklace?" and "would you please consider this family treasure, with its tender and storied history, a gift from me to you?" In essentials, the questions were more or less the same. But at their heart, they weren't the same at all. They were, in fact, two very different questions.

While that thought stewed carefully, I turned my attention back to the boy that was waiting for my answer. There was something about him that was making everything feel surreal, just slightly off-kilter. I was looking at him at his most vulnerable. The Lockwood standing with me tonight was the same Lockwood that I sometimes caught watching me from across the room while the others were preoccupied. The one that sat up in the library with me early into the morning when nightmares of the Other Side prevented both of us from sleeping. The rest of the world never saw him like this. The rest of our friends never did.

Only me.

That's what did it. I knew, with a sudden, electrifying jolt of clarity, that there was more hanging on my answer than just the ownership of an old family heirloom. Lockwood had hidden the real question inside of the question he'd actually asked. And it was such a Lockwood thing to do that I immediately felt like an idiot for not catching on sooner.

The scene in front of me, the entire conversation, Lockwood's agitation and vulnerability, it all made perfect sense. Suddenly, my heart ached. For him, for me. For us.

We were hours, maybe only minutes away from a confrontation that threatened to be deadlier than any we'd faced before. We'd survived our fair share of scrapes with the dead, and, I thought, more than our fair share of scrapes with the living, but this was different. Deadly ghosts and unsuspecting people were one thing. Murderous thugs whose sole intent was to kill each and every one of us was another thing entirely. Our chances of survival were so much smaller than usual.

That was why we'd eaten our last meal and done the dishes. That was also why Anthony Lockwood was with me now, tying up his loose ends. I was his unfinished business.

Anthony Lockwood loved me.

I found myself torn between two very powerful, very different reactions. I couldn't help the thrill that coursed through me, head to toe and back again, and the urge to answer him, to tackle him to the ground in a death grip, or to kiss him senseless, was almost enough to knock me over. But I was surprised to realize that I also objected. Not to the necklace or what it stood for, and never to Lockwood himself, but to the situation, to his motivations? I objected to that with everything I had.

Anthony Lockwood loved me. Whatever my thoughts, whatever my intentions, it all came circling back to the same place, over and over again. My heart was really racing now, and it was making it difficult to see straight, let alone keep a level head in the face of his charm, his smile, his sudden and impulsive need to make a grand gesture. Each pounding beat of my heart resonated with the answer I wanted, more than anything, to give.

Yes. Yes. Please, yes.

Lockwood was watching me carefully, a hint of worry coloring his tenderness. "Lucy?"

It was too much; I couldn't possibly hope to respond rationally if he kept looking at me like that. Instead, I let my eyes fall to the necklace that he held between us, considering, as carefully and well as I could under the circumstances, everything it represented.

"So," I said slowly, determined to keep calm, "you're saying that this . . . 'symbol of undying devotion', from you . . . would belong to me?" I almost couldn't get the words out for the surge of fierce joy they sent through me.

If there'd been any doubt in my mind of what he was implying, it was banished by the relief in his voice as he answered. "That is exactly what I'm saying." He held the necklace out to me again; it sparkled as it caught the light, each twinkling flash like the pulse of a heartbeat. "As far as I'm concerned, this isn't just a necklace or an old family heirloom. It's a promise. Please take it Lucy." Lockwood's voice cracked, just barely, as he said my name. "If you want it, it's yours."

If you want it.

He knew, he had to know that I hadn't wanted anything else for nearly two years. Almost since I'd known him, I'd been falling for him.

For a few, glorious seconds, I was lost in the story of a boy who loved a girl so much that he'd offered her his mother's favorite necklace, paralleling his parents' story with his own. With ours. In that story, this was it: the happy ending, the start of forever.

I wanted to say yes. I wanted that necklace and everything it represented; I wanted him. But even with my heart insisting that I respond, I held back. Because this wasn't the end of our story, not even close. We weren't even sure if we were going to survive the night.

As much as I protested whenever the skull brought it up, I was still haunted by its insinuations. That Lockwood was more closely tied to death than anyone else. That Lockwood had a death wish. That Lockwood had nothing left to live for. He'd admitted to me only a few months ago that he wasn't sure how much longer he was going to last. And now? In five months we'd never once verbalized what was going on between us. Things had been implied plenty, but Lockwood had seemed content to go on as we always had, and I hadn't been able to find a way to bring it up myself. He was doing this now because he thought he might not survive long enough to do the thing properly later. It was a cancerous thought, and it wouldn't stop growing.

That's why I knew exactly what had to happen next. Really, my mind had been made up from the moment I'd realized what he was trying to do.

My heart, as it turns out, had other plans.

Here's how I thought things would go: Against every impulse I owned, I would tell him no. I would explain my reasons and he would understand. We would go back inside together, maybe a little awkwardly, but no worse for wear. And we would revisit the subject again once we were past the danger that loomed. Quick, mostly painless, logical.

What actually happened? I hadn't counted on the Lockwood Effect, capital 'E'.

Oh, I thought I had. I'd certainly seen it in all its devastating glory—and yes, been on the receiving end of it myself once or twice. But I wasn't prepared. Maybe it was because I'd spent so long fighting the pull I felt towards him, or maybe it was the fact that he'd openly declared how he felt about me at long last. Whatever the cause, I was overwhelmed by a tide of emotion—feelings I'd repressed for years.

