Epilogue
One year later
“On the house,” Cleo tells Helen, signaling to the bartender as she does so. “My brother tells me you did him a good turn, and while normally I don’t listen to a word he says, I like the look of you.”
Helen grins. “I’ll never turn down a free drink.”
“My kind of woman,” Cleo says with a wink. “I’ll be back—don’t let Adrian and Grandpa bore you to death in the meantime.”
Helen watches her as she bustles away. “Why did she call you Grandpa, Sterling?”
“Because she thinks I talk like an old man.”
“Well…” Helen considers. “She isn’t wrong.”
She sits at a small table with Adrian and me in the speakeasy portion of Cleo’s Clam House. This is her first visit to New York, but we’ve kept up a regular correspondence.
Tonight she wears a mint green dress with matching beads, her hair tucked beneath a brimless cloche hat, and I catch a few of the women around us giving her appreciative looks.
“How’s the arm?” Adrian asks as our drinks arrive. Helen ordered a martini, but after the night in the cave with the bootleggers and the drugged drink, Adrian and I have permanently sworn off alcohol.
Fortunately, every person dosed with the Chrysalis recovered in the months following, to the relief of the overburdened asylums and hospitals, with the possible exception of Dr. North at Danvers.
Adrian hadn’t quite trusted him to let his patients go, and made some discreet inquiries to ensure they were released.
Most of the cult’s victims returned to their lives, but the surviving Timekeepers, including Vince Vitali and his men, ended up in jail.
According to the newspapers, the police arrived to find the aftermath of what they assumed was a violent confrontation between bootlegging gangs.
Even though Widdershins seemed to largely ignore Prohibition, the deaths—including that of wealthy entrepreneur Zebulon Hart—were apparently a bridge too far.
Helen flexes her fingers. “Much better. I can knit again, thank the dark gods, and I’m back to my investigations.”
I take a sip from my ginger ale. “And Mary?”
She grimaces. “Still trying to resurrect her god, or so I’ve heard. I haven’t seen her since that night on the beach, which is probably for the best. We never were any good for each other.”
“You deserve someone who isn’t trying to create an egregore,” I tell her. “Do you need any help from us?”
“No, but I’ll let you know if that changes.” Helen shakes herself, as if flinging off the thought of Mary like a dog flinging water from its coat. Lifting her martini, she says, “To our one-year anniversary of saving the world.”
“And to those we lost along the way,” I add, and we all clink glasses.
We linger at Cleo’s a while longer, indulging in her famous clams to go along with our drinks. The speakeasy has become a mainstay for Adrian and me, though we also frequent clubs closer to home in Greenwich Village.
A short time after returning, Adrian moved into my apartment. He still works long hours for the insurance company, but we make sure to find time to attend the neighborhood drag balls whenever they’re held.
As for me, there was no regaining Forgotten Folios, considering my share was sold well before James’s death.
After everything, I couldn’t imagine returning to the rare book business anyway.
Fortunately, a position opened at the New York Public Library, and I now work in acquisitions.
It’s a good job, but every time a book concerning Renaissance Italy crosses my desk, I feel a pang of mingled pride and grief.
I’ve tried to find out more about Bianca’s later years, after her return from captivity.
As Anna Lovejoy told us in Salem, she’d been marked a madwoman and sent back to her father’s house in disgrace.
With Adrian and Helen’s help, I hired a translator whom Lovejoy agreed to allow in to look at the Lettere Segrete.
What we’ve discovered isn’t entirely bleak.
She strove to warn humanity—to warn me—through her paintings and letters, which did nothing to dispel the accusations of madness.
But once he grew to manhood, her son took over her care.
She moved to one of his estates in the countryside, and there she faded from the sight of history.
I hope her final years were ones of quiet happiness. I hope she found peace.
Eventually, the three of us take our leave of Cleo. A late taxi ferries us back to the apartment, where we’ve offered Helen the bed for the night. We sit up talking late into the evening, until Helen finally lets out a jaw-cracking yawn.
“As much as I’ve enjoyed seeing you again, let alone chatting in less life-threatening circumstances, I’m exhausted from travel.” She rises to her feet. “So let me bid you two goodnight.”
We each give her a hug before she retreats to the bedroom. I find myself too restless to sleep, though, and a glance at Adrian tells me he feels the same.
“Do you want to go out onto the fire escape?” he asks, tilting his head to the window.
I smile at him. “You read my mind.”
We pull on our coats against the October chill, then step out onto the fire escape. Adrian drapes his arm over my shoulders and I snuggle tight against him. All around us spreads the light of the city—a human city still.
I can somewhat imagine what it would look like if the Swarm had colonized us.
They’d never truly understand what they were erasing, nor really wish to do so.
Some of the lights would have burned out already, never to be replaced.
There would be no one playing the violin from some nearby apartment, silver strands of music weaving through the murmur of the neighborhood.
Buildings would be inexpertly patched as they slowly crumbled.
One thing I learned from seeing the memories of the Swarm contained in the orb: the world is so much older than I ever realized, and humanity so much smaller. Someday our time on the stage will end, the curtain fall over our species. This city will become dust along with our bones.
But not yet. Not tonight.
Tonight I’m alive and in my right body, feeling the invigorating kiss of the fall air on my skin. I’m with the man I love, in the apartment that’s become our home. Our life together stretches out before us, and in this moment, it feels as though we have all the time in the world.