“You have a habit of discounting those you consider weak. I assure you, there is nothing weak about the hearts of mortal men. Or children,” he adds, his eyes briefly flicking to mine. “You only saw in the eye what you wished to see.”
Chronos’s face pales as Lyon gently pries the staff from his hand. “And now you have come to reclaim your teeth?”
“Not my teeth,” Lyon says, his eyes pinched with regret. “I’ve come for yours.”
I recoil, shielding Jack from the blinding flash as Lyon plunges the scythe into Chronos’s heart. Chronos’s magic jumps from his body into the staff, passing into Lyon like a finger of lightning. Chronos’s lips partaround a silent scream as his body crumbles to ash. Our group huddles close around Jack and Chill as a frigid wind howls through the valley. Thunder claps. The ground shivers. We duck our heads, holding each other’s shoulders, shielding Jack and Chill from debris as waterspouts rise off the lake, pulling trees up by their roots.
Suddenly, the air stills. The leaves hush and the surface of the lake settles.
When I open my eyes, Chronos’s ashes are gone.
I pull myself from Jack, hopeful that maybe something has changed. But he’s pale. So pale, it’s as if he’s empty. The last spindle of light is already puncturing his skin. I press his hand to my cheek, willing him to hold on.
“It’s done.” Lyon staggers, grasping the staff for balance. He sinks to his knees.
“What’s wrong with him?” I shout. Lyon clutches his chest. “What’s happening?” And what does that mean for Poppy, Jack, and Chill?
Gaia takes him by the shoulder as he sinks to his knees. “He cannot be both a Season and Time. No mortal man is strong enough to take the power from the staff. I gave him his Winter magic for this task, but those powers are too strong to live in harmony within him. He’s made his choice.”
She kneels in front of him. Taking his chin in her hand, she reclaims his smaze with a long kiss, drawing it out of him, until the light of Lyon’s magic burns brightly in the back of her throat.
The hem of Gaia’s coat brushes the grass as she kneels beside Jack. She rests a hand on his chest as if she’s listening to his heart, and the sadness in her eyes steals my breath. Tenderly, she brushes Jack’s hair back from his face.
“No,” I sputter. “You have to bring him back! Send him through the ley lines. Put him in stasis. Give him Lyon’s magic. Just do something! Anything! Please!”
“There’s nothing I can do for him, child,” Gaia says, rising to her feet. “Jack made his choice.”
My mind goes numb when she bends over Chill’s body.No. No. No! There must be some mistake.Lyon’s magic pours from her lungs into Chill. And suddenly I see it, as clear as the eye of the crystal itself—the only possible outcome. The one Jack wanted. The one hechose.
I would die for all of them.
Jack will die so Chill can be saved. The same as he would die for any of us. Jack wouldn’t take Lyon’s magic even if Gaia offered it, because one of us needs it.
Chill bolts upright. He blinks at us, his Winter eyes eerily white.
He scrambles to his knees, crying out Poppy’s name as if he’s been drowning in dreams of her. Frost blooms on his breath. Crystallizes over his skin. Staring at the blood on his hands, he clambers away from us. A tear freezes on his cheek as he searches our faces. Without a word, he staggers off, drawn toward a small mound in the grass.
If there’s anything left of my heart, it’s gone, shattered, when Chill pulls Poppy’s limp body into his arms. She heard Chill scream, probably saw us all struggling. She must have used her last breaths to make it down that hillside, to get to us. She’d always been terrified of dying alone.
I start to stand, to go to her, but I can’t let go of Jack. I won’t.
“Jack’s made his choice,” Gaia says again, tipping my chin up to look into my eyes. “But you’ve never truly made yours. Poppy has always known her mind. She knew it the moment you died in the hospital allthose years ago, when she insisted on coming with you. But perhaps, not until very recently, have you truly known your own.”
Chill scoops Poppy into his lap and presses a kiss to her lips. He closes his eyes, like he’s making a wish.
Or a choice.
All along, there was only ever one person in the story who had the power to change the outcome.... Your choice will determine the ending. For both of us.
“I never made a choice,” I whisper, the lines of Jack’s plan coming together in my mind until I finally understand. “In the hospital, when I died, I didn’t choose to save Poppy. Poppy chose to die with me. Because she didn’t want to be left behind. She was afraid to die alone. That was never my choice.” I told Jack as much that night we walked to the pond. “But that means I...” I look down at Jack. Then across the field at Poppy, guilt and obligation and love warring inside me as Chill gathers her to him. Finally, I understand what Jack knew all along. He knew the ending, right up until this very moment. Up until the part I had to figure out on my own.
That it never mattered what happened to the lion’s teeth, or that the father cast the lion out. In the end, the girl could rise up against her father and bring her lion back whenever she wanted. That Jack would choose to die for us, because he trusted me to save us, to savehim, even if it meant losing a piece of himself.
“I choose you,” I whisper to him, taking his cold face in my hand. “I chose you years ago, in that bus station bathroom, the day you first asked me what it was I wanted. I’ve chosen you every day since. And I promise, magic or no magic, I’ll hold on to you. I will not let you go.”
Epilogue
Six Months Later
