A hand touches my arm. “Come on. We’ve got to get a move on,” Lachesis says. “He’s just going to vomit more of the same. Platitudes, misses you, loves his wife, yadda yadda. It’s the same shit every year he visits.”
I get to my feet, even as I protest. “I want to hear it?—”
“And I want two firm D-cups that never sag.” She tilts her head, indicating we should leave. “But nobody ever gets everything they want. You’ve spent enough time here. You know he’s good now. We can move on.”
Nobody ever gets everything they want.
The words stick to my mind like static cling. They reverberate in my head over and over again.Nobody ever gets everything they want. Nobody ever gets everything they want.
I think of my brother, who’s well now. Has a wife and a child. Has everything I wanted for him.
Nobody ever gets everything they want.
I got what I wanted out of my deal with Lachesis, I’m realizing…and I’m also realizing it’s not enough.
I wantmore.
I want what my brother has with his wife. I want that tenderness, that companionship, that forever. I want Kalos. I want him to know he’s not alone, that I understand him. I want him to know that if he’s too world-weary to do his job, I’ll pick up the slack. I want to be his constant companion, because being here doesn’t feel like I’m home. I can’tpeacefully go on to the Afterlife. I can’t relax, knowing that he’s been left alone without anyone that truly understands him.
I belong with Kalos.
I turn to the goddess. “I lied. I said I’d go quietly but I can’t. I need you to take me back to Kalos.”
She says nothing, just considers me. “Why?”
“Because he makes me happy and I want to be with him, even if I have to be dead. Even if he doesn’t want me there any longer, that’s okay. I just want to be in the vicinity. He said there’s a field where the faithful can wait for their god to come. I want to go wait for him.”
She puts up her hands. “I didn’t suggest that.”
I’m confused. “I…know you didn’t?”
“This isn’t me interfering,” she continues. “It has to be your idea. Not mine.”
“This is absolutely my idea. I made a mistake wanting to come back here. Can you please transfer me back to the other world? To Aos?”
“You’re positive this is what you want? I can’t change it after this. Once I send you there, my role with you is done. You’re no longer my territory.”
“Please send me to the Field of the Forgotten,” I say, and drop to my knees. “I’ll beg if I have to. Just please take me to him.”
“He’s currently in a fugue state, I’m told. It might be a while.”
I’m so relieved I start to cry. “I can wait,” I sob. “I’ll wait forever if that’s what it takes.”
Chapter
Forty-Six
The Field of the Forgotten is…peaceful. Time feels slow and uneventful, and I relax and drift alongside the others waiting. It’s crowded, but in a way that I don’t mind. There’s a comfort in not being here alone. No one talks, but I’m all right with that. I try to focus on my surroundings, to see what they look like, but everything feels gray and formless, and even when I squint, I can’t make out the beginning or end to the field itself. I give up and just wander with the others, existing but not, waiting for Kalos to remember that he has worshippers and for him to shake off his apathy long enough to come and get them.
Is this what being dead is? Calm and drifting? I don’t mind it. My mind is quiet. I miss Kalos, but I’m content to wait for him. I have nothing but time.
A dark figure cuts through the milling crowd, and I lift my head. My heart skips a beat—do I even have a heart?—and for a moment, I think he’s come for me. “Kalos?”
But then the figure steps out of the mist and it’s not Kalos.My disappointment is choking, and I turn away, no longer interested.
The man doesn’t leave my side, though. Eventually I look up at him again and notice green eyes, startlingly similar to my Kalos, and the same soft, pouty mouth. This one has a large nose and an angular face, along with dark hair. All the features that made Kalos so refined and elegant seem oversized or misplaced on this man. There’s no denying a familial resemblance, though. “Are you Rhagos? Kalos’s brother?”
He assesses me in the same cool, remote way Kalos does sometimes and yup, they’re definitely related. “I was sent a message from the Fates asking me to release you from my realm to Kalos. Explain to me why I should care.”