I couldn't take the necklace from him tonight, but I wasn't going to walk away and let the moment just sort of dissolve, fade into nothingness with the dying of the light. Lockwood may have been making his preparations, just in case he didn't survive, but me?

I was going to give him something to fight for. Something to want to live for.

Completely overwhelmed by his offer of undying devotion and the sudden surging intensity of my own feelings, I grabbed him by the tie, pulled him down to my level, and kissed him.

There are things that can't really be put into words. Things too powerful, too potent, too entirely precious to know how to start. For me, that first kiss with Lockwood was one of those things. It may have been a handful of seconds or a lifetime that passed, but I had no way of knowing because it seemed like everything around us just kind of paused, like the world itself was watching, holding its breath.

The stillness was all-encompassing; I didn't move and neither did he. For that one tiny moment, my doubts, my insecurities, any lingering anxiety I'd had, all of it was hushed in the complete stillness of that kiss. I knew only one thing: I loved him. If he'd let me, I'd stay by his side for the rest of my life.

The stillness lingered after I pulled away from him, letting go of his tie almost absentmindedly. At first, Lockwood and I simply looked at each other. For such a still, quiet moment, I was beyond affected. Simple tasks, like breathing or stringing words into coherent sentences, were suddenly beyond my capacity.

In the end, it didn't really matter. I was somewhere between desperately trying to remember how to speak and throwing caution to the winds and kissing him again when I saw something spark in Lockwood's eyes. So fast that I couldn't quite follow, he reached for me.

Lockwood kissed me, and this time I lost all track of where I was, what was going on around us. I had flashes of awareness: his arms securely around me, pulling me close; me, standing dangerously on the very tips of my toes—the boy was stupidly tall—one arm around his neck and the other finding purchase in his tie again.

For a moment, none of the rest of it mattered. Just Lockwood, and me.

I can't tell you how long we stood there, together, holding each other close, because I don't actually know. There are two reasons for this: first, as I was starting to realize it always would when it came to him and me, time kind of fizzed, stretching out indefinitely before snapping back into place and indefinite amount of time later; and second? Well, it turns out that kissing Lockwood is just as devastating as being on the receiving end of the Lockwood Effect. More so, even, as I could scarcely remember my own name, let alone make any sense of my thoughts.

The sun hadn't quite set the next time I bothered to notice such things, so it can't have been that long. Noticing that was like opening the flood gates: memories, thoughts, emotions poured into me, pulling me back to the reality that waited for us once the sun set. As it had to, the real world eventually broke through our increasingly fragile stillness. But even knowing that it had to end, I was reluctant to let Lockwood go, and judging by the way he lingered, he felt the same.

"Is that your answer?" he asked finally, hushed and breathless. His voice cut through the silence with the same fluid precision with which he did anything, bringing me crashing back to our discussion and the thing that had started it all: the necklace.

I pulled away from him and let me go. He still held the little box in one hand, maybe a little more crumpled now, but no worse for wear. For a moment we watched it together, the necklace still sparkling, still beautiful, still resonating with promise.

"No," I said quietly. Lockwood's eyes snapped up to mine, and I couldn't help but smile at the shock I saw there. He opened his mouth, probably to ask who I was and what I had done with his Lucy, but I shushed him with one hand. "I'm not going to take this from you now."

He fixed me with a very confused, slightly reproachful expression. Pulling my hand away from his mouth, he said carefully, "You'll have to explain to me what that kiss was all about then."

I echoed his own words. "That was a promise. If you ask me again after we get through this, the answer will be different." Then, because he needed to understand, I grasped his hand, tightly, briefly. "Please, Anthony," I said, my voice urgent, thick with emotion. "Please ask me again. Once we survive the night."

I think he got the message. In the long, heavy silence that followed, we shared a sort of silent understanding that communicated more than words possibly could. Then he smiled at me—hints of his trademark grin were seen—and safely pocketed the necklace. Just like that, the spelled hush that had fallen over the yard was broken and we were more or less back where we'd started: two coworkers enjoying one last bit of fresh air before the terrors of the night descended.

Only now we were also two dear friends with a shared promise between them.

"I supposed we had better get inside while we still have the chance," Lockwood said, and while it was a relief to my poor nerves to have some semblance of normalcy back in his (mostly) collected tone, there was such a large part of me that mourned the reestablishing boundaries.

"If the goal is making it out alive, then yes," I said. Typically, my voice was not nearly as free of evidence as his somehow was, but I put that from my mind. Once I turned my attention away from Lockwood, I was suddenly hyper aware of the shadows and the quickly setting sun. I was eager to have the sturdy kitchen door between the people that I loved and the enemies that threatened us. I turned to make my way inside, resigning myself to the distance I'd put between us, however temporary, but Lockwood reached out and grabbed my hand, stopping me short.

"Since we've tabled our discussion for now, that I won't bring it up again tonight," he said, suddenly all calm and cool and charm. Holding my gaze, he brought my hand to his lips. "Just know that I plan to see you on the other side."

And as red as my face was, I couldn't help the saucy grin that I gave him at that. "You'd better!"

This was precisely when the shrill whistle sounded from the top of the kitchen steps. Quill Kipps was standing there, all turtlenecked and folded arms and palpable discomfort. Which is to say, Quill at his usual finest.

"Not entirely sure what I'm interrupting right now—no, thank you, Lockwood, I can guess—but I thought you'd probably like to know that the Winkmans have arrived."