Epilogue Wren
Iwatch him from the shadows.
The shrine is quiet, wrapped in mourning and memory. The figures of the saints stare down at the shrouded body in the centre of the chamber. I wonder if they really exist, if they hold Evander’s spirit somewhere else, or if he sits now among the stars.
Cassiel kneels beside Evander’s body, his head bowed, his face a map of ash and bruises. The light touches him softly through the stained glass—blue and gold, like a crown of sunlight.
I want to go to him. My entire body cries with it. I want to cross the air between us, banish the distance, and fold him into my arms. I want to grovel for forgiveness, to resurrect the dead with penance. To make things as they were.
But I cannot. Nothing I can ever do will ever make up for what I’ve already done.
There’s no spell to undo what’s been done. I can’t bring Evander back. I can’t wake Alessandra. I can’t give Cassiel back the sight he lost.
Yet.
The word stays with me. A small, defiant ember. There’s no saving Evander. But Cassiel… Cassiel doesn’t have to stay in the dark forever. I will find a way. For him.
And maybe—maybe—for me, too.
Because I was betrayed that night as well. Lied to and used, sacrificed like a pawn in a game older than both of us. Even Zephyr betrayed me in the end.
The castle isn’t mine to return to.
But neither is the Moonhollow.
I don’t belong to either world now. Maybe I never did. I’m a child of both worlds and yet I have no place in either.
Yet, yet, yet.
But I will find my place, even if I have to make it with my bare hands.
No. Not make.
Burn.
Cassiel speaks. “What were you trying to tell me?” he asks, voice raw with grief.
I want to cry, but this form can’t. I tremble instead. I know he’s angry with me. I know he’ll never forgive me. But he’s in pain. Of course I need to be with him—
I move closer before I realise what I’m doing.
He stiffens. “Who’s there?”
I freeze.
The silence stretches. He can’t possibly recognise me, not in this form, but for a moment, it feels like some part of him knows I’m here.
And still… he doesn’t call my name. He doesn’t whistle for me.
Of course he doesn’t.
So I do what I did when I fell from the ramparts, when the world was ending and I wanted to disappear. What I have always longed to do, ever since I burned down my first home.
I fly away in search of a nest.