56. Paper Boat
PAPER BOAT
LEV
T he crackling fire and light drizzle outside was the only sound in the room. The storm had passed and when Lev looked to his right, Silas was absent.
Asher slipped out from under Lev’s arm.
“What are you doing?” Lev asked.
“A new ritual.” Asher crossed to Lev’s desk and returned with his sketchbook. He found a blank page, then passed the sketchbook to Lev with a pencil.
“Draw Silas how he was before he died.”
And so Lev drew Silas as he was, as he’d always been, because he hadn’t come back all wrong. He’d been that version of Silas all along. In a way, Silas had been right—Lev had never loved all of Silas, and when Silas died, Lev put him on a pedestal, and forgot the bad parts on purpose.
Lev honored the Silas that was real, sketching the shards of light in his irises when he was playful, the slender fingers that had written love sonnets, the sharp cheekbones that flushed when Silas had fiercely insisted that Lev was more than Father’s expectations.
And as he layered shadows in the hollows beneath Silas’s sunken eyes, he filled in the dark parts he’d left out of all the paintings he’d punished himself with, the mind games, the clinginess, the cruel accusations. Each strand of graphite hair marked the days he’d spent in the dark with Silas.
Lev hid the bars of the cage Silas had trapped him inside in the slight upward tilt of the nose Lev had once kissed, the contempt in the subtle curl of his upper lip, the cruelty in the corner of his smirk, and lastly the envy projecting from his pupils.
He blew the excess graphite off of the paper like the magic dust in the bedtime stories Wendell had told him, and with that last breath, and a gust of silver dust, a teardrop splashed onto the page, and Lev said goodbye to Silas.
In that vaguely supernatural way that Asher sensed the murky contents of Lev’s mind and heart, Asher caught Lev as he collapsed into his arms.
“You’re so brave, Leviathan Marks.”
For the first time since Silas had died, Lev liked the sound of his full name, especially when it was spoken from Asher’s tongue. Lev wasn’t the monster of his namesake anymore.
In a clumsy clash of need and impatience and the holiest devotion to whatever god had destined them for each other, their lips slammed together.
This kiss was different—it felt like a vow, like they were consummating their fated connection, locking their souls together forever with a bond so strong, neither time nor distance, or the slow death of lost memories, or even the soft exhale of Lev’s last breath would part them.
Lev tasted copper. Asher’s split tongue must have broken open.
Asher pulled back and Lev was about to reach for the waste bin in case he vomited, but Asher took Lev’s hand, and gently unfurled it, then spat blood onto the drawing of Silas with a protective rage that made Lev want to fuck Asher and be fucked by him until they both cried in rapture instead of regret.
“Fuck him,” Asher said, slightly slurred, and wiped his mouth .
“Shall I chuck the drawing in now to complete whatever ritual you’re up to?”
Asher stopped him. “Not here.”
After collecting all of his Silas mementos —as Asher called them—they ventured into the hall.
Asher slowed. “You never moved out of the room Silas died in, did you?”
Lev shook his head. “I didn’t want to leave the last place I’d seen him.
Luna tried to convince me, and Father’s attempts to command me didn’t work outside the art studio.
In the end, they couldn’t force me. Not when my mental health already teetered on the edge of sanity.
After Father died and Silas appeared, I realized he couldn’t bother me in my old room, so I moved back in. ”
“We’re never sleeping there again,” Asher said, jaw tight.
“Please don’t be angry.”
“I’m not mad. It’s just really fucking sad.”
“Does it help to know I roomed you in Wendell’s room so he could watch over you? Some might say it was almost romantic.”
“No one would say that. It’s creepy. You don’t know how many times I jacked off in there.”
Lev laughed so loudly it echoed throughout the entire stairwell.
“It’s not funny either.”
“Yes. You’re right. Poor Wendell must have been so uncomfortable.”
Asher rolled his lips inward, but he never could hide his dimples.
