Count on it, Archangel.
Ashwini walked into Banli House to be told that Tanu and Arvi were in the winter-and-night-cloaked gardens. Stepping outside, Janvier by her side, she followed the sound of animated voices to find her sister sitting on a wrought-iron garden seat under the moonlight, Arvi by her side. Tanu had a thick blanket wrapped around her, while Arvi was wearing his coat.
They were both smiling, their conversation fluid.
“Ashi!” Tanu’s face lit up. “Come, sit.” She held her blanket open.
Heart breaking into a thousand shards of pain and hope, Ashwini accepted the welcome and leaned into her sister’s side. Arvi rose at the same instant, held out his hand. “We never met properly. I’m Arvan, Ashwini’s older brother.”
“Janvier.”
The men shook hands, then Arvi retook his seat beside Tanu, while Janvier located a metal outdoor chair, brushed off the snow, and set it up to Ashwini’s left in front of the seat. Then the four of them sat talking under the moonlight. Carl brought out coffee at some stage, and, warmed by the liquid, they remained outside for hours more.
Tanu was vivacious and intelligent and occasionally sharply sarcastic in her replies as she’d been before the degeneration. And Arvi, he laughed helplessly at several of Tanu’s retorts. But for that single incident five years past, Ashwini hadn’t seen him that way since she was a young girl. It made her realize just how much of her brother had broken when Tanu fragmented.
Throat tight, she looked helplessly toward Janvier. He reached quietly under the blanket to take her hand. The two of them were silent for the most part, Ashwini content to sit with her sister’s arm around her while Tanu and Arvi spoke, two pieces of a whole that had been torn apart and who’d found one another again for this single magical night.
“It’s time,” Tanu said with a smile as fire kissed the sky on the horizon, dawn whispering its arrival. “I’m so happy to have spent this time with you and your Janvier, Ashi.” Her sister hugged her tight before releasing her from the blanket. “You grew up as smart and as wild and as beautiful as I always knew you would.”
Reluctant to go, but knowing she had to, Ashwini rose to her feet to find herself pulled into her brother’s warm, strong arms. “I’m sorry for not being the big brother you needed,” Arvi said against her ear. “But I have always, always loved you. I am so proud of you for what you’ve become.”
Tears choking her throat, she hugged him with all her might. “It’s okay, Arvi. I understand.”
She hugged Tanu again as well, her arms wanting to hold on forever. “I love you, Tanu. You and Arvi both.”
Face devoid of darkness, Tanu kissed her on both cheeks. “Live an extraordinary life, won’t you, Ashi? Fate has promised me you’ll make it.”
Ashwini couldn’t speak. Nodding jerkily, she grabbed Janvier’s hand and left the garden. It wasn’t until they were in the car halfway down the long drive that she let the sobs come.
“Cher.” Janvier pulled over to the side, beside a winter-barren oak and hauled her across the stick shift into his lap. “Ashwini, what’s wrong?” One hand on her hair, he held her against him, his other arm locked around her waist. “Please talk to me.”
She couldn’t, not for a long time. The first wave of the sun’s rays had warmed up the sky when she whispered, “They’re gone.”
Janvier grew motionless around her. When he moved, it was to press a kiss to her hair. Voice thick, he said, “You knew they were saying good-bye.”
“Arvi started dying the day Tanu began to disappear.” Her brother had done what was necessary to bring Ashwini up, had even become a celebrated surgeon, but he’d been a ghost of the Arvi she’d once known. “Tonight . . . today, Tanu was herself, truly herself, for the first time in years, and I saw Arvi again.”
“They made the decision together.”
“Yes. Everyone used to say Arvi was the alpha of the twins, but they were always equal.” And so, after years of saving Tanu from herself, Arvi had waited for her to come back long enough to make certain of her wishes, waited for a decision uncontaminated by the mysterious disease that haunted the women of their family.
Swallowing past the lump of grief inside her, she reached into her jacket pocket. “Arvi gave me this.” He’d slid it in during the final hug she would ever receive from her big brother.
Janvier took the small envelope, shook it open in the passenger seat. A golden key fell out, along with a folded piece of paper. “I think it’s to a safe-deposit box.”
She smiled through the sadness. “That’s Arvi, organized to the end.”
When Janvier passed her the notepaper, she unfolded it to find instructions on how to access the box. Arvi had written in his strong, sloping hand:
Everything you need to settle our estates is in there. I know we’re leaving you alone, but I’ve made sure you’ll be able to afford every resource you could ever need.
Tanu says she’s dreamed a dazzling future for you, and I want to believe her, but if fate isn’t so kind, then you’ll have the money to fight it. I couldn’t find the answer, but another surgeon might.
Make sure Tanu’s brain is autopsied; compare it to the results of Mom’s autopsy—I had it done privately after the accident. The report is in the safe-deposit box, along with full scans of her brain. The associated slides are in a special medical storage facility you’ll find the details of in the box. Make sure the pathologist follows the format exactly so you get all the required information. If he balks once he has cause of death, hire a private pathologist to redo that part.
You’ve lived without fear for so long. Keep on doing it, keep on being the strongest of us all.
With all my love—Arvi
The grief slammed into her anew and with it a beam of blinding knowledge. “Don’t go with me, Janvier.” She sat up, held the beautiful moss green eyes that had laughed with her across the world. “Don’t make that choice when it happens for me.”
Arms locked around her, Janvier shook his head, his jaw set in a way she’d seen only rarely. She’d lost the argument every single time. “No,” he said, “that you cannot ask of me.”
“Yes, I can.” She gripped his jacket on either side, tried to shake him. “Think of Arvi—he saved so many lives.” Angry tears formed. Blinking them away, she said, “Those gifted hands will never again pick up a scalpel, never again give someone hope.”
“He lived a shadow life,” Janvier growled. “You said it yourself. It was his choice to go today, when he was happier than he’d been for decades!”
“Arvi has been heading toward this since the day Tanu was first diagnosed! You’re whole, healthy.”
“I won’t be after you!” His fury filled the car, his voice raw. “I won’t be me after you.”
“Honor came back for Dmitri,” Ashwini whispered, sharing a secret she’d spoken to no other. “I promise you I’ll come back for you.” She might not wear the same face, the same name, but she’d know him. Always, she’d know him. “No matter what it takes. I’ll come back.”
His eyes glittering wet, Janvier’s fingers dug into her hips. “You’re sentencing me to an eon alone. How can you ask that?”
“Because you’re strong enough to bear the pain.”
“No, I’m not.”
She kissed him, her hand curved around his neck. “You need to be. I need to know you’ll be here when I return.”
He wouldn’t look at her, his muscles rigid, and she knew she’d lost the battle today. But it wasn’t over. The disease inside her might snuff out her light, but she would not let it snuff out Janvier’s.
Fourteen days later and a week after Felicity and Lilli were laid to rest, Janvier drove his Ashblade high into the mountains, where she scattered the ashes of her sister and her brother on the wind. According to the autopsies, Tanushree and Arvan Taj had died of heart failure. Inexplicable, said the pathologist, but not unheard-of in twins. Whatever it was that connected them, it sometimes snipped both lives short when only one was wounded.