They knew she was gone. She really was. The girl had given her life for him, for the Soulless Man. The curse could be broken, and she had been the key all along.
Winifred, it seemed, had been trying to stop that. All the pieces had fallen into place when they returned home. It had taken some arguing, but it all made perfect sense after they thought hard enough.
They’d gone back to the cave later, curious if the light had faded. But no.
The brilliance was still there, and it’d been two days.
Whatever process was happening inside that cave was taking its sweet time to complete.
“Sanora is dead,” Amelia sighed. “And so is the Soulless Man.”
“At least we figured out why they were together,” Merton said, the same dispassionate tone he used when naming the chemicals.
“And the book rat is dead. Hurray,” she said, mockingly lifting an imaginary toast as she remembered when the Soulless Man had ripped out his heart. Literally. It was a glorious sight to behold.
“Lucky us,” Merton muttered, a half-smile twitching at his mouth. “We might follow him soon.”
Amelia’s gaze dropped to their thick layers, a humourless scoff escaping her lips. Killing someone in Nimorran was as good as signing your own death warrant. The cold was merciless. It crept in first through the fingertips, then the chest, until it reached the brain and froze everything that made you human. They’d killed someone that night, and now their bodies were paying the price. The layered sweaters weren’t stopping the frost from sinking in, but at least they dulled the bite.
“Yeah,” she murmured. “We have to get out of this cursed town fast.”
“And do what then?” Merton asked, pointing at the hills swallowed in mist. “Our life goal just died. What’s left? We’ve got nopurpose now. No path. It’s like...everything we lived for just got erased.”
Amelia looked towards the towering ridges. “Then we’ll make a new one,” she said quietly. “A new purpose.”
Merton tilted his head up beside her, eyes tracking the same ridges. “And what about the library? Leaving means we’re never coming back. Unless we plan to die.”
Her throat tightened. The words tasted wrong before they even left her tongue. “We’ll give someone else to manage it. Or…”
“We’ll sell it,” Merton completed, turning to her slowly, eyes narrowing in faint amusement. “Never thought I’d hear you say that.”
She sighed. “It’s just a building.”
He nodded, though his smirk didn’t fade. “Right. Just a building.” His gaze lifted again to the hills. “But first, we have to find a way out of here before the cold kills us.”
Amelia drew in a deep breath. “As soon as possible.”
PART FOUR
REBIRTH OF THE LIVING
—I’ve never been one for envy, yet here I am, staring at two people who have met in every lifetime, realising I’ve never been anyone’s forever, not even in one lifetime—
EPILOGUE I
CHEZIR
Twenty-one Years Later
The first week of school was always a nightmare.
Everyone else seemed to love it though. The chaos, the shrieks, the hugs, the I’ve-missed-you’s that seemed to be flying across the campus from every lip. Everywhere I turned, people were hugging, laughing, jumping into each other’s arms like they hadn’t seen their friends in a decade instead of just three months, screaming overwho’d changed their hair, who got hotter over the break, who was dating who now.
My eyes swept over the courtyard—the banners, the groups, the balloons, the buzz—as I adjusted my bag on my shoulder, weaving through the crowd and doing my best to avoid physical contact with anyone radiating too much joy.
I passed the campus statue, that ugly, overpraised lump of rock that had apparently been “vomiting water” for more than two hundred years.
I tugged my bag higher on my shoulder and adjusted my earphones even though nothing was playing. A good way to look busy, or unapproachable.
