What was left of the house behind us blasted apart. Feathers tucked in tighter, shielding us as the force from that explosion propelled us forward.
The song of glass beads, shells, and wooden charms mixed with the ringing in my ears.
And then, we fell.
CHAPTERTHIRTEEN
Being alive came with aches and pain. The way I saw it, the physical pain of living was the easiest to endure.
For me, the pain of loss, of grief, of hopelessness—that was bigger, abstract. I had no tools to fight it, no hands to grapple with it. Grief drank all the air out of my lungs, leaving me gasping for the strength it took to swim to shore where those I loved were safe. Unharmed.
Lula, buried, gagged, and bound.
Abbi running.
The explosion.
All of it a wave of fear, of grief, cresting and dragging me down, squeezing life out of my bones, silencing the beat of my heart.
I gasped, and my ribs gave a good argument for not trying any other sudden moves. My eyes hurt, and I hadn’t even opened them yet. Every inch of my skin felt burned.
Something soft brushed my lips, tentative and silken, like a feather, a moth’s wing.
A kiss.
“Lula?” I asked, her name blown to smoke before it even left my lips.
“I’m here.” Her voice like dawn, golden and soft. “Can you open your eyes?”
For her, anything. I had to work at it, though, my eyelids heavy and sticky. I blinked against the light, and after several tries, could make out shadows, light, shape, and then Lula.
She hovered above me, sitting on the side of the bed in a room I did not remember. A frown line creased her forehead, but her lips relaxed as if a smile was waiting in the wings.
“I love you,” she said, as she always had.
“I love you,” I said, as I always would.
She leaned down and kissed me again, too tentatively until I deepened it, lifting my hand to cup the back of her head.
When we pulled apart, her pupils were enormous, the honey of her eyes a solar flare around that darkness. “I thought,” she said, and then a breath huffed out of her. She licked her lips, which were not swollen, not bleeding. “You are never allowed to die on me again, Brogan Gauge.”
“Never,” I agreed. “If… When we go, we go together.”
“We’re staying,” she said, her gaze covering my face as if I would argue her point. “We’re both staying for now.”
“I intend to live a long life with you, wife,” I said. “That’s always been the plan.”
She nodded, her eyes glittering with the promise of tears.
“I see you’re awake,” Eunice said from somewhere near my feet. Might be standing in the doorway, but I didn’t care to look away from my love’s face to find out.
“Come out for food,” she said when I didn’t answer. “You have a visitor.”
A creak of hinges told me I’d guessed right about the door. Then a weight landed on the bed on the other side of me, and Lorde whined and pressed along my body, carefully wedging her big head between Lula and me. She licked Lula’s chin, then plonked her head on my chest, panting up at me, the smell of dog breath overpowering.
“Ugh,” Lula said. “You stink, Lorde.”
Lorde flicked her soft, fuzzy ears and panted harder.
