I don't know how you talked me into this.

I'm pacing across the cottage's living room, running my hands through my hair, my mind racing with all the ways this plan could go wrong. The Library has already taken so much from us - our memories, our friends, control of magic itself. Now we're walking straight into their stronghold to burn it all down.

Before I can spiral further into anxiety, I feel Eliot's presence behind me. He slides in close, hooking his fingers in my belt loop and tugging me back against his chest. His hand trails down my chest, fingertips dipping beneath the waistband of my pants, and I lean into his warmth as he presses his face against my neck.

"Probably because the last time we talked about it, I had my hand in here," he murmurs against my skin.

His fingertips are hot, his blunt nails scratching lightly against my abdomen and drifting lower. His lips are warm and soft against my neck, sucking and kissing and licking a path that makes my breath catch.

"And my mouth was right-" he kisses my collarbone, "-about-" he sucks at my pulse point, where my heart is throbbing furiously, "-here."

He breathes the last word as he catches my earlobe between his teeth, nibbling gently. His voice is a rough rumble through his chest, his breath hot against my skin.

Suddenly standing is becoming very difficult.

"Oh, right. Now I remember," I manage, my voice already breathy and weak. I turn in his arms, intending to haul him straight upstairs to his room-

-until Margo walks in and Eliot slowly pulls away.

I don't want him to go. I want to bottle the way he smells - pine and soap and smoke, like a campfire doused by a summer storm - and bury my face in the warm patch of skin behind his ear until the scent becomes a part of me. We lost so much time with the stolen memories and that thing that possessed him... I don't want to waste one more second not being in his bed.

But we have more important matters to attend to right now.

I take a deep breath and sink onto the couch, pulling a pillow over my lap and thinking about decidedly unsexy things like cold showers and baseball and spoiled milk. Eliot tosses back a shot of tequila.

"You guys are so precious, like little horny toads," Margo says with a smile, taking a practice swing with a machete through the air.

I just frown and wait for the blood to return to my brain.

"Okay, well, I'm still right about this," I eventually say. "It's a terrible idea."

Margo is bent over, strapping throwing knives to her thigh. "Jesus, Quentin, unclench. It'll be fine."

"Sure, because our last heist went so well."

"We're not actually stealing anything, so this isn't technically a heist," she answers, distractedly packing a bag with magical supplies and weapons and something that looks suspiciously like a flamethrower. She tosses a broadsword into the bag and winks at me. "We're just going to storm the library, burn it to the motherfucking ground, and then use the embers to light our celebratory joints."

I rake my hands back through my hair. "First of all, how do you not hear how insane that sounds? And second, the priority is to save Alice and Penny."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. It's all about rescue and friendship and lots of other noble bullshit, blah blah blah. When do I get to start destroying stuff?"

"Soon," Kady says, coming in the front door with Julia and Penny 23 trailing behind her. The awkward tension between them is palpable, but no one has time to deal with it right now.

"Our only advantage is surprise - the library hasn't yet realized that we've gotten our memories back, so they won't be expecting us. Which means we've got to do this thing ASAP."

Kady slaps a map of the library down on the table and begins explaining the plan. As she talks, I feel Eliot's eyes on me from across the room, a silent question in his gaze. We've both lost each other before. We both know the stakes.

And as I meet his eyes, I silently vow that this time, I'm not letting him go.