That shouldn't be possible. She's seen him in the last year; they've spoken. And for months afterwards, she knew he was out there. Scythe Lucifer kept himself busy.

But none of the rest of this should be possible, either. They shouldn't be in a different dimension, in the Age of Mortality. If that can be true, an inexplicable time difference can't be off the table. And Rowan wouldn't, couldn't fake the invisible weight that bows his shoulders or the bone-deep exhaustion she can see in his eyes.

Anger paralyzes her for a moment: anger at this place for drawing them both in but making him wait for her, anger at herself for pulling him into an alleyway and interrogating him when he hasn't seen her in over a year, anger at the necessary, unnecessary distance between them that she still hesitates to close because she learned restraint too well.

And then she moves, releasing his sleeve so she can wrap her arms around him and pull him close, tucking her chin over his shoulder. Her face is a little mashed into the hood of his sweatshirt, and she refuses to care. "I missed you, too," she murmurs.