Magnus sobs at that. He turns his head into Lan Wangji's touch, his tears sinking into Lan Wangji's robes (again), where they spread slowly. "I don't want you to die," he says. For me, he means. Because Ragnarok is my future, he means. Because people I love get hurt when they try to help me, he means. He is fourteen again, hiding in a dumpster, given no time to process his mother's death; he is fifteen, alone but for two weird also-homeless guys (Hearthstone and Blitzen) who have an unexplainable interest in his well-being and who the other street kids laughingly call his mom and dad; he is sixteen and dying for strangers as a fire giant targeting him is hurting everyone else in the area, too; he is sixteen forever and his uncle is trying to sacrifice him to bring his own children back and nearly destroying both Samirah and Alex in the process. He is sixteen and twenty-four and alone in a strange place; he is sixteen and twenty-four and none of the people who make him feel less alone truly understand what it takes to be an einherji. He doesn't want them to know. It's not their burden. It shouldn't be their burden. He should have done more today. He wishes he didn't have to do anything.