The lower levels of the castle hadn’t flooded, aside from the dungeons. Lev built a fire in the forge.
“Are you sure you want to get rid of all of them?” Asher asked. “You could keep the photograph of when you two were happy. I don’t think burning everything matters if we’re making our own magic.”
“I wasn’t happy.” Lev tossed the photo and passport in, then the first handful of photos Asher passed him, watching the small details of Silas’s fingertips, the hair beneath his belly button, and the curve of his ear warp, and fade, and disappear.
There were hundreds of photos, and more and more of Silas died as Lev tossed the photos Asher dealt to him.
At some point he found himself on his knees in front of the forge with empty hands. Asher passed him the self-portrait with the scratched out eyes, the art Father had said was finally honest. The real truth, however, was that Father never should have pushed Lev to punish himself through his art.
Art should have been his respite. Painting could have helped him process his emotions and provide catharsis, but the only thing he’d painted since Silas died was his guilt.
“I wish I could erase the tattoo over my heart and replace it with something that won’t remind you of Silas every time you take off my shirt.”
Lev slid his hand under Asher’s shirt and placed it over his heart, soothed by his warm skin and the vibration of his pulse.
“Your tattoo will remind me you saw the truth before I did, and helped me see it too.” He dropped the self-portrait onto the fire.
The flames devoured it the second they tasted paper.
“I can paint my eyes over your tattoo every day for the rest of time if that would please you.”
“That sounds a lot like punishing yourself, and I’ll never let you do that again.”
Lev smiled thinly. “Thank you for that.”
“Are you okay?” Asher brushed Lev’s hair back from his temple.
“I am. Let’s finish, hm? Then we can go bedroom shopping.”
They didn’t have to travel very far with the paper boat Lev had folded from the bloodstained sketch of Silas. Lev rubbed Silas’s raven hair between his fingers one last time, then placed it gently in the paper boat and carried it to the mouth of a shimmering riptide.
“Any second thoughts?” Asher rested his head against Lev’s shoulder and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Remember, it’s our spell.”
“I know, love.”
Lev bent and held the paper boat just above the water. “I’m ready.”
Asher lit a match and dropped it into the boat, and as soon as Lev was certain the wind wouldn’t blow it out, he released the boat, and delivered the last of Silas to the sea.
Flames engulfed the paper boat as it sailed beyond the shore break, bobbed over the gentle swell of a building wave, and disappeared, laying Silas Morrigan to rest in the arms of Lucian Marks, who’d sacrificed an eternity beside his two soulmates to ensure Silas would never be alone. If only Silas had known.
A weight lifted from Lev’s chest and when he inhaled, he breathed fully for the first time in decades. He was free.
By the time the ocean relinquished the land three days later, Lev was ready to leave Lichenmoor, but it took one week, and several failed attempts to succeed.
They stopped at the gate where he’d first seen Asher through the fog.
Asher took his hand. “Only now. Only me.”
“Only us,” Lev agreed, and this time when he lifted his foot, all the years of agoraphobia therapy finally worked, and he stepped over to the other side and left Lichenmoor behind.
He looked back at the castle high on the bluffs and knew Silas was no longer there, just like he knew he wouldn’t see him again. He wasn’t sure if it was the ritual that had worked, or if Silas was a ghost, but Lev had his own theory.
Life and death weren’t separated by a veil, but a window.
Some could see through it, even press their ear to it, but they couldn’t open or climb through it.
He and Silas had been trapped on either side until a rare thunderstorm fractured the window between life and death, and lightning was the afterlife bleeding through the cracks.
Some questions would never be answered, perhaps shouldn’t be answered.
Questions like how Silas had been able to stay after he died, or why he’d decided to trap Lev in his web, and what if banishing Silas was only a false high, and Alzheimer’s still roosted in the rafters of Lev’s mind, waiting until the right moment to strike?
But he’d take his own advice and live only now. With him.