Chapter Forty-Five
The hand that pulls me from eternity shimmers with starlight.
I gasp for breath, but my lungs are insatiable. The air is crisp and clear and tastes like cool, crystal waters.
I stand in the conservatory at Bludgrave Manor, encircled by mystiks, looking up at a sky that does not belong to me. The night undulates, glittering with stars I’ve never seen, constellations I’ve never known.
“. . . sure it was wise to bring her here?” comes a voice that sounds at once foreign and familiar.
My head is light, my body buzzing, as I focus on the figures surrounding me, their skin glowing silver from within, gold dust glittering in the air all around them. Recognition floods through me like a wave.
It’s as if the constellations have come alive, standing before me now in their true forms. Paul and his ten sparrows, the birds flitting about his head, lighting on his shoulders.
His smile crinkles his eyes, and he gives a small wave.
Astrid, a crown of seven candles atop her head, dips her chin to me.
Ugo the Dragon, his scales sparkling, looks at me with knowing eyes.
A man wearing a feathered tricorn tips his hat, twirling a ring of ten Relics with his other hand. The legends of my people. The Stars.
And standing by my side, his hand clasped tightly in mine…
“Owen?”
My brother flashes a carefree grin, his kind eyes glittering with silver light. “Took you long enough, little mouse.”
I can’t seem to remember how to cry. There’s some part of me that knows what this means. But happiness overwhelms me, warm and effervescent, and nothing else matters except that he’s here.
I look around at the conservatory once more. It feels different, somehow, but I don’t know why.
“Where are we?”
Owen’s eyes twinkle with mischief. “This was Hildegarde’s home, once,” he tells me, his voice strong and smooth.
His posture seems lighter, his movements fluid, as if whatever weight he once carried has been lifted from his shoulders.
He no longer looks haunted; his face is bright, laughter playing on his lips.
“Hildegarde lived at Bludgrave Manor?” My own words drip past me, my mouth numb, voice slurred as if I were falling into a deep sleep.
Owen shakes his head slightly, his expression patient. “She lived in this valley long before Bludgrave was built.”
I blink, trying to focus on my surroundings, but darkness edges my vision.
“I wish we had more time,” Owen says, his voice suddenly urgent, “but if you stay here any longer, you won’t be able to leave.”
Panic stirs in my chest, the sensation unfamiliar and dull, like a bell without a chime. There’s something I need to remember. Something I have to do.
Someone is waiting for me.
“I don’t want to leave,” I say, trying to squeeze his hand, but my grip is weak, my strength fading.
Owen draws me into his arms. “It’s not time yet.” He pulls back, taking my hand once more.
“We’re supposed to stick together,” I say, and it’s as if the words wake something within me. Margaret. Charlie. Lewis. Albert. “Elsie? Is Elsie here with you?”
Relief flickers in Owen’s eyes. “Good,” he says, ignoring my question altogether. And then, to someone else, he says, “She’s starting to remember. We should hurry.”
Owen’s fingers slip from mine as a woman steps toward me, her form taking shape from the gold dust. She has my Father’s eyes—Owen’s eyes.
“Orella?” I mumble, but no—it’s not her. I know this woman. We’ve met before.
Hildegarde smiles, and when she speaks, I hear the voice of the sea. “Are you ready?”
The air pulses, the sky spinning overhead, starlight streaking the night in dizzying whorls of liquid silver. I take another breath, expecting to inhale the crisp air, but a sharp pain stitches across my rib cage, knocking the wind from my lungs.
I cry out, “What if I want to stay?”
Hildegarde bows her head, and there is no judgment in her eyes when she says, “Then that is your choice.”
The weight of my bones seems too heavy a burden to bear. “I never asked to lead,” I say, my teeth gritted against the ache in my chest.
Her lips curve in a wistful smile. “Neither did I. For so long, I didn’t speak up—didn’t act—because I felt there was someone better suited than me.
But there came a time when I could no longer stay silent.
Even then, I made so many mistakes,” she tells me.
“The power to choose is perhaps the only true power we have.”
A memory strikes me, swifter than any blade. We don’t get to control what happens to us, but we get to decide what we do with it.
Henry.
“What if I make the wrong choice?” I ask, and my voice sounds faraway now, like the distant crash of waves lapping at the shore.
“You very well may,” she says. “But you must choose. And choose again. So long as your heart beats, you can always make a different choice. There is still time to chase another star.”
Hildegarde holds out her hand. There, nestled in her starlit palm, is a gilded skeletal key.
The final Relic.
“Choose.”
The ground trembles underfoot. Every choice I have made has led me here—to this place, to this moment. I could stay—I could be with Owen for eternity. I could be safe. Free. No more war. No more suffering. No more pain. I could lay down my grief now and forevermore.
“It hurts,” I tell her, and the words catch in my throat.
“It always does,” she says, touching my cheek, her fingertips as cool and soft as silk. “That’s how you know it’s real.”
Real.
My heart leaps. Titus.
I’m not ready to let go of his hand. I’m not ready to leave my siblings behind. I’m not ready to give up.
I am Aster Oberon. Daughter. Sister. Friend.
I am not afraid, and I will never surrender.
“I’m ready,” I say, and both the flowers and the Stars bow as the world spins faster, my vision fading, the lights twinkling out one by one.
My hand closes around the final Relic of Night, and the darkness swallows me whole.