It is the strangest sensation, to hold someone else's heart in your hands. How fragile you must be. You know that feeling when you're cradling a newborn baby, and all of your concentration is put into not letting go of it? I can think of little else that is more terrifying.

________________________________

We walked out and closed the door behind us. I yearned to be on the other side of the door, the side on which such momentous truths were being uttered. But I knew that my side was on the outside with the hero. Part of me hated this, and part of me was grateful, because once you hear something, you can never return to the time before you heard it.

"I don't know what to do," the hero said.

"I do not know also."