Ben felt a slight twinge in his chest at the question. Maybe just because it was the first time that either of them had actually said it. Of course they'd both been thinking it, throughout this whole conversation, but this was the first time it had been put in words. Even when he'd asked Art to tell Dionisia earlier, Ben had only danced around it — if things don't go well.

"I promise," Ben said with a nod, and now he knew they were going to get through this. He'd been telling everyone he talked to about it for the past week that it would be fine, and that there was no chance of him dying, but — there was always the chance. And with how he'd been feeling lately, with the panic attack at Dionisia's house and the fraught conversation with his sister and this wave of constant low-level dread he was trying to smother and his inability to talk to Melody, it had been seeming increasingly likely that he might not be alright. But he really wasn't going to die now, because he'd just promised Art he wouldn't, and he wasn't going back on a promise.