They use the daytime hours to put distance between them and the school; Damien's used to that kind of scrape now, or at least more than she is, and he pretends to be more used to it than he really is for her sake, and bargains them an escape route into another state - it might not hold out long but enough to buy them time to pass into another country - if they could safely pass into Otherworld he would do it in a heartbeat, but the truth is, he's almost lost her twice already and he doesn't want to risk the third, not on the day of a broken promise: these things have power and all of his is going into deploying treasures of energy and ingenuity into showing her he will not leave, will defend and protect and love her always; at night, they've found refuge in the non-magical world, renting a room in a motel from a bored worker who pegged them with a glance as teenagers on the lam - so close and so far at once from the truth that if he were alone and at a liberty to feel sorry for himself Damien would have cried; getting ready for bed is both excrutiating and exhilarating, awkward and nonsexual all at once, huddling together on the same bed as she's always refused, until today, and he clings to her and whispers in her ear that he loves her, will never stop loving her, that they'll find a way to get her powers back, fervent babblings that he means with every fiber of his being, every drop of his too-cold blood - and if they can't, well, then there's always revenge, isn't there?

She clings back, breathing smooth and regular, silent as she so rarely is while he tries to drown his own panic with tender gestures, until he pauses to drop another kiss in her hair, and she asks, her voice soft and shaken and somehow more resolute for it, "do you promise, Damien?"

It's all she has left, now; she has lost all her powers, but that she wields over him; and so, his arms tighten around her, this delightful, awful creature he wants never to be torn apart from again, and if his lungs clench, it's only because self-preservation is a hard habit to break - and so he gives it to her, the assurance that their fates are now bound; gives in to her; promises, and feels the magic ready to destroy him should his word ever falter.