Lyra's POV
I strolled down the alley between the tall shelves. My legs were heavy under me, as if I was slugging around a bag of leads. Still, I kept on. It couldn't be any worse than the massive weight in my heart, anyway. The weight of guilt that his words have bared open in me.
I relived some of my deaths in my mind. The time when Zarek had plunged his sword down my chest, another when I'd fallen down from the top landing of the castle, pushed by a maid bribed into doing so by Zarek, and another when I'd been hit by a car in the human world, and Draziel had found me for the first time that lifetime in a pool of my own blood.
Whenever I found Draziel next, he had been miserable, as if he'd lost a part of himself. And gradually, with my continuous death, he'd grown lonely, unkempt, and haggard, caring about nothing else than finding me in the next lifetime. Draziel wasn't wrong. I was the selfish one. Making Draziel go through needless, endless pain because of me.
