Epilogue
EPILOGUE
T hree days behind a locked door. A ghost no one knew existed, except for Sionnach who sat on the edge of the bed and cried, when they didn’t gaze blankly out the window with only a brick wall visible on the other side.
Three days slamming his shoulder into the door. Screaming from the moment someone pulled the collar off him; clawing at the wood, feeling every single second that passed.
Three days in the human world was nearly a week and a half in Alfidel—if time even passed how it used to. With no veil to weave through—there was no way to know. It could have been years. Decades. Centuries.
Saffron should have stayed in the ballroom. He should have made a scene. He never should have left, no matter how much Naoill encouraged him, or however hard Ryder gripped him right on the other side of the wall. He should have been there to take Cylvan’s hand. To hold him. To show him exactly where his feet would remain planted, despite the cries of dissent and demands for explanations. He should have been there. When Cylvan needed him most—Saffron had been nowhere to be found. Just like Cylvan once told him he feared so much.
He screamed, he cried, he clawed at the door, and then at his hair, his face, his clothes, screaming in such agony and unable to do anything about it. He couldn’t stop time from passing, he couldn’t go back and stop himself, he couldn’t do anything except scream and tear and beg for mercy, until Sionnach’s hands found him and pulled him close, petting his hair despite even they being unable to speak. There was no comfort to give. Even if there was, Saffron didn’t want it.
Saffron wasn’t with Cylvan. He wasn’t with him. He wasn’t there. He should have been there. He should be there.
Despite so many promises made, despite swearing to cling to Cylvan’s hand no matter what came, no matter how dark the night that swallowed them, when the blackness finally found them?—
Saffron hadn’t been there. He’d left Cylvan to wander it alone. Lonely and silent in a crowd of wolves. Bracing to be torn apart with nothing to fight back. His only comfort would have been knowing Saffron waited to hold him when it was all over. Where the sun would rise and the palace would go quiet again. But Saffron hadn’t been there, when Cylvan finally turned to look. Again, and again, and again, how many times did Cylvan turn to look for him, and Saffron never appeared again?
And every additional day that passed—would be three more gone by in that darkness where he’d left Cylvan to wander alone.
Saffron screamed and lobbed himself, wild and deranged in his desperation, at the door for every hour of sunlight and darkness that followed. Until strangers rammed the door from the other side, shouting back at him in familiar and unfamiliar languages to shut the fuck up . Once, the door even opened as someone attempted to threaten him to his face—but they didn’t get more than a single foot through before Saffron’s nails raked through their cheek, ripping away fingerfuls of skin as he fought to escape. Blood that stained the door and smeared over the knob once it slammed shut in front of him again.
Two more days passed before a second body attempted to open the door and subdue him—and Saffron sank teeth deep enough into the man’s arm to taste blood, before realizing who it was. Hollow, who gazed down at him with such pity, with such a heavy heart that even he looked on the verge of tears.
“Saffron,” he said weakly, voice cracking. The weakest sound Saffron had ever heard his friend utter. “Please, Saffron.”
Saffron pulled away. His friend’s blood stained the corners of his mouth as he stared up at him. Behind him, a patch of curly blonde hair bobbed in the hallway, and Saffron lunged for it, too. He didn’t know if it was to attack, or something else—he didn’t know anything else by that point—but Hollow’s big, strong arm swept Saffron up around the stomach and bodied him back into the room.
Rather than shoving Saffron away and hurrying back out, though—he followed inside. Behind him, Letty also stepped in, looking pale. Avoiding Saffron’s eyes. She did, however, meet Sionnach’s, who shied away and attempted to cover their horns, their ears, in shame. Letty smiled gently at them, approaching carefully while Hollow wrestled Saffron onto the edge of the bed.
“Saffron, I said STOP IT!” Hollow boomed, loud enough to shake the walls. Saffron finally went still. Staring at his friend who knelt in front of him, Hollow had his wrists gripped, one in each hand. Saffron’s fingers twitched from the strength of them, stained under the nails with old blood and splinters.
Hollow stared at him, breathing heavy, expression warped in fury and something else unreadable—before it all crumbled down, and he released Saffron’s wrists to embrace him. To wrap his arms around Saffron’s writhing body, squeezing him with his own desperation, as his own body shuddered. Hollow—was crying.
On the other side of the room, Letty sat at the foot of Sionnach’s bed, wringing her hands together with her eyes turned to the floor. Dark, wet dots appeared on the canvas pinafore she wore as she silently cried, too.
Saffron couldn’t breathe, and not because of Hollow’s grasp encircling him. Saffron wanted to scream more, he wanted to claw at Hollow and race for the door, to throw himself out it. He had to get back, he had to get back, Cylvan needed him, Cylvan had been left all alone?—
But the moment he was embraced by someone familiar, someone he found such immediate comfort with—Saffron’s resolve buckled. He collapsed into Hollow’s arms, pressing his face into the crook of his friend’s neck where he sobbed. He cried like he’d cried every moment before then, but that time it felt different. He’d cried into Hollow’s shoulder so many times before, that even without any words to speak, Saffron felt like he could give up control for just a moment. He could be useless, desperate, pitiful, just for a moment, where nothing would be able to come and hurt him. Where he could fool himself into thinking time stopped passing, to allow him a single moment.
He clawed at Hollow’s back, straining the fabric of his shirt. He cried until there was nothing left, until he trembled over every inch and felt every bruise and welt left on his skin from assaulting the door without end.
“I’m so sorry,” Hollow whispered, cupping the back of Saffron’s head to tuck him closer. “That bastard—that evil bastard, maybe it was only a matter of time…”
He pulled away, smearing his calloused thumbs over Saffron’s swollen eyes to wipe the tears away. It did no good, as more replaced them in an instant. Saffron just clung to Hollow’s hands, anchoring himself there.
