Goodbye.
I expected death to be cold. Instead the first thing I felt was warmth—incredible warmth that filled my body, or at least what was left of it, and spread through me like honey. Was this what Ava went through? Waking up warm? It seemed too easy.
And then the pain started. Overwhelming, agonizing pain in my chest and my side, exactly where Calliope had stabbed me. Gasping, I mentally kicked myself for thinking it’d be so simple. Ava hadn’t shown any signs of her head wound, after all, and my body had to heal before I could get up and walk around.
Whispers filled the air, and I couldn’t make them out. Other dead souls? Would my mother be there waiting for me already? Would I open my eyes and see grass and trees and sun, or was there more to it? I should’ve asked Henry when I’d had the chance.
It seemed like ages before I forced myself to look. At first the light burned, and I closed my eyes again, but when I took it slowly, they adjusted. This time my gasp had nothing to do with pain.
I was in my bedroom in the manor, surrounded by familiar faces. Ava and Ella, Sofia and Nicholas, even Walter was there, and they all looked worried. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw him. Henry.
My heart skipped a beat, but I was already too confused to wonder why it was still pumping in the first place. This wasn’t Central Park.
“Am I dead?” Or at least that’s what I’d meant to say. It came out more like a croak, and my throat was on fire—but what did it matter? Henry was there.
He grimaced, and a block of ice filled my stomach. I was dead, wasn’t I? He could barely even look at me. “No,” said Henry, staring down at my hands. He was holding mine. “You are alive.”
My heart managed to sink and soar at the same time. That meant it wasn’t over, that we could still do this, that I might still pass—
But then I remembered my mother’s last words, and I realized what she’d meant. It hadn’t been my time to go; it had been hers. Horror filled me, and I couldn’t help the rush of tears, too exhausted to hold them back. I struggled to sit up, but the pain in my chest was torture.
“Lie still,” said Walter sternly, putting a cup of warm liquid to my lips. I drank the sweet medicine, my eyes still streaming.
Everyone watched me, but I never looked away from Henry, too devastated to be embarrassed. “Henry?” I slurred as the medicine took effect. “Why…” I couldn’t get my question out. Fighting against the urge to close my eyes, I tried to wiggle my toes to keep myself awake, but even that hurt.
“Sleep,” he said. “I will be here when you awake.”
Having no choice, I let myself drift away, clinging to his words and the hope that he was telling the truth.
That night, I didn’t dream of my mother, and I knew I never would again. Nightmares filled the hours instead, images of water and knives and rivers of blood, and no matter how loudly I screamed, I couldn’t wake up. They were different from the ones before I’d moved to Eden Manor—those had been menacing somehow, a warning. These were memories.
After what felt like an eternity, I woke up. My eyes flew open, my body still aching and the tension in my muscles doing nothing to help it. I expected light, but for several seconds there was nothing but dark. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed Henry.
He’d pulled an armchair up next to the bed, and while the other three sides of the curtains were closed, there was enough space open on the fourth for me to see him. He was still holding my hand. “Good morning,” he said. There was a distance to his voice that I didn’t understand.
“Morning?” I mumbled, trying to move my head to look out the window, but the curtains were closed. Henry ran his hand over a candlestick on the nightstand, and the wick burst into flame. It wasn’t much light, but it was enough for me to see.
“Very early in the morning. It is still dark out.” He hesitated. “How are you?”
Good question. I considered it for a moment, surprised when I realized that the pain had lessened. But that wasn’t what he’d meant, and we both knew it. “She’s gone, isn’t she?”
“She asked to take your place, and I allowed it,” he said, his eyes trained on our joined hands. “It was the only way I could take you from the Underworld. A life for a life—even I cannot break the laws of the dead.”
His words hit me hard, and I licked my dry lips. “She gave up her life for me?”
“Yes,” he said, offering me a cup of water. I took it with shaking hands, spilling more than I got inside of me. Henry refilled it, and this time he held the cup to my lips for me. “You were dead, and I could not heal you. It was her last gift to you.”
I let out a soft sob as grief washed over me. She was gone, all because of my mistake. Because I’d let Calliope get too close. Because I’d trusted the wrong person. I felt like a piece of myself had disappeared, like I’d lost something vital I would never get back. I was empty and full of heartache at the same time, and everything felt wrong.
Several minutes passed before I could look at Henry again, let alone talk. When I did, my vision was blurred and my voice hoarse and forced. “What happened after the river?”
His grip on my hand tightened. “Ava was the one to find your body. She spent a very long time trying to save you, but despite her efforts, there was no hope.”
My throat closed. After all I’d done to her, Ava still tried to save me. “And Calliope?”
Henry’s expression hardened. “Nicholas apprehended her. She will be tried and punished for her actions, and I promise you that as long as I am in charge of hell, you will never have to see her again.”