Epilogue
Amaya sat on her knees in front of her parents’ graves in the far reaches of the Goldridge gardens. Tears dripped onto her black skirt as she tore at the grass. She twisted Sixth Sense with her other hand, unfolding the gold ring into astronomical spheres.
She kept it in her mother’s locket now.
Her ring finger wasn’t exactly an option anymore.
Daisy lay beside her, her head resting on Amaya’s knee.
She’d made it home in time to spend three days with her father. She was there when he died and felt his hand going cold in hers. As far as Amaya was concerned, he should have taken her with him.
Two months ago, Amaya would have claimed she knew what loneliness was. She realized now she’d never had a clue. The weight of her isolation was crushing, and the guilt was ravenous. It devoured her from the inside out.
Her best friend was gone—her fault.
Her father’s heart attack might as well have been her fault.
And, of course, Will.
She’d given Wayfinder to Sebastian before boarding the Empyrean in hopes the compass would help recover Will’s body, only to discover the second compass sitting abandoned on his desk. She’d tried to offer Sixth Sense as well, but Sebastian had pressed it back into her hand.
“He’d want you to keep it.”
Amaya tried not to think about Will’s death, constantly fighting her own mind to keep the grisly images at bay. She wanted to remember him standing at the Maelstrom’s bow, gilded by the sunset glow, full of beautiful promises and secret, sacred smiles that were just for her.
Not falling to his death.
Not broken on the ground miles away from his home and his family, lifeless and cold and alone.
Not like her.
The world was changing quickly. The dissipation of the Aether Storm was the resuscitation the sky cities needed to revive their industry, and Sorrento was abuzz with the promise of new, more powerful relics whose powers never faded.
And after the destruction of the Skyvault, Amaya was in sole possession of Ronan Pearce’s research. In recovering her mother’s locket from Corsair, she’d reclaimed the only key.
The texts in the Starcrest Peak library were richer than all the knowledge that had been lost during the Relic War combined. Pearce’s Class Four formula would be devastating in the wrong hands . . . and there was no telling what other secrets hid within the dusty pages.
That was why she was here—why she had to stay. Someone had to safeguard the library and get the information back to Edmund at the Institute in Vaelstead without being noticed.
It was the best thing she could do to help. At present, it felt like the only thing.
“Amaya.”
Victor’s voice broke through her thoughts. Daisy growled softly as Amaya quickly tucked Sixth Sense into her necklace, snapping it shut. She swatted a fistful of grass at him.
“What do you want?” Her own voice rang hollow in her ears.
She hadn’t planned on staying with Victor; she’d tried to make him see reason. After her father’s death, she’d even tried to pay him off with the vast fortune she’d inherited.
But he wanted the estate. The connections. The control.
He’d threatened her: if Amaya slighted him again or broke their engagement, Victor would not stay silent about her illegal escapades and forbidden allegiances.
Amaya would trade her family home for the Coil, and that wasn’t a blow she could withstand—or afford, if she was serious about the library. And she was.
So the engagement stood, balanced on the edge of a knife.
Victor had moved into Goldridge immediately, eager to start his new life among the upper crust. Amaya didn’t have the strength to banish him. And what was the point?
“A letter arrived for you,” Victor said, paper rustling in his hands.
“Did you read it?” Amaya asked bitterly, not looking at him.
“Of course not.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“The seal is unbroken. It’s probably just another sympathy card.”
Sniffing, Amaya dried her eyes with her sleeve and turned around, taking the letter from him. The only inscription apart from her name was the name of the sender, written in a clumsy, unpracticed hand: Phineus Moss.
She stifled a gasp. It was the most innocuous name of any Maelstrom crew member, untraceable because no one used it, but it was one she recognized instantly. Amaya’s pulse, which had been so dull and heavy over the past several weeks, quickened.
“You don’t need to watch me read it,” she said, sensing Victor’s eyes still on her. She rested the letter on her lap and stroked Daisy’s fur so her hands didn’t shake.
“I thought you might like some company—”
“Did I ask for your company?”
Amaya heard Victor’s sharp intake of breath, but if she had offended him, she didn’t care. He knew exactly where she stood, and she was done putting on shows to stroke his ego.
“Fine,” Victor said. “We’re having company for dinner. Fix your attitude before then, will you?”
“Or what?”
“I’ll replace that pirate’s mark with my own.”
Amaya instinctively reached for her neck, where the mark left by one of Will’s kisses had nearly faded. She suppressed a shudder, not wanting to know what Victor had in mind.
It took everything she had not to rise up and re-break his nose.
Once Victor’s footsteps were out of earshot, Amaya ran her thumb underneath the envelope flap to open it. But the letter wasn’t from Mouse.
It wasn’t much of a letter at all.
There was a single sheet of paper inside with a solitary, earth-shattering sentence written upon it.
The world blurred as Amaya read it over, and over, and over.