Chapter 27
Twenty-Seven
There is a fierceness in my chest that wasn’t there before, a proof left on my skin and in the way the kingdom breathes that I’ve done something enormous.
I did this. I pulled the Tower and the kingdom back from the ash, and in doing so, I pulled myself a little straighter too.
I have unlearned a hundred small lessons and learned, with a terrifying, thrilling clarity, that I have the power inside me to heal more than myself.
Still…Declan is gone.
The finality of it sits like cold iron in the pit of my stomach.
His body is a shadow at the edge of my sightline. It anchors me in the worst and truest way. I learned, painfully and proudly, how to make the kingdom remember. Now I must learn what to do with memories I cannot possibly forget.
Around me Wands mends, the Everspring sings, and people reach for one another, mouths shaping grateful, unbelieving laughter.
I want, with a fierceness that squeezes my heart, to pull that same healing around him, to have enough magick to unmake his ending.
But it seems that some healing is only for the living.
It doesn’t stop me from hoping, from casting a whispered plea to the universe, “Please let me save him. Let me bring him back.” Tears press hot against my eyes as I hold those impossible wishes in my chest.
I force my fingers open, a small gasp shredding out of me as pain flashes up my arm.
I sway on my feet. My legs are rubber, my hand throbs, every nerve in my body collapsing into wet noodles. The world tilts, and warm callused hands close around my shoulders and catch me before I fall.
My heart vaults with the impossible hope as I whirl around to face—
Tarek.
“Are you feeling all right?” he asks softly.
“Yes, I—” I try to answer, but it’s hard to form words around the despair sinking my heart. “I’m tired. And Declan—” My eyes sting, and I squeeze them closed.
Tarek pats my shoulder, then quiet and practical, he asks, “What would you have us do with him?”
I don’t know how to be anything but small and broken and messy in that moment. And that’s okay. So I give myself permission to be imperfect.
Air wheezes out of me in one long, wet sob that feels like it might never stop. My body trembles, chest convulsing as I cry. Tarek wraps me in a hug, and I let my tears soak into his shirt, leaving hot, dark tracks.
I wish the arms around me were Declan’s. I can almost feel the memory of his hands on me, the comfort of his touch.
I press my cheek harder against Tarek’s shoulder and let the grief be as big and as ugly as it wants to be.
Finally, this bout of grief drains away. Taking a deep breath and wiping my face with my good hand, I say, “I want to say goodbye.”
The watery light of the rising sun pools around me, haloing the stage with something tender as I kneel beside Declan. Hiccuping back sobs, I place my head on his chest because that’s all I can do when there’s nothing else left.
His skin is cool under my hands, the blood dark and dry at the edges where it soaked through his shirt. A crimson smear of dried blood crosses his lip, and I brush my fingers over it as tears leak from my eyes.
The wheel is turning, and everything is changing, but even with Fortune, with magick and the Tower, I can’t bring him back.
“I’m sorry.” I sniffle, my tears dotting his shirt. “I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m sorry for not letting you in sooner.”
The list is clumsy and useless and also the only offering I have. The only thing I can give him before they take him away, and he’s gone forever. When I’ll have to live with his absence, build a life around the hollowness he left behind.
“I’m sorry, Declan. Forgive me.”
My hand throbs where I press it to his chest, and I splay my burned, blood-smeared fingers over the place where his heart should beat. Heat answers the wound in my palm, and a sharp pain flares up my arm.
Dawn washes over us, and a hush falls across the kingdom so complete I can hear the sound of the wheel.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Ash coats my tongue, and smoke curls into my nose. When I look up, Fortune is there, a heat shimmer between the trunks of two great palms, burning a path between the trees.
“I remember,” I tell him, her, the universe.
“I remember how bad you are at flirting. I remember how your skin feels against mine. I remember the way you smell—clove and spice and home. I remember how you listened to me talk and never once thought I wasn’t enough.
I remember the way you laughed and would carry that damn cat and how you were just like me, pretending to be the person you thought others wanted.
I remember the taste of your mouth and how you made me feel like the world had room for me.
I remember that I love you, Declan Thorne, that I will always love you. ”
The sunlight around the stage swells, and the air thickens until its crackling around us, filled with smoke and heat.
The click of the wheel quickens into a cadence I can feel in my teeth, and I clench my jaw.
