Chapter Fifty-Five
CHAPTER
Fifty-Five
CASSANDRA IS IN the river. Or what’s left of it. A silty trickle, then a single droplet, then just the ghost of damp, drying on her skin. Possibility, closing its fist.
Lady Fate stands before her, wispy and insubstantial, a dream of a memory of a god. And even that is vanishing. Carefully, she kneels at Cassandra’s side, her movement trailing faint sparks of light behind her. She mouths something, then again with a sad weariness: on your feet, Cassandra.
Some gossamer-thin thread snaps within her.
Cassandra wakes up.
Her first breath is accompanied by a gritty taste. Sand.
The river has spat her back out like stones onto a beach.
A real beach. And with real sky above her, grey and laden with clouds.
She knows it’s real because it’s cold. Because the rain spattering her face is unpleasant, and the bitter wind is rifling through her clothes like she owes it money, and everything hurts.
Because she feels, again.
Cassandra Fairfax, book thief, liar, owner, with all of the choices laid firmly behind her, irremovable keystones in a bridge. She presses her fingers into the purpling bruises on her arm and is relieved at the low throb of pain. What doesn’t taste like sand tastes like blood.
But there is something—a deeper wound—
Somewhere behind her, on the bank, is the sound of a car idling.
Then footsteps, rushing towards her. She tries to get up, but her body refuses to budge, weighed down by its reality.
Everything feels so heavy. Her eyes close again, and someone slaps her.
But even that pain feels dull, compared to the ringing in her head.
Her eyes slip close again. Her thoughts aren’t coming together. There’s something she’s missing—
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” a familiar voice swears.
Another slap. Harder. This time, the pain comes through in sharp clarity.
“I’m so sorry—Jesus Christ, that hurt—you have to wake up. You can’t fall asleep.” Byron’s voice, loud and worried. “Did you hit your head?”
“You came,” Cassandra whispers.
“Of course I came,” she says fiercely. “I’m your bookseller, remember?”
“Wait, wait…”
Byron is shaking her, trying to tell her something, but the world is still too loud, too old and new at once.
Cassandra’s mind is starting to pull together the events of the last few hours, or days—she’s no longer sure of time where the river’s concerned.
Where the river was concerned. She opens her fist to a crinkled page, scorched at the edges.
A yawning terror opens up within her. She tries to climb to her feet, but she stumbles, almost colliding into Byron. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except—
“Lowell,” she says hoarsely. “Where’s Lowell?”
Byron stops shaking her.
A terrible, terrible silence.
“Oh, Cassandra,” she says, and bursts into tears.
Lowell’s name echoes on the beach, but there’s no one else visible. Not even a body to claim. He has read them all a new future—one that no longer includes him.
The river gives, and it takes.
It takes. It takes. It takes.