It was like watching Ervos ride away on a transport wagon, knowing she’d never see him again.
It was like holding on to a hand that grew colder as it died.
‘I can’t leave you, Six,’ Ezer said, sighing. ‘I won’t.’
Because when she was with the raphon … she washome. For the first time in her life, she knew it was where she was supposed to be.
She leaned her head back against Six’s warm side. She felt the raphon’s heartbeat, steady and true.
‘I will try it. One time,’ Ezer said. ‘But if you drop me …’ Her stomach twisted, and she had to work past the fear again, the image of herself broken in the snow. Six’s wing tucked tighter, as if she sensed it, too. As if she would keep that fear at bay. ‘I swear to the gods, Six, if I ameverto fall from your side, you had better catch me.’
Six’s tail twitched once.
Yes.
And with the purring and the warmth, the softness of her wing feathers …
Ezer fell fast asleep.
‘Ezer.’
She found herself back in the labyrinth, the ring of identical tunnels all around.
And in her cloak pocket, she now held the ornate black key.
‘We’ll have to see what you belong to,’ Ezer said as she held the key to the torchlight. She looked up, as if the wind might hear her. ‘I don’t suppose you’d be of any help tonight?’
A breath passed, and suddenly the wind sighed past her, pulling the tips of her hair towards the tunnel to her right.
It led her to a door. The wind whispered around its edges, like it was beckoning her to go inside. So, she removed the key from her pocket …
And placed it into the lock.
She glanced back over her shoulder but found no shadows shifting in the darkness. No eyes, blinking back at her, nor the owner to the footsteps she’d seen in the frost, nights ago.
She turned back to the door.
And when she turned the key, the lock clicked.
And the door swung open, silent as a grave.
Inside …
She gasped.
Home.
She was back in the tiny little apartment she shared with Ervos, long ago. The details were muddled, as if she were looking at it through smoke, but she knew the shape and feel of it all, nonetheless.
There was the squat woodburning stove they used to keep warm on the coldest nights.
There was the couch with the worn cushions, the small creaking table that Ervos had placed his feet on, time and again.
The kitchen sink, copper and stained green from the salt air that clung to every bit of Rendegard’s outer town.
Ezer gasped.
There was Ervos, walking through the open doorway of the bedroom. He looked younger, still vibrant with life. Not a hint of the bloodshot eyes she’d grown so used to in his later years.
