EREBUS
The Blackthorn Chamber of Commerce smells of citrus furniture polish and three kinds of fear.
Its architecture is a hurried hybrid of old mill town and prefabricated American Gothic, with brick walls, narrow windows, and the lingering memory of rotary phones.
The shutters have been drawn against what should be afternoon, although the humans no longer seem to trust the distinction between what is outside the glass and what is inside it.
The entire room is a theater for complaints, but I have not been assigned a role.
I stand in the aisle while the residents of Blackthorn Bay fill rows of folding chairs around me.
Some stare openly. Others make a deliberate effort not to.
I have spent centuries as a certainty, a background condition, the negative space in every painting.
Now I am a problem to be debated beneath fluorescent emergency lighting.
This is not how I hoped my evening would pass.
Calliope sits in the front row.
She has not looked at me since we arrived.
Her hands are clasped tightly in her lap, and I would, if allowed by decorum, kneel beside her and rest my head there. I would allow her to throttle me if it softened the line of her mouth.
Zadok Infernalis, Blackthorn’s demon mayor, clears his throat into a microphone. The resulting sound resembles a strangled foghorn, and half the audience flinches.
“Thank you all for coming,” he says with the solemnity of a man eulogizing his own retirement party. “As you are aware, we are gathered to address the matter of...eternal night.”
A murmur rolls through the room.
It has been less than a day since I refused Dawn, yet the effects are already noticeable.
Shift schedules have collapsed. Schools have closed.
Humans are tired at inappropriate hours, while nocturnal creatures have become distressingly energetic.
Several businesses have altered their hours, although Blackthorn Fish & Fry has apparently declared itself immune to celestial events.
Zadok looks directly at me.
“Would the entity responsible for the cessation of dawn care to state his case?”
All faces turn.
“The cessation was not malicious,” I say. “Dawn will return when it is appropriate.”
A familiar voice comes from the front row.
“How,” Petra asks, “are you determining appropriate?”
She is seated beside Calliope with a rolled yoga mat wedged between her stone knees. She has apparently brought it to the emergency meeting either because she came directly from class or because she intends to use it as a weapon.
“When the sequence is complete,” I say. “When I no longer wish to preserve this night.”
Petra’s lips flatten.
“And when exactly will that be?”
I look toward Calliope.
She looks away.
“I have never wanted anything before,” I admit. “I have no precedent for how long wanting lasts.”
Petra groans.
“Fantastic. Sunrise is being held hostage by a man having his first crush.”
“It is more complicated than that.”
“I sincerely doubt it.”
Cassian Wolfridge, Blackthorn’s police chief, raises one hand from his place beside Zadok. He has a folder open in front of him and the exhausted expression of a man who would prefer almost any emergency to one involving celestial forces.
“Law enforcement has observed a measurable increase in shenanigans since the cessation.”
Zadok turns toward him. “Shenanigans?”
“Tomfoolery. Hijinks. Some vandalism, mostly of a creative nature.” Cassian consults his notes. “The statue of Clara Bartleby was removed from the library courtyard and placed on the roof of the SuperMax. When questioned, the perpetrators cited the unbreaking spell of the Wild Night.”
He looks at me.
“Care to comment?”
“The absence of dawn can produce certain liberatory effects.”
Cassian stares at me.
“That was not as reassuring as you think it was.”
A man seated near the aisle raises a glass filled with something red.
Alaric Grimhaven is the only person in the room who appears delighted by recent events.
“I, for one, applaud our esteemed darkness for finally taking a stand. After centuries of enduring the tyranny of morning people and their wretched smoothies, at last we may appreciate the subtle pleasures of unbroken night.”
Petra turns around.
“Nobody asked Dracula.”
“I am not Dracula.”
“Nobody asked you, either.”
Alaric smiles and takes a leisurely sip.
Zadok presses two fingers to his temple.
“Our immediate concern is not smoothies. It is the balance between day and night. Erebus, if that balance is not restored, what happens?”
“It will eventually unravel.”
The room becomes silent.
Cassian lowers his pen. “Unravel?”
Alaric brightens. “Cataclysm already?”
“Not immediately,” I clarify. “The pattern wavers before it breaks. There is time.”
“How much time?” Zadok asks.
“I do not know.”
The resulting uproar suggests this was not the preferred answer.
Zadok bangs the gavel several times until the room settles.
“With respect,” he says, “what exactly are you hoping to accomplish?”
I look at Calliope again.
This time she looks back.
