Chapter 20
London is here.
He blinks those aloe green eyes, staring at me, head tilted curiously.
The only thing my shuddering lips can say is “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, London.”
His weird smile slips into a disappointed frown.
I’m frozen on the ground. My wet eyes blink over and over. As if this might be an illusion. A dream that I’ll wake from at any moment and he’ll be gone again. Ripped from my life before I get to say goodbye.
But it’s not.
London kneels in front of me. He’s haloed in a pale white shimmer. The same Hasan and Yuri and Bernice were blanketed in.
“How?” I croak.
His nose scrunches, thinking. It’s absurd how much I’ve missed that one little gesture.
“I’m not completely sure,” he says. “A boy with dimples and really pretty hair brought me here.”
A piece clicks into place. It was Henri. He found London.
Look for what you need the most and it will be there.
My mouth slides into a wobbly, tear-soaked smile.
Tentatively, London reaches for my forearm. His hand doesn’t pass through me like it did in that memory Poppy showed me. This time, his palm rests coolly against my skin.
A sob racks my throat. “I’m so sor—”
“Don’t!”
I flinch at the intensity in his voice. His face crumples the way it did whenever he was fighting with himself about something. “August, please don’t say that again.”
“But what happened to you is my fault.”
He sighs. “It wasn’t. You do this all the time. If something’s wrong in the world, it’s because, somehow, you’re the problem. You let everyone in your life tell you how to feel and who to be.” Regret sits heavy in the corners of his eyes. “Including me.”
I blink away more tears, shocked.
London rubs my forearm. “I’ve had a lot of time to think here.”
My mind races to one thing: He still has his memories. He hasn’t sipped from Lethe. Which means he hasn’t been judged by Milos yet.
“I loved you, August,” London goes on. “You were my first boyfriend. My first everything. And I wanted so much for myself and you.”
“I did too.”
He smiles sadly. “Let me finish.” When I nod, he adds, “If that accident never happened, you wouldn’t have been my last boyfriend. Just like I shouldn’t be yours.”
I can’t stop my face from falling.
Briskly, he says, “No. It’s okay. You know it’s true.”
To my surprise, I don’t disagree. I want to. Everything inside my knotted cold belly does. But I know he’s right.
Since I was fifteen and London raced up the clock tower’s stairwell wearing that UCSB hoodie, I wanted to see what was next. For him. All his plans. His dreams. Becoming that version of himself he constantly talked about.
And I wanted to be there. Right by his side. I didn’t care how. As his boyfriend. His friend. I just wanted to see it.
I wanted to see…us.
That was my plan. The only thing I cared about. Then the accident happened and I never got the chance. He never got it.
That’s what hurts the most. What keeps me drowning beneath the surface. All the unanswered what-ifs.
Our love, our story together never got a the end. We never got a true goodbye.
How do you just move on from that?
How do you let go of someone when you were never given the choice to?
London squeezes my arm. “We wanted different things. I tried to make you fit into all my big dreams. Even when I could tell they weren’t what you wanted.” He grimaces. “But you never challenged me either, August. You always let me have my way.”
“I wanted to make you happy.”
I’ve never said that aloud. I barely admitted it to myself. When we were together, I didn’t complain. Or fight for my way. I went along with everything.
Because I loved him.
Because he was the first boy to love me. To hold my hand and kiss me. To touch me like he wanted me, wholly.
That kind of love was all I’d ever known. It was enough. At least I thought it was.
Until I let Cary in.
London brushes my cheek. The coolness makes me shiver.
“I know why you did it, August,” he tells me. “But that’s not how relationships work. How love works. And it’s not how I want you to live your life.”
A frustrated breath slides past my lips. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to live my life.”
Without you is so close to my tongue, I taste the sad honesty in it.
“Yes, you do. You’re just scared everyone else won’t approve.”
I mock-scowl at him. “Are you calling me a people pleaser?”
“Fuck yeah.”
He laughs. It’s not as warm as I remember, but it’s still nice.
I watch him for a long moment. “You told Cary to look after me.”
“I was so scared when I realized it wasn’t just a bad dream.” Fondness fills his eyes. “But he took my hand. Told me his name. He calmed me down.”
I remember the smile Cary gave Hasan. How he played with Yuri’s stuffed bunny. The genuine amusement on his face while listening to Bernice’s stories.
I fit all these pieces of the Cary I know now together. Not just the ferrier. Cary the giver. The boy who smirks and remembers all the little details and listens. Who looks after souls before himself.
Who looks after me, even when I’m difficult.
“You know, the internet never mentions how nice Death is,” London jokes. “And kind of hot.”
A blush rushes my cheeks. “He’s not Death.”