Sparks spill from my fingertips and arc into the pooled light.
I press harder, emptying myself into the magick taking hold.
Declan’s chest twitches under my palm. Then, impossibly, he inhales. His small, ragged gasp is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. Cold, stiff fingers curl around my wrist, his touch light as ash, then warmer, firmer. Color washes back into his face like a tide discovering the shore.
Under my hand, the wound on his chest draws together. Blood dulls to dust and flakes away as the gash draws closed from the inside out. Skin smooths around the puckered edges until it’s whole again.
The magick in my palm folds back on itself with a soft, sibilant note.
Threads of smoke draw back into my fingers, into the living drum under my ribs, until the fire is gone and my hand is only heat and damage.
A fresh pain flares along my fingertips and the curve of my palm, a bright, piercing ache.
But I can barely feel the hurt beneath the tide of joy that has just come in.
Tears spill hot down my cheeks as I release all the grief I was still holding.
With a groan, Declan sits up. His dark eyes find mine, and the world contracts to the shape of them. I cup his face with both hands, my thumb tracing the thin line where blood became ash on his lips.
“So,” I say, voice breaking more than I’d like, “you do exist.”
The corners of his mouth curl into a smile I know and love. “Don’t sound so disappointed.”
He pulls me to him and wraps his arms around me. He holds me as I sink into him. His palm slides up my back to my neck, fingers threading through my hair as he presses his lips to mine. I part my mouth and his tongue sweeps in, warm and tasting of smoke and salt.
“I love you, Amanda.”
And this time, I let him. I let him love me, the woman who once carried laminated affirmation cards in her purse because saying the words felt safer than living them; the woman who treated manifestation like control; the woman who built walls and believed they were shelter.
I let him love me, the woman who is messy and imperfect and learning and healing and powerful in ways I am only just beginning to understand.
He drops his forehead to mine and blinks down at my hand. “Are you okay? That looks terrible. What happened?”
I grin, wincing a little as he turns my hand over in his. “It’s kind of a long story.”
Fennel finds us first. His bray cuts through the quiet like a trumpet as he barrels toward me with all the subtlety of a stampede. He pushes his shaggy head into my chest, rough fur scraping my cheek.
“I’m glad you’re okay too,” I whisper, looping my arms around his neck. He smells like dust and sunlight, grounding in a way that steadies my pulse. I press my face into him and blink hard when my throat tightens. “Thank you for forcing me to be your friend.”
Cinder pads up behind him, tail flicking. She circles Declan once before springing into his lap and curling up like she belongs there.
“My queen.” He kisses the top of her head as his fingers drag slowly through her sleek coat.
I lean into Fennel’s shoulder and watch them together, emotion swelling in my chest.
This unbelievable, magickal place has been hot and horrifying and terrible, but it’s also given us so much—truth, healing, and family in the most unlikely creatures.
Fennel flicks his ears, distracted by the rattle of a grain bucket somewhere within the tall grasses.
I kiss his soft nose and inhale his earthy scent one last time before he lumbers off toward the promise of food.
Cinder lifts her head, blinks her lemon-yellow eyes up at Declan, then leaps onto Fennel’s back.
Together they disappear into the gilded shimmer of dawn that bathes the camp.
Across the expanse of leafy green, I spot Nessa with Romy and Celine. The three of them are huddled together near the edge of a mended tent, skirts streaked with ash, faces smudged, hair coming loose.
“I need to go talk to them.”
Declan follows my gaze and squeezes my hand. “I’ll be right here.”
I approach, and when Nessa sees me, her mouth tightens. Romy hooks her arm around Nessa’s, and Celine shifts, stepping as if to shield her, but I raise my hands.
“I’m here to apologize.” I swallow, my mouth dry. “I failed you. All of you. I told you to manifest and handed you empty affirmations when what you needed was someone to see you. To listen.”
Nessa’s chin trembles, and for a tense minute she doesn’t answer, just stares at me like she’s weighing whether this is another performance. Finally, she exhales.
“I was angry. And scared. But you…you did see us, Amanda. And you listened to what we most desired. You pushed me to reach, even though I did not succeed. While thinking only good thoughts is a bit naive—”
“Yeah”—I shake my head—“that was terrible advice.”
Celine snorts, her ash-streaked arms crossing over her chest. “Useless, more like.”