CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Smoke coiled through the air like a faded white ribbon.
It created a haze around the three of us, and the hidden pocket we’d created for ourselves in the trees.
Collith, Laurie, and I were tangled up in each other as if we had become part of the forest ourselves.
All of us were spent, even Laurie. He’d only moved enough to retrieve a box of cigarettes from his pants and light one.
As an afterthought, he’d grabbed the bottle of wine, as well.
Then Laurie had sunk back down, still naked, and none of us had stirred since. The bottle was nearly empty now.
“I wonder how many impromptu love confessions are happening right now. It might be awkward for them if we actually win,” Laurie remarked.
“Good thing the odds of survival are low, then,” I murmured, watching as he moved his cigarette in lazy, graceful flicks of his wrist. He was drawing shapes, I realized. Using the smoke above our heads like an artist would spread ink on paper. I watched the wispy clouds swirl and dissipate.
“What are your biggest regrets?” Laurie asked drowsily.
Collith sighed. “It’s late, Laurelis.”
Laurie made a slow, dismissive gesture. “There’s no need for love confessions here, since we all know how we feel about each other. So let us confess things that are far more interesting.”
A breath escaped me, my lips curved as I continued to stare upward. “What do you consider more interesting?”
“I told you,” Laurie replied. “Regret. My life is so lovely, you see, that sometimes I like to hurt myself just to keep things interesting.”
“You are a masochist. I knew it,” I whispered.
Collith’s shoulder shook against mine. “Fortuna, darling, are you drunk?”
“She shall face the devil with a hangover,” Laurie said airily, putting his lips around the cigarette again. “That’s how the French do it, as well, and we should all strive to be more like the French.”
Collith’s voice was dry. “I think perhaps you’re a little drunk as well, Laurelis.”
“What poppycock. I do not get drunk, Lord Sylvyre. Not anymore.”
I raised my eyebrows up at the tree canopy. “Is this the part where you finally confess how old you are, Laur—”
My words cut short abruptly.
Collith’s voice penetrated the haze of concentration around me. “Fortuna? Are you all right?”
I was frowning, my neck arched as I stared at the smoke above us. “Do that again,” I ordered.
Laurie’s brow lowered. “What—”
“The cigarette,” I said urgently, staring at the column of smoke still rising from that burnt tip. “Make that shape again.”
“Shape?” he echoed. Under normal circumstances, his baffled expression would’ve made me laugh.
I leaped up from the warm nest we’d made.
Laurie said something else, and Collith’s low murmur joined in, but they’d become background noise.
When I didn’t answer, Collith shifted in my peripheral vision, probably to follow me.
I heard Laurie heave a sigh. “Fortuna, normally I adore the dramatics, but now is not—hey!”
I’d yanked my shirt out from beneath him, since Laurie had been lying on it.
I ignored his protests and kept searching through our clothes, finding my pants next.
I pulled them on with shaking hands, my breathing uneven.
Collith and Laurie must’ve heard it, because they’d started dressing, too.
They moved in synchronous, graceful blurs, as if they had done this a thousand times.
By the time I started in the direction of the house, they were right behind me.
I hurried through the darkness and the trees, ducking beneath branches, picking my way over thick roots.
Collith and Laurie walked on either side of me and matched my pace.
I caught them exchanging confused glances, but I didn’t offer an explanation.
Not yet. I emerged from the woods and charged across the lawn, making a beeline for the barn door, which I pulled open so hard that it made a hard, echoing sound.
I heard Collith behind me as I rushed up the stairwell.
The moment I reached the loft, it was clear that everyone was asleep. All the lights were dimmed, the air still. But Lyari woke instantly from where she’d been resting on the couch, her face coming into view as she sat up. Her expression was alert. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing, Fortuna is just having a wee breakdown,” Laurie told her.
I hurried over to the table without speaking to either of them.
The drawing was exactly where I’d left it a few hours ago.
I stared down at it with fresh eyes, mentally kicking myself.
The ink was smeared. The fucking ink was smeared!
That was the only reason I hadn’t recognized it.
Something about watching the smoke dissipate had helped me see it.
I was barely aware of Collith, Laurie, and Lyari gathering around me.
“It’s …” I trailed off in disbelief, then lifted my head. Horror gripped my stomach like ragged fingernails.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Lyari demanded, her eyes flashing with impatience.
“Yes, what is happening?” Laurie put in. I still didn’t answer; I was thinking about Olorel and Michael again. Their final conversation replayed in my head for the thousandth time.
Your power will not be enough.
No, it will not.
Don’t do this, Olorel.
Michael’s reaction finally made sense. I remembered feeling his shock, his dread. Not only had the angel tried to show me how to close the Gate … he’d also given me a weapon.
I jabbed my finger against the symbol that had been infuriating us for so long. “These marks. I finally know what they mean.”
“What? How?” Lyari’s gaze dropped to the map, searching desperately for whatever I’d seen.
“It’s like we’re not even here,” Laurie muttered to Collith.
I ignored him and tapped the mystery symbol again.
My heart was beating so hard that I swore I could feel its unsteady rhythm through the rest of my body.
“I’ve seen this more than once in the texts we’re reading.