“I have surrendered every night I have ever held,” I say. “Every beautiful thing I have watched beneath it has eventually been given over to morning because that is the order of things. I have never questioned it.”
Her expression softens, but only slightly.
“Until now?” Zadok asks.
“Until her.”
The room grows very quiet.
Calliope closes her eyes.
I continue because stopping now would somehow be worse.
“She is the first thing I have ever wanted to remain.”
Somewhere behind me, someone sighs.
Alaric whispers, “Magnificent.”
Petra elbows him.
Zadok looks as though he has developed a headache.
“With respect, longing is not an adequate rationale for upending the cosmos.”
“I defer to your experience.”
Alaric laughs.
No one else does.
Cassian closes his folder. “Then let me ask the practical question. What can we do to convince you to restore normalcy?”
Nothing, I think.
But then I look at Calliope.
Her shoulders are tense, and the unhappiness on her face is more difficult to endure than every complaint I have heard tonight.
“You wish Dawn restored,” I say.
“Yes,” Petra answers immediately.
Cassian nods. “Very much.”
Alaric lifts one shoulder. “I recognize that I am in the minority.”
Then Calliope speaks.
“Yes.”
One word.
It cuts through me more efficiently than any weapon ever made.
I look at her. “Calliope.”
“Please.”
The room disappears around her.
I know what she is asking. I know what I promised her before I broke that promise, and I know that everything I have done since has moved me farther from the thing I intended to preserve.
Still, I cannot surrender it.
“No.”
Calliope’s face changes.
Zadok blinks. “No?”
“I will not restore Dawn.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is the only thing I have ever wanted.”
The words sound inadequate the moment I say them.
Alaric leans toward Cassian. “He’s in love with a mortal.”
“We gathered that,” Cassian mutters.
Petra sighs.
“It would be sweet if we weren’t all facing existential peril.”
Zadok calls for order again, but Calliope is already standing.
She does not look at me as she walks toward the doors.
I follow.
Outside, Blackthorn Bay is still caught beneath my sky.
Streetlights glow against the dark, although it should be late afternoon. The crowd around City Hall has spilled into the street, and somewhere down the block a child is waving a glow stick while his mother argues with someone about whether bedtime still exists.
Calliope walks quickly.
“Calliope.”
She keeps going.
I catch up near the corner.
“Please.”
That makes her stop.
She turns toward me.
“You keep saying you’re doing this because you don’t want to lose me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m right here.”
“For now.”
Her expression crumples for only a second before irritation replaces it.
“That’s how people work, Erebus. We leave. We sleep. We go to work. Sometimes we get pissed off and walk away, and then we come back.”
“Sometimes you do not.”
The words escape before I can soften them.
She goes quiet.
“You will die,” I say.
“I know.”
“I will not.”
“I know that, too.”
“How can you expect me to accept it?”
“Because you don’t get another choice.”
Her voice is gentle now, which is considerably worse than anger.
I look away.
For the first time since I met her, I wish I were capable of lying to myself.
Calliope steps closer.
“You think if you can keep this night going, nothing has to change. But that's not how this works. You can’t freeze the whole world at the exact moment you’re happiest because you’re afraid the next one might hurt.”
“I have watched everything end.”
“And I’m sorry.”
“You cannot understand.”
“No, I probably can’t.” She takes my hand, and the simple warmth of it nearly undoeses me. “But you don’t have to understand mortality to love somebody who’s mortal.”
I close my fingers around hers.
“I do love you.”
Her breath catches.
I did not plan to say it.
Perhaps humans are correct about the inconvenience of declarations.
Calliope looks up at me, and for a moment the anger disappears completely.
“I love you, too.”
The words should satisfy me.
Instead, terror moves through me.
Now I have something to lose, and she has given it a name.
Calliope reaches up and touches my face.
“If you love me, you have to let morning come.”
I cannot answer.
Slowly, her hand falls.
That hurts more than if she had struck me.
“Calliope—”
“I’m not asking you to stop loving me. I’m asking you to trust me enough to let the next day happen.”
She waits.
I wish I could give her what she wants.
I wish wanting her had not transformed the oldest duty in existence into an act of surrender.
When I remain silent, Calliope nods as though I have answered anyway.
Then she walks away.
I do not follow this time.
I stand beneath the night I created for her and watch her disappear down Kingfisher Street until even I can no longer distinguish her from the crowd.
For the first time, the darkness does not feel like a gift.
It feels like something I have taken.