Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Alex materialized inside Tir n’Aill and heard the singing of the trees around her. The music of the world filled her in a way she had never experienced before. Like for the first time in her life, she could really notice every instrument of the orchestra.
She was an anchor point now.
Whatever the fuck that meant.
Well, she knew what it meant. It meant she was going to die like this. But not physically. Just mentally. Slowly. Stitch by stitch. Drop by drop. Until she wasn’t herself anymore. Until she might as well be a rock. Or the fucking tree at the center of that god-forsaken Maze itself.
Her body ached in ways that went beyond physical pain. The roots had left their mark on her, dark lines threading under her skin like a roadmap. They’d heal. She had survived.
But she was utterly, devastatingly alone.
Izael was gone. Valroy had unmade him, erased him from existence with the casual cruelty of swatting a fly. Her husband—brilliant, sarcastic, insane Izael—had been reduced to nothing more than memory and regret.
Alex sank to her knees in the soft grass, her purple hair falling around her face like a curtain.
She had saved three worlds, had helped separate the realities and restore order.
She should feel victorious. Heroic. Instead, she felt hollow, like someone had reached inside her chest and carved out everything that mattered.
“Well!” a voice piped excitedly from behind her. “Nice of you to finally show up! I guess this means we won?”
Alex didn't turn around. She couldn't bear to face Puck's manic grin, couldn't handle his chaotic energy when her own world had been reduced to ash and memory. “Go away," she said quietly. “I’m not in the mood.”
“Oh, but I came to cheer you up,” Puck replied, and there was something in his voice—something uncharacteristically gentle—that made her pause.
Footsteps approached through the grass, but they weren't Puck's usual bouncing gait. These were measured, careful, achingly familiar.
“Hello, songbird,” said a voice that made Alex's heart stop. “Miss me?”
She spun around so fast she nearly fell over, her eyes wide with disbelief.
There, standing beside a grinning Puck in the moonlight, was Izael.
Her Izael. Teal hair perfectly styled despite having supposedly been erased from existence, that crooked smile that had first made her fall in love with him, those faintly-glowing teal eyes that held all the intelligence and insanity and terrible jokes she had thought she'd lost forever.
“That’s—that’s impossible—” She scrambled to her feet. “Valroy destroyed you. “You were dead—”
“I was. In your timeline. That’s where Goodfellow comes in.” Izael jerked a thumb toward Puck. “I’ve only made about half a lick of sense of it but something about quantum physics and particle theory and getting yanked from the fabric of time prior to being erased and—”
She had already stopped listening. She was already kissing him.
When they parted, she was crying. This time with joy.
Puck's grin widened, and for once it wasn't manic or chaotic—it was purely, genuinely happy.
“You didn't think I'd let my favorite snake die, now did you?” He spun in place, silver hair catching the moonlight.
“Plucked him right out. Bit tricky, that—had to make sure the timeline didn't collapse. But hey, I'm very good at impossible things.” He shook a finger at her. “Just don’t ask me to do this again. It won’t work a second time. Trust me.”
Alex stared at them both, her mind reeling. “I don’t…okay.” None of this made any sense to her. But when it came to Puck, she was pretty used to that.
“Besides,” Izael added, stepping closer to her, “someone has to help you keep Puck from burning down all of Tir n'Aill in his first week as councilor. From what I hear, he's already reorganized the Seelie court hierarchy based on who can juggle the most flaming torches.”
Alex looked between them—her impossible husband, somehow returned from the void, and the chaotic trickster who had apparently decided to play fairy godmother. Then she launched herself at Izael, wrapping her arms around him and holding on as if he might disappear again if she let go.
“Don't you ever scare me like that again,” she sobbed against his shoulder. "Don't you ever be that fucking noble again, you beautiful, stupid idiot.”
“I’ve decided being a hero doesn’t suit me. So I don’t think we’ll ever have that issue again,” Izael murmured, holding her just as tightly. “Though with Puck in charge, I suspect we're all going to have to be a bit more flexible about what constitutes 'normal' around here.”
In the distance, they could hear music—wild, joyous, utterly chaotic music that could only mean the fae courts were already adjusting to their new reality.
Alex pulled back to look at her husband, at his beloved face that she had thought she'd never see again, and felt something she hadn't expected.
Hope.
Maybe the world was broken. Maybe the old order was ending and something strange and unpredictable was beginning.
But she had Izael back, Puck was somehow keeping the courts from tearing each other apart, and somewhere in the space between dreams and reality, their friends were making new lives in impossible circumstances.
It wasn't the ending any of them had planned.
But maybe it was a beginning, instead.
Ava looked up at the house she had built. Well…she had created. She hadn’t exactly built it. More like she had simply morphed it out of thin air. It seemed she could still do that. Using Book, she could pull threads of reality through Earth and carefully, well, weave them together.
And much like how Serrik had created his home and it had touched the edges of Earth?
She had made a new place for them. Even if she’d decided to keep this new structure considerably less decrepit than the one she’d been drawn into that first night. Shit. That felt like eons ago. How long had it actually been? A month? Two? Days?
She’d gone with a Victorian style mansion.
Something that The Addams Family would have been proud of, if in better condition.
A tall tower was its most defining feature, with its cast iron railings and widow’s walk, but it was painted a stately desaturated green with darker green trim and golden-tone brass hardware.
Spiderweb details were hidden everywhere, if one knew where to look. Arches in the corbels, the twisting patterns of the inlaid header moldings—subtle, but present.
It seemed only fitting.
Spooky. But refined. Just enough to send a shiver down someone’s side without screaming dollar store Halloween rental.
Serrik stood beside her, scrutinizing the mansion silently. He had been lost inside his own thoughts since the worlds had been split apart. Honestly, so had she.
They had both been prepared to die. It was a certainty.
One they had…somehow avoided. And now…they were alive. Guardians of Earth. She was the Web. And now warden of Valroy, the Unseelie King.
What the actual fuck.
A thought occurred to her as she looked up at the house, and she let out a laugh that slowly devolved into a sad, wistful sigh. “Shit...” She was going to start crying.
“What is wrong, Ava?” Serrik frowned at her.
“I never got to finish my degree. I wanted to be an architect.” She gestured at the house, blinking away the tears that were threatening to form.
“My mom, I…I always wanted her to see something I got to make, and she never did, before she died, and…I finally got to make a house, and…” Shit.
There were the waterworks. “Fuck. I’m sorry. ”
He pulled her into his arms in an gentle embrace. “When I entered your memories, I saw plain how much she loved you. How proud she was of you. And I know, if she could see you now, how proud she would still be.”
Shutting her eyes, she rested her head on his chest, letting out a long breath. “Thanks.”
“Even if you did make it far too large for just the two of us.”
She chuckled. “Who said it’s just for us?”
“I…excuse me?”
The horror in his voice made her burst out laughing. “That’s not what I meant! I mean. Maybe. But I don’t know.” She kept laughing. “Holy shit, man.” Taking a step back, she took his hand in hers and led him up toward the door. “I meant—oh, never mind. Just come and see.”
The befuddled fear on his features was making her laugh every time she glanced at him. He had clearly assumed she meant other kinds of residents. But when she opened the front door, it was a different kind of scream of excitement that greeted them.
“You’re both okay!”
Bitty launched herself out of the front door, smashing into Ava, hugging her.
Ava laughed, hugging the little creature as tight as she could. “We’re all right.”
Standing in the foyer was everyone else. Ibin, Nos,
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends…”
Finis.