Gansey lay on his bed in the dark, hard at work at attempt number three to sleep that night. Without his glasses, he could just make out a blurry Noah illuminated by the moonlight where he stood staring out the window.
"I was thinking about what you said," Noah said softly. "About what you'll be without the quest. I don't think the search is who you are though, I think it's the thing that makes you. And once you're made, you don't have to worry about it anymore. You can just be."
"I don't want to just be, Noah."
Noah shrugged, the small movement nearly lost to the shadows. "Dying on the ley line is what made me," he continued, quieter still. "Sometimes I think that was my only purpose, dying so you could live."
A pained noise escaped Gansey's throat, but Noah continued as if he hadn't heard. "It's not so bad though, just being. I've thought about it a lot, but I wouldn't go back. I died so you could live, but if I hadn't then we wouldn't all be here. If I hadn't, you wouldn't even have a quest in the first place. So maybe you need to finish yours so someone else can start a new one."
Gansey sat up. He couldn't reach his glasses without taking his eyes of off Noah, and he knew if he did that he would lose him. "Noah, I would go back and save you–"
Noah turned then. "No, you wouldn't," he said simply. "And I wouldn't ask you to."