Leaning up on my tiptoes, I touch my lips softly to his. It’s not much more than a breath of an instant, but I still feel his heartbeat stutter underneath my palm.
Dani stands off to the side, her arms crossed like a wall over her chest, her brows drawn down in vicious slashes. It’s the kind of expression meant to warn people away, but I walk toward her anyway.
“You can be angry with me—” I tell her, stepping up so close that we’re toe to toe, our faces inches apart.
“I am.” Her voice is tight with rage, but her eyes shine with tears, pooling in the corners. “I amfuriouswith you.”
“—just please. Keep them safe. All of them.” I touch a hand to her cheek, running my thumb along the curve of her bottom lip, just like I’d always wanted to but never let myself. “They’re your family now, too.”
Her teeth are clenched hard enough to break bones. “I will never forgive you for this.” Her expression softens and an almost pleading tone enters her voice. “Me and you, ghoulie. We’re survivors.”
“I know.” I lean in and kiss her, too. Light and gentle as a breeze. “But we deserve more than just survival.”
I step back, my eyes finding Atlas and Liren a few steps away, their arms wrapped around each other, their fingers interlaced.
Liren shakes their head, a bittersweet twist to their lips. “You were right, Booker’s friend. You really are trouble.”
A short, soft laugh slips out on my next breath. “I tried to tell you.”
I look at Atlas, who stares back with an expression that’s somewhere between sorrow and resignation. I want to tell him that he was right, that the divinity was inside each of us the whole time, that it was even insideme, which must be some kind of miracle. But I think he already knows that. He nods, once, solemnly, and I nod back.
Then I turn and start to walk back toward the Gate.
My sisters slam into me before I make it two steps, enveloping me in soft arms and hard sobs.
One last hug. One last, precious moment holding one another like we did when the nights were dark and hungry and we wereeach other’s anchors. I tell them that I love them, and they say it back—they repeat it again and again until I am filled up, brimming with it.
I’m not going to forget them. I’m going to carry them with me into whatever comes next.
I imprint this promise, carving it into my bones before I pull out of their embraces for the last time.
The light calls again, singing, and this time I go to it.
NOW
I float above the Gate, eighteen years old and human, but also ageless and infinite, no fear left in me as I look down into the light, at the unmaking that is waiting for me beyond. I relive every moment, every memory.
The first time I phased. Big Haul’s murder. Gabriel being taken…
They’re solid at first, clear. And then scattering, intermixing, confused puzzle pieces. I am present but also past, touching and experiencing every previous version of myself I’ve ever been.
The one who lost their parents too young.
The one who helped carry their sisters until those sisters could walk on their own.
The one who ran the alleys barefoot like a shadow.
The one who forged themself into a knife to cut away all their soft pieces.
The one who was born with lightning in their chest and dreams of rain.
With my arms out wide, I fall into that pool of liquid light. It sears across my eyes, and it isn’t blue or white, after all, but anincredible riot of hundreds of colors, so many I don’t have names for them all. Trinity’s song rings joyously, clearer than I’ve ever heard it in my life.
I let go of every cell, every atom of my body, drifting in infinite directions, until all that’s left in the end is me, spreading through the air like stardust, reaching downward.
Until I am unmade.
And Trinity is unmade.
