A sob tries to escape, but I shove it down. Crypt still notices and squeezes me tighter as the few markings remaining on him glow in rapid succession.
I need you to do something for me,I tell only Everett telepathically, clinging to the fact that the bond hasn’t broken for all I’m worth.I need you to stay.
Silas stumbles in his chant, swaying slightly. Baelfire quickly steadies him.
“Si?”
“I can do this,” the fae grits, resuming his spell. “I cast a preservation spell on him the moment after Amadeus removed his heart. That means his life force is strong—I just need to make his heart realize that and beat again.”
I don’t even fucking know what spell he’s using. Healing? Necromancy? All the words blur together as my heart tries to knock free from my chest.
And then finally—fucking finally—Everett gasps, his eyes flying open.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I’m not sure if I’m talking to the universe, the gods, or my quintet as I fling myself onto my elemental, careful not to bump the place where Silas is still healing up his injury. One of Everett’s arms weakly wraps around me, but he’s still wheezing.
“Fuck, that hurt like hell,” he groans before glancing at the rest of my quintet and grimacing. “The lizard’s naked again. Why am I not surprised? Worst sight ever to wake up to.”
I’m so hysterical with everything that just happened that his barb at Baelfire actually earns a laugh from me.
Baelfire exhales in relief before smiling, gesturing at his naked self. “Sure, Professor Popsicle. We all know you only woke back up to get a good look at this.”
Everett gags and then hisses in pain just as Silas finishes sealing up his chest. The scar remains, which doesn’t surprise me—I’m sure my fae is barely hanging on, and scars can be healed later.
“What was that about not trying to be a hero?” Silas scoffs, but his voice is as relieved as I’m feeling.
“He just ripped me heart out like he was picking a fucking apple. Nothing heroic about that,” Everett mutters, slumping back to the bloodied ground in sheer exhaustion.
“At least it distracted that wanker so he didn’t come after our girl again,” Crypt says, patting Everett’s head in a way that makes the elemental glower at him. “Way to take one for the team, Frost. Almost makes me like you.”
Nearly delirious with relief that my quintet is all alive, I tune out of their ribbing to survey our surroundings. The Nether hascontinued to lighten until it’s almost like the glow of midday in the mortal realm. Dead shadow fiends, monsters, liches, necromancers, Reformists, and ravens litter the ground of the arena as the alluring ambience of death hangs thickly in the air.
Two gleaming golden dragons soar overhead, and when they roar, it sounds triumphant. I can’t put into words the way I know Amadeus’s control is no longer holding this plane of existence captive—I just feel it. The Nether is brightening as the shadow of my would-be father melts away.
And finally, I look at Amadeus’s spirit hovering over his body. It’s distorted and torn, blurred and sad-looking. I can barely even make out the shape of a head, much less his face.
Before I can decide to reap him, I hear Everett choke like he’s dying again. Whirling around in alarm, I quickly find that he’s fine—he’s just freaking out because my mother has appeared again.
The rest of my quintet flinches away as Syntyche’s looming, dark, hooded figure appears as if from nowhere. I guess it’s no surprise she’s come to reap the many ghosts waiting in the Nether, where she couldn’t reap before.
But itisa surprise when Galene also appears.
Galene is wearing the same garb she did when she disguised herself as Pia: dressed head to toe in white, concealing her beautiful face. The only difference is that she’s glowing brightly as she moves toward us across the bloodied arena floor.
All around, Reformists gasp and drop to their knees, telling me these goddesses are visible to everyone.
“Daughter,” Syntyche greets simply.
That one word elicits many more gasps from the Reformists, like not all of them completely believed that I’m this goddess’s “crotch goblin,” as Kenzie would put it.
“Hi.” I gesture at Amadeus’s decrepit, floating ghost. “That one is yours.”
She dips her hooded head. A quiet whistling sound follows her scythe before all at once, that trace of Amadeus is gone. Without another word, she vanishes completely. Maybe she’s not reaping here, then?
My question is answered as Galene reads my mind in real time. I can hear the smile in her voice. “She has returned to await your visit to Paradise, my fearless one.”
I tense, and so do my guys. Crypt pulls me away from Everett to hold me tightly, jaw clenched. Baelfire folds his arms to regard the goddess, not at all embarrassed to be naked as the day he was born.
