“Mina?”
Quoth.
My beautiful Quoth.
He threw his long arms around me, rolling me over into the sand. I felt as if I weighed nothing at all, as if my heart was about to flutter out of my chest and fly away. He laid kisses on my lips, my eyelids, every inch of my face. He still had pasta sauce smeared across his chest and back. I stroked his soft, warm,livingskin and I couldn’t believe he was here, alive, with me.
“My Mina,” Quoth whispered, burrowing his head into my neck to kiss the place where he’d bitten me. The wound had now mysteriously vanished.
“I thought I lost you.” I stroked my fingers over his cheek. I couldn’t stop touching him, marveling at how warm and good he felt.
“You did for a while there.” Quoth sat back, and in his fire-rimmed eyes I saw all the pain and regret of what he’d done. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve this second chance. I was weak. I should have been able to resist him. Can you ever forgive me for hurting you?”
“You weren’t yourself. He corrupted you.”
“But how much did I fight? How easy was it for him to take me away from you?” His eyes fluttered closed, the long lashes tangling together. “I don’t know if I can forgive myself. I hurt Oscar. I attacked you. I spied for him and gave him all the information he needed to get the dirt and kill those women. He said if I didn’t he would hurt you. I completely understand if you never want to see me again.”
A single tear rolled down his cheek.
“No, no.” I wiped his tear with my finger. “That wasn’t you doing those things. It was Dracula. It was his poison inside you, his will moving your limbs. He’s the one responsible. And I know that because of how hard youdidfight it. At the end, you escaped. You turned on him because no matter what he did to you, he couldn’t take your humanity from you.”
Quoth shook his head, his hair streaming over his shoulders. “It’s not enough.”
“It’s everything.” I brought my lips to his. In the kiss I laid bare everything I’d been too afraid to tell him all these months I’d been with him. That I’d never known it was possible to love someone so utterly, with my whole heart and body and mind. That in him I’d found a twin soul – someone who understood the creative spark inside me and nurtured that flame until it burned as bright as his own bright flames. That I’d never known what the word home truly meant before I’d found him in a little attic in Nevermore Bookshop.
When we both came up for air, we were a mess of tears and swollen lips and red-ringed eyes. I laughed and kissed him again and again, until Dante cleared his throat behind me and tossed the empty bottle into the sand beside us.
“Time’s up, Mina.” Dante glanced at his wrist, and I saw he wore a snazzy gold watch with nine faces. “I’ve got an appointment at the river of blood and fire I don’t want to miss.”
“Will I see my father again?” I asked. “I know Dracula killed him, but that was only in my time, right? So he could step out of the time-traveling room and be in my life again?”
Dante shook his head. “You know that’s not how it works. But you do not have to be sad. Old storytellers never die. They simply disappear into their own tales.” Dante touched his hand to mine. “It’s your turn now, Mina Wilde, daughter of Homer. Write the next chapter. And don’t forget to drop off my wine.”
Dante strode to the edge of the water. He kicked out a foot, sending up a splash that swirled in the air in complete disobedience to the laws of gravity. The droplets formed a shimmering doorway, and I felt the familiar tug of the invisible cord around my heart, pulling me toward it.
My fingers laced in Quoth’s, and together we waded through the water. We leaned in and kissed each other one final time before walking through the doorway into the unknown.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Through the doorway, all was in darkness. We stumbled through the gloom together, Quoth’s hand never leaving mine. I held my other hand out in front of me, feeling for the moment when the freezing waters of Meles receded and my fingers brushed cool, damp stone. My feet splashed on wet cobbles.
I blinked as a bright light rushed toward me. Quoth’s arms flew around me, and I met that light with my eyes open and my heart whole. If it was the freight train coming for me, then I was ready.
“They’re here. The bastards are alive.”
The torch clattered on the cellar floor as Heathcliff rushed me, enfolding me and Quoth into his enormous, powerful arms. He crushed us both against him, as if he hoped to smush us through his pores and absorb us into his body.
“Will you look at that.” Morrie’s voice carried down from the top of the steps. “The whole family is back together.”
“Not yet,” Heathcliff growled. He broke away from us and raced up the stairs. Morrie cried out as Heathcliff tossed him over his shoulder and stomped back down the stairs. Heathcliff flipped Morrie off his shoulder into the middle of our circle and crushed us all to near-death again.
“Can we do the family reunion somewhere else? This damp will reap havoc on my brogues—hey!” Morrie’s complaint was silenced by Heathcliff’s lips meeting his.
Heathcliff’s hand dragged my collar toward him, and then he was kissing me, and Morrie was kissing Quoth, and we were laughing and hugging and kissing each other, high on being alive and together and wildly, ecstatically in love.
I was filled with a joy I didn’t know was possible. We’d done it. The four of us had defeated Dracula and found each other in the process.
And we would never, ever lose each other in the dark again.
