Heat swells, and I forget about the woman wreaking havoc in my room full of statues. “We can’t flake out on Andromeda’s quarter party. She is a child.”
Heather melts, blissful, adoring, and I don’t know how I’ve survived this long without seeing how deeply she cares about me on her face. I have felt it, of course, but the way it fills her…the way it sparks in everything she is…is beautiful.
“What about everything else?” she asks.
“Yes…” I touch my forehead to hers. “I believe that will be all right. What have you in mind we do instead?”
Her smile teases and taunts as her gaze settles behind me, on the door. “Humans go mad in Faerie, because magic enters a blood stream unprepared to house it. That’s what I’ve learned from some of the books on magic that I’ve been reading. These humans, however, have stewed in magic prisons for ages. What if they’re more magic than human now? What if they don’t have to behumananymore? What if…we can give them a better home here, in our pandemonium, just like the one you’ve given me?”
My heart lightens, finding a completeness in that idea. It shakes me to my core. What if instead ofnothingness, I provide rest to the broken before my love offers them a chance to be reborn? What if I am not meant to be empty or cold or lifeless like stone? What if I am instead the peace before the blazing dawn?
I say, “I suppose…it’s their choice. They can cling to the darkness they’ve known, or they can accept a future with your light. It’s all up to them. I am grateful that I finally know what I’d choose.”
“Me, too.” Heather smiles, kisses my cheek, and steps forward, my hand in hers.
As her tiny wings spread and grow and burn to consume the pain of ages gone, I experience—for the first time in my life—what it means to be whole.
Epilogue
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The end.
Castor
“So is this partyactuallyfor the children?” I ask, looking at both new faces and people I’ve known for ages but have rarely ever seen. I am holding my Ash again, because Alexios and Zahra both came, and they both trust me even without my blindfold. Though I’m almost positive that only Andromeda goes to this charming little school drenched in sandwoman magic, every single faerie who comes to movie night is also here.
Sipping punch out of a mushroom cup in this magical tavern Kassandra’s crafted to take the place of a mundane cafeteria, Pollux asks, “What makes you say that?”
I glance toward Kassandra where she mingles with the human children and the human children’s poor sad parents, who can’t see past the glamour convincing them that this entire mushroom speakeasy is a pathetic little rectangle cafeteria with linoleum floors and worn-out appliances.
As far as I can tell, there are not many parents or children left.
“Josh, take that out of your mouth this instant,” a woman I suspect to beJosh’smother snaps. She then sighs and suggests that it’s getting late. Even though it’s still quite early.
“Oh, I wonder,” I muse, grinning when my eyes locate myvillain girlieshuddled around their new leader, the most villain girlie of them all—my Heather.
Willow grumbles into her own mushroom cup, “I think Castor needs to pick a color and stick to it. He’s encroaching on Zylus’s multi-colored eye territory, and I don’t appreciate it.”
“Castor’s eyes are prettier than Zylus’s, though,” my soulmate informs her, correctly.
Willow’s nose wrinkles. “Blasphemy.”
“Ladies, ladies,” Alana croons, “we can just all love our own soulmates the most. I’m pretty sure that’s the point.” Diplomatically, she says, “It is not a contest.”
Except if it were, I would win.
Beside me, Alexios sneers at the general decor surrounding us. “Why must all the cups be mushrooms? Why couldn’t it be afigtavern, or acashewone?”
Because fig and cashew taverns sound stupid. Mushroom taverns, by contrast, soundwhimsical. Which reminds me. I probably need to check in with my birb, Whimsy, and tell her all about this marvelous day, sparing no detail of the afternoon.
While I’m pondering whether I should step away for a moment and tell my self-care app how great my mood is and why, Cael lifts his hand and pats Alexios, which earns him a hiss beforemybestie then dodges behind me and out of Cael’s reach.
Smirking at Cael’s distress, I stroke Alexios’s hair and hold the moth prince’s eyes.
Ever regal, Cael frowns. “You don’t have to be like that.”
I flash my teeth. “Don’t I? I may no longer be a villain, but I certainly don’t believe many would call me a hero, either.”
