Richard grunted. His spell discharged, going wide; an instant later Anne slammed into him, hand coming up like a knife. Green light flickered, soft and deadly. Richard crumpled, leaving Anne standing over him, spots of his blood on her skin where they’d been flung by the bullet. She stared down at his body.
For the first and last time, I reached out to Richard with the dreamstone. I searched for his mind and found nothing. Gone.
It was over.
I let out my breath and let myself fall.
I heard a rush of footsteps and saw Anne kneeling over me, hair hanging down towards my face. She glanced up and down my body and worry sprang into her eyes. ‘Hold still.’
You sound different, I told her through the dreamstone. I’d stopped breathing, but that didn’t seem important any more. My heart beat in fits and starts, on the edge of failing.
‘Well, you made sure of that, didn’t you?’ Green light glowed at the edges of my vision and I sensed Anne’s magic taking shape. ‘I’ve got a lot to say to you, but it can wait.’
The pain was fading. I didn’t know whether it was Anne’s doing or not, but it felt wonderful. If you ever see Arachne again, I told Anne, tell her thank you.
‘Tell her yourself. All right, here we go.’
I felt Anne’s magic take hold, working on my body. Scrapes and cuts healed, and the beating of my heart steadied, but it didn’t grow stronger.
I lay peacefully on the stone, looking up at Anne. After all that had happened, it was nice to just watch her. Red-brown eyes flicked back and forth; a frown creased her forehead; her hair brushed my shoulder and she absently pushed it behind her ear. Your hair looks nice like that, I said.
‘That should have worked,’ Anne muttered. She tried again, her spell weaving through me.
Can’t heal this, Anne. Anne’s healing works by speeding up the body’s natural regeneration, pouring energy into it to let it rebuild itself. But my heart and lungs were being transformed, not damaged. There was nothing to heal.
Stop distracting me, Anne said. Her thoughts were focused, abstracted. She started work on a different type of spell, weaving it through her hand as it rested on my chest.
It’s not your fault, I said. I felt warm and at peace. There was nothing to fight or be anxious about any more. How long since that had been true? I couldn’t even remember.
I didn’t have the strength to keep using the fateweaver. I let go of the path where I stayed alive, letting the futures open freely.
The futures didn’t open. The fateweaver kept working, doing it by itself. It’s not going to make a difference, you know, I told it. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised: the fateweaver was alive, just as I was, and it wanted to live too. It didn’t understand that it was killing me.
Anne’s spell failed again. ‘Come on!’ she shouted. ‘Why won’t it work?’
It’s okay, I told her. I knew this was coming. I raised my artificial arm – the only one I could still lift – and stroked her cheek gently. I couldn’t see very well but I could just make out her face. Glad I got to see you one last time.
Realisation flashed in Anne’s eyes, followed by fear. ‘No!’ She stared down at me with a look of dawning helplessness. ‘You can’t do this! Not now!’
I felt a cold nose poke against my left hand, and smiled slightly. Hermes. I did everything I set out to do, I told her. Now I get to die in the arms of the woman I love. Good way to go.
The fateweaver was still holding me to a single future, but I was close enough now to make out the end. It was like riding a train to the end of the line. Beyond was an empty void, though it was white, not black. Had it always been that way?
‘There’s got to be something.’ I couldn’t make out Anne’s face any more, but I could hear her talking to herself, her voice quick and frantic. ‘Rebuild from another organ, no. Amputate . . . too late. Oxygen . . .’
The shadow realm trembled and I heard the grinding crack of breaking stone, followed by a roar. The floor bucked and shook. You really should get out of here, I told Anne and Hermes.
‘Be quiet! It’s the fateweaver, I can’t heal you while it’s doing that. Have to make it part of the solution somehow . . .’
You can’t save everyone this time. The end of the line was very close. But it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt any more. I’ve been pushing myself so long but it’s finally over.
Anne said something I couldn’t hear.
Now I can stop, I told her. I let the connection go.
My heart beat one last time, then ceased. Feeling left my body, starting at the outskirts and drawing in. Sight and sound and touch drifted away, leaving only a white void. It was very peaceful.
Dimly, as if from a great distance, I could make out Anne’s voice. ‘. . . no,’ she was saying, and there was something dark and furious in her voice. ‘You aren’t allowed to die. Not until . . .’ Then all sound was gone.
The train reached the end of its tracks and plunged into a dazzling white sky.
I felt as though I was racing through the clouds and into infinity. You know, I thought as my senses faded, all in all, that really wasn’t so bad.
And then there was nothing at all.
THE END
of the Alex Verus series
(Yes, this is really the end.)
(There’s no need to be like that. You had plenty of warning. Alex went into that knowing what was going to happen, and you should have known too.)
(Really, you can put the book down.)
(You’re very persistent.)
(Still here?
I told you, Alex’s story is over.
But it’s true, there are others.
Very well. Where to begin . . . ?
Three and a half weeks have passed.
In London, the sun rises on a cool October morning.
Somewhere in Camden Town is a street, fenced in by
the canal and the train lines. On that street is a shop,
with letters above the window that read Arcana
Emporium. The door swings open . . .)
Epilogue
The bell above the door goes ding-ding.
‘I don’t sell spellbooks,’ I tell the guy at the counter. There are two others in the shop already: a teenage girl in a BTS T-shirt and the guy I’m talking to. The new arrival makes three, which is the busiest it’s been all morning. Slow day.
‘I mean, it doesn’t have to be a book,’ the guy tells me. He’s got messy hair and looks like a student. ‘You could send me something I could read on my phone.’
‘So you’re asking for an ebook with spells.’ The new girl’s Ji-yeong. I wasn’t expecting her today. She gives me a nod and goes to sit in the Emporium’s only chair.
‘Yeah. Do you have one?’