Her blade thudded in so easily.
Sylvie didn't watch as he fell. She turned, instead, to finish what there was to finish.
As she did it, she felt nothing. After it was done, the same. Then she turned around, and felt too much. Loki lay there, slick red hands pressed to his abdomen. Pale. Gasping. Dying.
She knelt by his side, reached for him, stopped.
"Sylvie," he said, frighteningly faint. "It's all right."
"I don't know any healing magic," she said. She'd never learned any. There'd never, in a thousand years, been the time. The best option had always been not to get hurt in the first place.
"I do." A glimmer of green around his hands, quickly fading. "But I'm weakened. I'll need to borrow. Your strength."
Some part of her thought, coldly: Trap. He could take what he needed, then everything else she had. Why shouldn't he, when she'd killed him?
In the Void, he'd offered her his strength, offered her everything. She'd taken what she needed, no more. Weren't they the same?
"All right," she said. She placed her hands over his, let her defenses fall.
Afterward, his fingers entwined with hers, a new sort of strength.