“Don’t get into any more trouble while I’m gone.”
Corin jerked her head up, but the demon had already stood to walk away. “Where are you going?”
“I’m getting my amulet back.” Their silhouette disappeared inside the jungle. Corin followed the flicker of their cape, bounding past the foliage until she could reach them. Her boots pressed heavy into the soil as she blocked their path.
“I’ll go with you,” she said. “It was my fault you lost the amulet in the first place.”
“No. It’s too dangerous, and you’ll only cause more trouble. The more people who venture inside the island, the more chaos unfolds.”
Corin swallowed hard, remembering how Malicine had to carry her through the island. Terrors in all figments had swarmed them both. The two of them had barely made it out. If she joined Malicine, she couldn’t guarantee she would prevent the nightmares from taking her again.
The demon brushed the woody vines from their view to catch a glimpse of the rumbling island across the ocean. Their eyes turned distant, a veil of thoughts that Corin couldn’t discern.
“It’s strange. I always thought abandonment would be all I’d ever know. Yet somehow, the most unexpected of people have come back for me. First Amelia, now you.” A chuckle escaped Malicine’slips as they shook their head, finding humor in the irony. “I wonder how many people in the real world share your foolish hearts.”
Corin followed the demon’s descent down the mountains. Sunlight brought warm air to the jungle as bees buzzed around orchids and giant water lilies. Sweat slicked the side of her temple, but instead of humidity, it came from frantic thoughts racing through her head. There was no way Malicine could escape Autumnland unscathed. She tried not to listen to crackling branches as they moved, or else she would continue to imagine them trapped in the island forever.
A path of rubber trees parted way for the beach’s sandy opening. The sun fully emerged above the ocean as Briar waved them over. Before Malicine took another step, they turned to Corin.
“If I don’t make it back, tell Briar that I...”
The words drifted away like salt in the air. They paused, lost in thought.
“Tell her what?” Corin asked.
“It’s fine. I don’t have to say it for her to know.”
Briar stopped when she saw the expression on Malicine’s face. Her arms fell to her sides, like a sunflower drooping once it sensed the light would not stay forever.
“You’re leaving.” She said it not as a question but a sad truth, one of many she had been accustomed to in a previous life. Malicine nodded, and Briar’s face fell, as if she already knew she wouldn’t be able to change the demon’s mind. She balled her hands into fists for a long moment. Her fingers eventually flexed free as she threw herself to Malicine in a tight embrace.
“When you come back, we’ll have a tea party,” she said. “There will be pastries, and scones, and even those ugly floppy hats you hate. That’s why you must come back, Mal.”
Malicine ran their nails through Briar’s hair. Corin witnessed a flicker of sadness pass their eyes, an unspoken truth that settled on their lips. They didn’t reply, because they couldn’t promise anything. Instead, they pressed a kiss at Briar’s temple. It was the most tender Corin had ever seen Malicine, and that was how she knew the demon did not expect to return.
Malicine and their raven spread their wings and soared toward Autumnland, their figures swallowed whole by gray clouds. Briar watched with a quiet intensity that Corin recognized in fleeting moments. The girl’s eyes were the color of sea glass, filled with endless water and light. They knew more than she let on, and more than Corin had understood before. She was not a naive princess cursed against her will, and Malicine was not a villain. They were simply people who wanted to escape.
This world wasn’t real, but its inhabitants were. Like a secret, Corin wanted to protect it.
“You should paint again,” Briar spoke while staring into the ocean. “That way, when Mal and Talon return, you’ll have something to show them.”
Saliva dried in Corin’s mouth. “I can’t—” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“You don’t know how to paint? I don’t believe that.”
“No. I don’t know how to do any of this.”
Corin gestured to their surroundings, the waves washing over rocks, the sunlight filtering through clouds. Beautiful colors, whimsical shapes, a sense of peace that could never be possible in the real world. These had always belonged in paintings, not reality. But Briar placed a hand on Corin’s cheek, and somehow, her touch didn’t feel like a lie. As their skin warmed against each other, Corin realized she was trembling, and that Briar had tried to keep her still.
“You’ve always shielded yourself with anger, but that doesn’t have to be the only way to deal with the pain,” Briar said. “Maybe you can’t forgive yourself out there, but you can here.”
Corin wanted to hope this was true. That all she needed to do was remember she loved Elly, and that would be enough. Perhaps, in this world, she could think of impossible things and make them possible. She closed her eyes as her heart ached with a strange, sweet throbbing. Her fingers wrapped around Briar’s hand and squeezed them, so she could feel the warmth of the Briar’s skin, the pulse in her veins, that truth in her voice.
Waves rippled gently against her feet. A burst of seagulls chimed in the sky at the arrival of a new presence.
Corin opened her eyes to see the water swell. The sea gave birth to familiar life. She ran to the ocean and caught the girl in her arms. The girl wasn’t limp and cold, like the infant Corin once saved in the river, but full and warm. Her face slicked wet like a newborn, her spiky hair peppered by the salt of sea. Water dripped down her long lashes, and Corin’s thumbs rubbed over her cheeks to wipe them away, cupping her small face until the girl finally took a breath. Brown eyes opened, round and full of light from a sun that kissed her skin and brought her to life.
Corin stared at her for a long time, memorizing every detail of her beautiful sister’s dark skin, her pattern of freckles, her crooked tooth. Elly was here, and at the same time, Corin knew she was not.
