How you changed me and shaped me and taught me to run.
Your place in my heart will always remain.
Because of you I am changed.
Because of you I will never be the same.”
“Are you ready?” I look up to find Ky offering his hand.
I nod, dust the sand off the clothes Wren loaned me. She hasn’t changed into a human again since Joshua died. This is how she copes. By hiding behind her Calling. Not a bad idea. I long for my butterfly form. To flutter away and grieve apart from it all. But this must be done first. Here, at the water’s edge, is where we say good-bye.
The men lift Joshua and carry him down to where the sea and shore meet. I open my mouth to speak when I hear it.
Someone is shouting my name.
I shade my eyes, twist, squint. When I see Ebony and she sees me, we break into a run. I’m dirty and dingy and smell awful. But I don’t care. My sisters are here. And Stormy! This is what Joshua would’ve wanted. All of us together.
The three of us collide with each other. Laughing. Hugging. Making sure the other is real. Ebony tells us of Isabeau and the Rose and the crown formed from a broken heart.
“Reggie is the Fairy Queen,” she pants.
I nod. “We saw the shift. I still can’t believe it. All this time. She could’ve hurt me or Mom. All this time she had part of the Void.”
We fill her in on what’s happened to us. She shares how the Fairies were Shadowalkers, and we bring the story to life. When everyone knows everything, Ebony takes my hand.
“I’m sorry about Joshua,” she says.
I smile. “Don’t you mean Josiah?” I tease her, remembering the days when she called my best friend anything but his name.
She shakes her head. “Not anymore.” Her eyes sparkle and—
“Eb.” I cover my mouth. The girl with the light. She’s—“The Verity. It’s you.”
Her brows pinch. “What? Impossible. You’re—”
I shake my head. “The Verity enters one pure of heart. When the Verity left me, it found you. Brought you right to us.”
“Pure of heart?” Her stunned expression relays more than her words. “Me? You’ve got to be joking.” My sister’s shock quickly contorts to worry. “It doesn’t make any sense. My mother . . . hates me.”
I shake my head. Shrug. “Apparently not. You are the one the Void’s vessel cares for most.”
Disbelief widens her eyes and parts her lips. She doesn’t take her eyes off me. I hold her gaze until she blinks.
And now I think we’ve found our way. We may never be able to destroy the Void. Darkness will always exist. But a broken heart can be mended. We may come out of this the way we’d hoped after all.
We all join hands and stand in a line, our toes and shoes kissing sea foam as we say our farewells.
“He fought fair. Never cheated in a duel.” Preacher breaks the chain and holds his knit cap to his heart. “A true Guardian and mate.”
“He was . . .” Ebony pauses, as if searching for the right words. “He was never not kind to me. Even when I was a—” She clears her throat. Starts again. “Even when I was sort of rude to him.”
“I didn’t know him much.” Tide’s voice quivers.
I almost think he won’t go on. I wouldn’t blame him either. But then . . .
“He was humble enough to seek forgiveness when many run from such encounters. For that he gained my respect.”
Khloe’s next. Something tells me her words will be the wisest of all. “He was my brother’s brother. Which makes him my brother too. And if he was my brother, then I loved him. No questions asked.”
It comes down to Ky and me now. He goes first.
“My brother may have battled darkness, may have even been subject to the Void in the worst ways.” His glance shifts to Tide. Joshua killed his mother, but even he shared a kind word about the best Ever I’ve known. “But in the end, David chose light.”
I don’t have to look at Ky to know he’s tearing up. His slightly off voice gives him away. A quick squeeze to his hand tells him to keep going. The gesture is all he needs.
“Joshua died for what we all must live for. His last breath was spent doing what was right. I can only hope to live worthy of that legacy.” He turns his head toward me.
My breath catches. How can I follow him? What else can I say? There’s nothing to say. There is only what remains of his song.
As Joshua drifts out onto the water, I follow him with my voice.
“No, we will never be the same.
Your body has passed, but we will carry on your name.
And when someone asks for a tale of noble, right, and good,
We will tell them how you lived.
We will tell them how you fell.
We will tell them how you stood.
We will tell them of your good . . .”
My voice trails, no melody left on my lips.
When he’s vanished from view . . . when we can’t see him anymore, it’s Ebony who asks, “The Seventh?”
Blink. Gulp. Breathe. “The Seventh.”
Back to where it all began.
Passing through a Fairy Fountain is similar to passing through a regular Threshold. Except it’s brighter. Rainbow light like the Verity. Colors I can’t even begin to describe. Ky is the only one I’ve shared the Verity’s true form with. Maybe now he can see what I witnessed the night I took on the light.
“No, Em. That’s all you,” he says in my head. “All I can see is white.”
My heart leaps. Emotion stirs. But . . . the Verity left me.
“Yes, but you’re still a Mirror. And after all you’ve accomplished, all the good choices you’ve made, I suspect this is a little gift of its own. The Thresholds drain, the passages between Reflections crumble, but these paths remain and you, of all people, can see the truth of the light.”
But even the light can’t help what we find when we reach the Seventh. Death. Nothing. Void. Now I know where the name of the Darkness stems from. This wasteland isn’t a Garden.
It’s a nightmare.
“Are we in the right place?”
Ky shrugs. “Beats me.”
“She’s here.” Ebony takes the lead. “I can smell her.”
No Dragon guards the Garden’s gate when we approach. Barren hedges form a maze of thorns and twigs, woody claws reaching out, snagging our hair and clothes. The place is so abandoned, there aren’t even leaves left to crunch beneath our soles. Nothing has grown here for a long time.
“Do you hear that?” Khloe grabs Ky’s arm. “Is that a baby?”
I listen for the sound she describes. No, not a baby. A woman is crying. Déjà vu moves me forward, has me racing past my sisters. I’d know her voice anywhere. Mom. Were we wrong? Did Isabeau decide to carry out revenge after all?
But the figure I see at the heart of the Garden’s weeds is not my mother.