Opal and Aamon and Kevin were all willing to give their lives to stop them. Glenn knew that without her and her Affinity, that’s exactly what they would do.
Inside the portal, her mother and father were framed in the green of the other world, lit in slowly falling amber light. Glenn saw herself standing beside them, but it was as a little girl, her hand in theirs, face upturned in awe. She wasn’t that person anymore. She never would be again.
“There is no road home.”
Glenn raised her hand to them. “Meera doe branagh,” she said.
Her father cried out and charged the portal, but before he could reach it, Glenn let it fall. There was a brilliant flash and the great light was gone. The portal was closed.
Glenn collapsed into the snowy leaves at her feet. Her head was swimming and her eyes ached from the glare of the doorway. The forest was quiet. She felt no trace of the agents. Glenn looked up at the stars, wishing her Affinities could reach her parents way out there, wishing she could feel some trace of them, knowing she never could.
“Glenn,” a voice said. “We should go.”
Kevin’s hand fell on her shoulder, and there was a snap as they reconnected and he flowed into her. Glenn raised one hand to his cheek and guided him down to her lips. She closed her eyes and for a moment the rest of the world fell away and there was just him and the memory of a swirling band of snow that locked them together. The borders between them dissipated until it seemed that together they made a world all their own. Glenn knew then that he was never more himself, and she was never more herself, than when they were together.
They parted slowly and Kevin smiled — how long had it been
since she had seen him do that?
“Come on, Morgan,” he said, offering his hand. “No time for naps. Things to do.”
Glenn’s knees wobbled as she stood, but Kevin’s hand was there, pressed into the small of her back. Once she was steady, they walked, hand in hand, through the woods. Aamon fell into place beside her, his thick fur soft at her side. The forest slipped by, a flickering show of black and gray.
Glenn turned at the trill of a whistle behind her. A small shadow flitted through the trees and lit on a branch nearby. She could just make out its black body and the fringe of silver on its long tail. Its tiny heartbeat was slow and steady, a pinprick of warmth in the cold of the forest. The callowell looked down at Glenn with blank, glossy eyes. As