It’s a bloodline crest,” I told them. “The missing bloodline, which the fae just assumed went into hiding or were hunted to extinction. But Michael was there, and he saw what really happened. Olorel sacrificed them all to move the Door. To hide it from Lucifer and stop him from sending more demons through. Somehow Olorel was bonded to them, just like Collith with the Unseelie Court, Laurie with the Seelie Court, and me with my Shadow Court. He used that bond to drain them of their power, their energy, everything they had … along with his own.”
I leaned back, my gaze darting between them to see who would figure it out first. At last, Lyari’s eyes brightened.
She’d put the pieces together, too. Her excitement only heightened my own.
Now my heart was beating so hard it was almost painful.
It was so obvious. Michael had given me a blueprint and his memories, and it had still taken me this long to figure out.
I looked at Laurie. “Save that conversation about regrets for another night, because the odds just turned in our favor. We might actually pull this off. We might actually save the fucking world.”
“If it works,” Lyari reminded me, but her eyes were gleaming with excitement, too.
For the first time since we’d failed to save Thuridan, I felt it—hope. I was almost giddy with it. I glanced at the clock on the stove. “Come on. I don’t want to wait until morning.”
I whirled away and rushed over to the hooks on the wall. When I turned, Collith stood behind me. His expression was calm. “Where are we going?” he asked.
I smiled up at him, my mind flashing back to the beginning, when I had once asked him the same question. I remembered his answer. We had come full circle, somehow.
“The Unseelie Court,” I said.
Six hours later, Olorel dawned.
While the sun was still rising, its soft light turning all of Granby pink as cotton candy, I went to Adam’s shop to pick up my sword, which he’d kept overnight to sharpen.
The vampires must’ve woken from the sound of Emma’s brakes as I parked, because Adam came outside without a word, waited for me to get out, and then drove the car into the bay.
He started working on the brakes, and while I waited, I noticed Seth shuffling around in the office.
I’d intended just to get the sword and return home, but then Seth emerged and pressed a warm mug into my hands.
When I peeked inside the cup, I saw that he’d made coffee exactly the way I liked it—far too much cream, with just enough caffeine to do the job and wake me up.
Giving in, I sat down on the couch and took my first warm, overly sweet sip. My eyes drifted shut.
“Damn.” I sighed. “I’m going to miss this.”
None of the boys answered. I opened my eyes to look at them, and when I saw their grim expressions, I realized that I’d finally said what no one had acknowledged until now.
This could be our last cup of coffee. Our last morning.
Our last time being together. There was nothing I could say that would comfort them.
Nothing that wouldn’t be a lie, at least. My gaze fell, and I cupped the warm mug between my palms, trying not to worry about what was about to happen.
There would be plenty of time for that later.
I took another drink and savored it.
With a Denver morning show playing from the radio, the four of us hung out in the garage, just like we had so many times before.
There was nothing special about it, yet everything was special.
Them. This. I watched Gil tousle Seth’s mop of brown hair, and a hint of a smile ghost Adam’s lips as he listened to them talk about Formula One.
Eventually, when daylight poured through the windows and the stillness of morning was long past, I forced myself to leave the couch. There were others I needed to say my goodbyes to, and more preparations to make.
“See you tonight,” I said simply, nodding at Gil and then at Adam.
My old friend nodded back in his usual stoic way, his dark eyes unreadable as ever.
I didn’t feel the need to say anything else to him, because that had always been the beauty of Adam.
He didn’t want the words. He knew that I loved him, which was enough for both of us.
My gaze went to Seth next, and I gave him a small, soft smile. He wouldn’t be at the battle, so there was a possibility this was the last time we’d ever see each other. In this lifetime, at least.
“Seth,” I said with a soft, teasing smile, “I’m really glad you decided to stalk me. Life wouldn’t be the same around here without you.”
The goblin’s eyes flickered, but he gave a composed nod back. The simple gesture made my heart ache—he knew I hated it when people bowed. “It has been an honor being part of your Court, my lady,” Seth told me.
I turned away quickly, because I didn’t want his last memory of me to be tainted by the pain in my eyes.
After that, I stopped by the bar and had breakfast with Bea and Gretchen.
I’d already warned them about what was coming.
Despite the countless horrors and lives that had been already lost because of Lucifer, his war had brought one single, good thing into my life—Bea’s forgiveness.
Once we’d said our goodbyes, I chatted with some of our regulars, humans in Granby that I genuinely liked.
Many of them had been kind to me over the years, in spite of my oddities.
With yet another cup of coffee in my hand, I eventually left Bea’s, too. I got back in the car and drove home.
It was all the same, and yet it wasn’t. Usually people didn’t know when it was the last time they did something.
Yes, the knowing made it sweeter, I decided.
I listened to the same music I always did, and I drove on the same road I always took home, knowing every bump and crack along the way.
As the sun brightened, my eyes went to the rearview mirror, where the hilt of my sword glinted in the backseat.
Then I deliberately looked away and focused on the horizon, my grip tightening on the steering wheel.
The knowing made it sweeter, and it was a reminder of how much I had to protect.
In nine hours, everything could end. As long as I was leaving this world exactly as it was, every sacrifice would be worth it.
In nine hours, I’d go to meet the devil and his army.
I still didn’t know how to close the Gate or whether I could stop Lucifer, but I did know one thing—I wasn’t alone anymore.
As if the universe was sending me its silent agreement, a crow alighted across the road. Its small black shape cast a fleeting shadow, and I watched it soar into the blue beyond as if to say, I’m ready. Let’s go.
And so we went.