“If there is anyone in this world who can find a way home, Saffron, it’s you,” Hollow said. Saffron shook his head, blubbering disagreements, but Hollow just took his face again. “There is no one in this world who loves you more than Prince Cylvan,” he went on, and Saffron’s insides shredded into nauseating ribbons at the words. But Hollow kept holding his face. “And between the first rowan witch in centuries, and a fey Night Prince who would tear the world apart for him—I know you will not be here for long.”
“I can’t,” Saffron sobbed, shaking his head. “I can’t—I don’t have any magic here, Hollow, I can’t do anything, I—can’t—do anything…”
“You’ve spent more of your life with no magic than you have with it,” Hollow told him, wiping more tears from his eyes. “You are more than your magic, Saffron. I know it. I’ve seen it. Even Prince Cylvan devoted himself to you long before you ever had any magic of your own—and I know he’ll do anything to get you back.”
Hollow reached into the pocket of his patchwork jacket, taking Saffron’s hand and pressing something into it. Like white-hot metal, making Saffron attempt to jerk away, but Hollow kept him where he was. Only when he slowly removed his hand, did Saffron see what burned him so intensely. It was his amethyst pendant.
Despite what he was certain had been irreparable damage to the veil—heat kissed his hand. Someone was calling to him, from the other side.
Exhaling a shuddering breath, Saffron closed his fingers over the crystal. He pulled it into his chest, hunching forward and giving the stone everything he had. His heat, his breath, the heavy beating of his heart. Cylvan would feel him. Cylvan would hear Saffron calling back.
“I’m here, I’m here,” he cried softly. “You haven’t lost me, I’m here?—…”
The pendant burned brighter, hotter and hotter until the tiny sound of snapping glass rang out. Holding his breath, Saffron shakily opened his hands to look. A hairline crack stretched through the center of the crystal, overwhelmed by the charmed magic coursing through it. It kept its shape in his hands, though. It did not crumble. It remained hot enough to leave red, flushed kisses on his skin.
Saffron closed his eyes again. He clasped the necklace between his hands, squeezing it again. He forced himself to breathe, inhaling his first lungful of air since arriving in that place.
He raised his eyes back to Hollow, who watched him with so much worry. His gaze then traveled to Letty, who finally looked at him, too, green eyes wet with emotion. Finally, he looked at Sionnach, who remained curled tightly in on themself, watching him as every inch of their being trembled.
Saffron released the poisonous breath he held, and turned back to Hollow.
“Where are we?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“A place called London,” Hollow answered. The confirmation nauseated him, but Saffron nodded. He inhaled another shaky breath, then released it.
“Is Sunbeam here?”
Hollow glanced over his shoulder to Letty, who sat up slightly.
“Yes,” she said. “Still pretending to be a witchhunter. It’s hard to talk to her much, since Ryder keeps all of them busy, especially since the others… Well, the other witchhunters, they…”
Inhale. Exhale.
“I know,” Saffron whispered. “Where’s Nimue? Is she alright?”
“Yes,” Letty straightened up slightly more. “Yes, she’s fine. She spends most of her time in the bathtub in our shared flat. She isn’t able to walk around very easily because I haven’t been able to find any more seaweed to make a charm for her.”
Before Saffron could ask his next question, a tiny voice emerged from where Sionnach sat on the bed.
“Are you a witch as well, miss?” they asked. Letty turned to them with a smile.
“A little bit,” she said. “Nothing like Saffron, though. Well, human magic works a little differently here than in the fey world, so maybe I’m even better than him at it right now… What’s your name?”
“It’s… Sionnach.”
Inhale. Exhale. Saffron squeezed the pendant again. For the first time, the heat faded slightly, before swelling back. It told him what he hoped—that Cylvan truly was on the other end. The charm wasn’t just overheating from being on the wrong side of the veil.
The wrong side of the veil . Saffron’s stomach turned. Inhale, exhale. He gazed down at the pendant again, rubbing his thumb over where the crack in the middle was embedded deep within its purple heart.
“You haven’t lost me,” he whispered, pressing the smooth face of the pendant to his lips and speaking directly into it. Injecting as much strength into the words as he could, like when he used to flare the magic in his blood. “I’m right here. You haven’t lost me.”
Inhale, exhale. Except that time, his nostrils flared. His teeth clenched. A hot, bitter anger filled him, flooding the gaps in his veins where magic had once resided.
Saffron would learn to bend light. He would learn to bend shadow. Whatever he had to do, he would not let Cylvan walk alone in darkness without a hand to hold.
Ryder Kyteler thought stealing Saffron through the veil would leave him defenseless—but Saffron had spent his entire life defenseless, and it had never once made him weak. Ryder thought taking Saffron from Cylvan would break his spirit—never thinking it would only make Saffron more determined than ever, to take ownership of any and all obstacles that ever threatened his rightful place by Cylvan’s side. He was the first rowan witch in centuries. He was oathed to the veil. He was the future Harmonious King of Alfidel. But by stealing Saffron to the human side of the veil, Ryder had made his biggest mistake. By taking away everything Saffron had ever known—he suddenly had nothing to lose.
Ryder had made him desperate—which was a stupid thing to do.
I’m right here.
“Alright,” he said, exhaling the word with a tremble. He sought Letty once more, holding her gaze as the fire in his stomach ignited, sparking against blood he knew had to still harbor rowan magic, even if he couldn’t reach it. It didn’t matter. Rowan magic or not—the blood in his veins was still hot and alive. “You said human magic on this side works a little differently?”
Letty nodded. Saffron nodded back.
“Teach me.”