London quirks an eyebrow in that but you agree he’s hot? way. I don’t comment.
“That night, I needed you to be okay,” he admits. “I knew you’d blame yourself for the accident. That you’d feel guilty.”
“I did,” I whisper. “I do. All the time.”
“No way,” he says in mock-surprise, then flashes me that weird smile.
I kick his foot, grinning back.
He goes quiet, considering. His nose wrinkles again. “I didn’t think Cary would go back for you.”
I smile to myself. “He doesn’t make bargains. He also doesn’t break promises.”
Behind London’s stare is something I can’t quite make out. At least, not at first. He knows what I feel for Cary. He can see it but is choosing not to comment. I’m grateful.
Softly, I say, “Sometimes, I—” My chest pinches. But I need to tell him. I’ve waited too long for this moment. “I think it should have been me. That night.”
London studies me, the corners of his mouth drooping. I keep going.
“You had everything planned. Your whole future. And I didn’t. I still don’t. You deserve to be there.” I point up. “And I’m really sorry you’re not.”
London sighs, shaking his head. He touches my cheek again. “Time to stop blaming yourself, Auggie,” he insists.
“Easier said than done.”
His fingers wrap around my wrist. Where his bracelet used to be. “I know. But you can do it. You’re incredible and talented and I was so lucky to have you while I did, so…you have to carry on. You need to live your life. You deserve it.”
I lift a teasing eyebrow even while another tear slides over my lips. “Is this where I finally disagree with you instead of letting you get your way again?”
“No. I mean, yes.” He laughs. “Don’t do this for me. Or anyone else. Do this for August Clarke. The boy I’ll always love.”
My heart squeezes too tightly. “I’ll always love you too, London.”
“I know.” He stands. “Now love yourself. And let others love you too.”
Inhaling raggedly, I say the other thing I’ve needed to tell him for too long: “Goodbye, London.”
His face brightens. A jeweled sun in my darkest moment.
“Goodbye, August.”
Then he backs away. Toward the mirror. The glass takes him like a wave swallowing a sandcastle.
And I’m alone again. On the floor of a labyrinth I still don’t know how to escape. But the emptiness I’ve carried in my chest for two years slowly begins to fill.
A wound finally beginning to heal.
I stay there for minutes. Maybe longer. I will myself to do what London asked me to: Carry on. I need to get to my feet. Run.
The voices are getting closer again.
“August.”
I hear them. Like they’re right above me. Floating down from the thick roof of leaves overhead. Their footsteps echo. Dread pools in my gut when I realize I’m too late.
Whatever souls that have been following me are already here.
When I look up, it’s not the gray-faced man from before. The bloodstained woman who Milos banished with a flick of his wrist.
It’s Cary, hair falling around his face. Dark eyes shadowed. His mouth pulled into a stubborn pout.
He reaches a hand down to me. “Come on. This is not your end.”
After helping me to my feet, Cary starts determinedly down a passageway. He barely glances over his shoulder to make sure I’m behind him.
I am. Open-mouthed, confused. Ignoring the burn in my thighs as I try to keep up with his long strides.
“How are you in the labyrinth?”
“My brother cannot resist a bargain,” he says, eyes forward.
“You made a deal? You never make deals!”
“This was an exception.”
“This or”—I swallow—“me?”
He doesn’t answer. That little flex in his jaw does. My stomach tangles in a knot of shock and relief.
Cary came to find me.
But this is Milos. Nothing with him is ever simple. We turn down a corridor, and I ask, “What did you bargain?”
At a fork, Cary examines the options. He lands on going right. “I gave up…something,” he replies through clenched teeth.
“What?”
“It does not matter.” The way he says it…Cary gave up something valuable, important. Just to save me.
I hide my smile from him.
Down the passage is a mirror against one wall. Its gilded thorns wink in the light. Cary exhales loudly, striding past it.
I jog after him. “Do you know where you’re going?”
“No.”
“Shouldn’t you ask me, then? Being that I’ve been trapped in here since—I don’t know—the dinosaurs were alive?”
Cary spins on his heel, glaring. “And how far did you get?”
I jut my chin, defiant. “Obviously farther than you’re getting us.”
“You were sitting in that very spot”—he points back the way we came—“when I found you. At the labyrinth’s beginning.”
“After being in this spot”—I stomp a foot—“multiple times.”
His scowl deepens.
I let out a long-suffering sigh. “I’ve tried this path. It doesn’t go anywhere.” I look around. “Is there even a way out of here?”
“Of course there is,” Cary says confidently. “My brother is cruel, manipulative. But he also sees no fun in watching anyone instantly fail. He wants someone to rise to his challenges. Fight back.”