Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Zara crossed the ballroom.
The crowd parted for her — not out of respect, but out of that particular human instinct to move away from something they couldn’t categorize.
Ramona still hadn’t moved. There was champagne soaking into her shoe. She didn’t care about that either.
Zara stopped in front of her.
The tux fit like it had been made for her, which it almost certainly had been. The purple in the lapels matched Ramona’s hair precisely enough that it had to be intentional. Which meant she’d known, which meant she’d planned this, which meant—
“You’re here,” Ramona said. Her voice came out like it had been days since she’d last spoken, crackly and too high.
“I’m here,” Zara said, dipping her chin in a small bow.
Ramona reached forward, tentative, afraid that if she touched Zara, the dream would end and she’d wake up, or her friends would drag her away from a hallucination.
“How.” It wasn’t really a question. It came out more like a word she needed to say while her brain caught up with her eyes.
Zara’s shoulders were solid under her palms.
“It’s a long story.” Zara’s voice was careful in the way it got when she was paying close attention to something. “Can we… Is there somewhere more private we can talk?” Her eyes widened as she looked around, and Ramona realized that an entire ballroom of witches was watching them.
Ramona took Zara by the hand and spared a quick thought to clean up her broken glass with an easy spell, then hurried out of the ballroom to the coat closet in the foyer of the building. She shut the door behind Zara.
“How long before you have to go back?” Ramona asked, feeling frantic. The fear arrived all at once, sharp and specific. “An hour? A day? What are we working with—”
“Ramona.”
“—because I need to know how much time—”
“Ramona.” Zara took her hands. Ramona realized that her touch was warm. Human-warm, not the particular heat Ramona had catalogued through seven weeks together. Something was different. “I’m not going back.”
Ramona stopped talking.
“The ritual,” Zara said. “It didn’t just break your curse and the tether.
It broke all bindings. Including my contract with Hell.
” The corner of her mouth moved. “Turns out, three hundred years of bureaucratic experience is very useful when you’re trying to formally resign from a demonic institution. ”
“Your contract,” Ramona repeated slowly.
“Was a binding. An old one, but structurally not that different from the one we’d just dissolved with a full coven at a cleansed convergence point during a new moon.” Zara’s expression was careful, as though she wasn’t trying to reveal everything all at once. “The power doesn’t discriminate.”
“So when you got back to Hell—”
“I was there by momentum. Not by obligation.” A pause. “I went to my supervisor. Submitted my resignation. They were not pleased. Told me if I left, I’d lose my immortality. Age and die like any human.” Something moved briefly across her face. “They meant it as a threat.”
Ramona’s chest hurt. “And you…”
“I told them that was fine.” Zara said it the same way she said most things — precisely, without fuss. Like it was a straightforward cost-benefit analysis that had come out clearly on one side. “More than fine.”
“Zara.” Ramona’s voice cracked on it. “You were immortal.”
“I know.”
“You could have lived forever.”
“I know.” Zara’s thumb moved across Ramona’s knuckles. “What use is all the time in the world without the woman you love? I’d just have to spend eternity miserable and lonely and missing you.”
Ramona was crying. She hadn’t noticed starting. Zara reached up and wiped her cheek with the same unhurried practicality she brought to everything, and Ramona laughed despite herself — a wet, undignified sound that had no business being made at the Ostara Gala.
“So you’re… mortal,” Ramona said.
“As of about two hours ago.” Zara paused. “I can feel my heartbeat. It’s quite strange. And I think I might be hungry, which is apparently something that happens now.”
Ramona let out a surprised laugh. “It might take some getting used to, Mortal.”
Zara grinned, her fangs still present. “Don’t you dare.”
Ramona wrapped her arms around Zara’s neck.
“I’m so sorry it took me so long to get back.
We can discuss the logistics later. There’s a significant amount of logistics.
” A beat. “There was also exit paperwork. Hell’s HR department is thorough even when they’re furious with you, which I respect professionally even if I found it inconvenient this evening. It took me weeks.”
“Weeks? It’s been… one day,” Ramona said.
“Time must move very differently there. I was terrified I’d miss the gala.”
Ramona nearly laughed. “You were? Why?”
“I told you I’d be here, and I intended to keep my word.”
Ramona kissed her.
Zara made a small, surprised sound — which was fair, as Ramona had done it somewhat abruptly — and then kissed her back gently. Her hands came up to Ramona’s face, and Ramona could feel her pulse at her wrist, steady and new and mortal and real.
When they broke apart, both of them were breathing a little unsteadily.
“I love you,” Ramona said. “I thought you were gone. I spent the whole day thinking you were gone forever.”
“I know.” Zara’s forehead dropped against hers. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get back.” A short exhale that was almost a laugh.
“You’re really staying.”
“I’m really staying.” She pulled back just enough to look at Ramona properly. “If you’ll have me.”
“Are you— Zara. It’s a little late for that question. You gave up immortality—”
“I wanted to be polite about it,” Zara said, and the familiar dryness of it was so entirely her that Ramona laughed again, properly this time, and pulled her close.
They stayed like that for a moment. Just breathing. Ramona could feel Zara’s heartbeat under her palm. Could feel her breathe. It was the most ordinary thing in the world, and it was extraordinary.
A knock at the door.
“Ramona.” Felix’s voice, careful and concerned. “Is everything okay with Zara? Gerald is losing his mind out here. He’s done seven loop-the-loops.”
Ramona looked at Zara. Zara looked at Ramona.
“We should probably tell them,” Ramona said.
“Probably,” Zara agreed.
Ramona opened the door. Felix stood there with Gerald vibrating on his shoulder. Behind him, Kashvi, Posey, and Cammie, all arranged in a configuration that suggested they’d been deciding whether to knock for at least two minutes.
Zara stepped forward. “Hello, everyone.”
Gerald cooed and immediately performed an eighth loop-the-loop.
Felix was staring. “Did I hear you say you’re mortal?”
“And they just let you go?” Kashvi asked.
“They didn’t have a choice. My contract was dissolved. I told them I had accepted a position elsewhere.” A small, satisfied pause.
“Holy shit,” Felix said softly.
“Yes,” Ramona agreed, taking Zara’s hand. “We can do the full debrief later. Right now, I think maybe we should go back inside and dance at the gala we crashed specifically to prove we belonged there, and I’d really like our latest coven member to be there when we do.”
“Coven member?” Zara questioned. “Your coven accepts all sorts, I see.” Her eyes slid to Cammie, who grinned and shrugged.
“Exile Coven is a very equal-opportunity coven,” Ramona said. “Humans and mortal demons alike are welcome.”
She pulled Zara back toward the ballroom. Her coven followed, Gerald triumphant overhead.
“You know,” Zara said as the music got louder. “I came all the way back from Hell for this. The dancing had better be worth it.”
“It won’t be,” Felix called from behind them. “Statistically, it really won’t.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kashvi said.
“Welcome to mortality,” Ramona said and pulled her through the doors.