“What are you talking about? Cassian showed up not long after the triplets. We abandoned the vault. I knew I could not take on themandhim while protecting the two of you,” he said. “We ended up in a small village where I came across the?—”
“The hollow cave beneath an elm tree,” Isla interrupted, the tone in her voice reminiscent.
“Where we dreamed up Hollow City,” Eleanor added.
“A place where deities would not be welcomed,” he finished.
A history that felt like lifetimes ago.
Finnian swallowed the bitter taste down his throat that came with thinking about the reality of death. A lifetime he spent with them. He only got one. It wasn’t fair.
A moment passed. The seconds pulled, the speed of a cloud in the sky.
He scrutinized their faces, trying to make sense of their hesitant expressions. There was something they weren’t saying.
“Forgive us, Finny,” Isla said in her soothing tone of voice. She lightly patted him on the top of his shoulder. “Our memory is a bit hazy in the afterlife.”
Eleanor grew quiet, staring down and drawing circles in the condensation on her pint with her thumb. She’d always been a terrible liar.
His heart sank, fearful the curse was playing tricks on his memory. Plucking his mind one seam at a time until everything unraveled. He wanted to ask more about it, but he wasn’t surewhat.
“Tell me,” Isla continued, changing the subject. “How is my great-great-great-granddaughter?”
Finnian took a drink of his pint and licked his lips, his tongue heavy like lead.
He crossed his arms again and attempted to ground himself back into the conversation. “Runa runs an organization within my ranks. She should be at my sister’s side now, helping her grow comfortable in her new role. If her soul is not amongst you, I presume all has gone smoothly.”
“As the High Goddess of Eternity,” Isla elbowed him proudly. “I imagine your organizations are traveling wide?—"
Someone a few tables away barked out another startling laugh. The sound echoed through his hearing aid. He ground his molars at the dull ache grinding on the right side of his head.
Isla glanced over her shoulder at the noisy table and then back to Finnian, noting the agitation on his face with a reassuring curve to her mouth. “I imagine your organizations are traveling wide and fast to spread your beloved sister’s name amongst the Mortal Land,” she repeated, just as patient in the afterlife.
His lips twitched at the irony of her statement.
“Ah, I know that smirk.” Isla leaned into his side, her long brunette curls tickling the skin of his forearm. “I suppose I still have a gift for figuring out your schemes.” She lightly pinched at the visible dimple in his cheek.
Finnian gave her a pointed look. “An extremely irritating talent, I’d say.”
Isla stole his mug and peered down at the honey-colored liquid in nostalgia. “I am proud of us, Finny. The city we could help you create; the legacies we left behind.”
Her words stabbed his heart. A reminder of how they were not real, but souls trapped in the Land of the Dead. And suddenly, he felt foolish sitting amongst them in a tavern in a village of souls. Stuck in a fleeting dream-like fantasy. He could not stay here, nor could he save them.
His stomach churned with a sourness. “Do not speak of the past to me, Isla, as if you no longer exist.”
“Do not pretend we are still alive, Finny,” Eleanor snapped from his other side.
Her words barely reached him over the overwhelming static of the environment, and the fucking frequency of his hearing aid. The extra effort he was putting in to listen grated on his nerves.
His pulse struck, and his chest grew tight.
On edge, he stood from his stool and stormed out of the tavern.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Isla and Eleanor on his heels. They did not speak, and he refused to stop walking until his feet ran out of road to follow.
Solace immediately found him in the silence. The open air, not trapped under a roof of blubbering souls. Who knew they would be just as loud as the living?
The dull ache thrumming behind his ear lessened. He felt relief in his brain, like a muscle that had strained for too long.Without all the other competing sounds, he would not have to work so hard to listen to Isla and Eleanor’s voices.
