With a dip of his head, Salvatore steps back to make room for Byron.
The last of my matches takes a typical imposing stance next to the table, as if he’s braced for a challenge. Or maybe tensed against his own guilt. Byron never stooped to casual insults tossed across a room, but I’ve seen him cut a person down with a few coolly dismissive words.
He dips his head. With his short coils recently shaved off, his deep brown eyes look even more penetrating against the rich but slightly lighter brown of his skin.
As always, he keeps his remarks brief and tactful. “Any life lost among us is potential unrealized. I regret that I never got to see what our union would have become with Asher in it. We recognize his place here and commemorate what could have been.”
He eases away, and my three living matches look to me.
It’s my turn. As the mourning mate, I’m always given the final words.
I blink hard and push myself forward. My feet jar to a stop by the table. My fingers itch to reach out and stroke the objects Cole laid out.
In lucent society, people say that the dead live on in the traces of energy they left on everything they touched—the ephemera that forms from every interaction with our surroundings. If I concentrate, I can still sense tiny reverberations of Asher’s presence in the sweatshirt, the book, and the stone. The guileless warmth that drew me to him in thefirst place, run through with quivers of grief and guilt that prove he was more than just his smile.
It’s hard to believe I deserve these final fragments of his presence.
It’s hard not to be afraid that my guilt will radiate right out of my body if I give in to my grief.
Rather than touching Asher’s things, I hug myself, running my hands over my upper arms. It takes a few swallows to clear the lump from my throat.
“Asher was my best friend… my only friend… since we were thirteen. No matter what either of us was going through, I could always count on him. I hope he was able to lean on me just as much.”
Until his final moments. A fragment of memory—scarlet blood streaking across gray asphalt—flips my stomach over.
I hug myself tighter. “I adored him for years. There’s no one else I’d rather have had as a match. I wish we’d gotten the chance to find out what we’d have made of our full connection. He’d have brought so much light and happiness into our lives. I’ll never stop missing him.”
My lungs ache with all the other things I could say. But what would be the point? I’ve said some of it before, and there are too many things Ican’tsay.
Not unless I want to lose the mates I do still have.
Instead, I extend one hand and concentrate on the tickling energy contained in everything and everyone in this room.
Ephemera is much more than the traces of energy all living things leave behind as they pass through the world. It’s the power that fuels our magic.
With a curl of my fingers and a knitting of my brow, I grasp enough of that energy to sculpt it into an illusion. A filmy image of Asher forms above the table, showing him from the torso up as if I’ve brought his photograph to life.
Wouldn’t it be something if I could really summon him, like the mediums a century ago used to claim? Hold a little séance, have a chat with his ghost.
Maybe I wouldn’t like what he’d have to say to me now, but at least I could apologize.
Too bad spiritualism is mostly a sham.
I’ve spent three years researching every occult theory and mythic tale I can dig up, and all I have to show for it is a lot of random facts about made-up bullshit.
I do the best I can. The illusion of Asher gives a light chuckle and lifts his hand like he did the last time I saw him before that blood-drenched night.
Before tears flood my eyes again, I release the conjured image. As I move away from the table, Salvatore and Byron draw in on either side of me. Salvatore slings his arm around my back, and Byron twines his fingers with mine.
A swell of affection fills me as I return their embrace. Not having really known Asher makes this ceremony hard for them in its own way, but neither man has ever complained.
Salvatore leans in to nuzzle my hair. “We’ve got you, Elodie.”
Cole’s gaze weighs on me from where he’s standing a few feet away. When I meet his eyes, he holds mine for a few seconds, unblinking, before jerking his head toward the kitchen. “We should eat.”
His abruptness isn’t out of the ordinary, but on this particular day, it provokes a flicker of panic.
Does he think I’m not mourning his brother deeply enough? Does he suspect I’m not just an innocent victim here?
