“Good. Gregor, get Arina. We leave now.”
Chapter 18
The tunnels stretch ahead of us from the intersection where we stand. A Worldkeeper gives us each brief but clear instructions. Twino and Ren will emerge into the city through a forgotten sewer grate. Gregor and I will go back to the portion of tunnels I know.
We’re headed in opposite directions.
The four of us stand together, not saying anything for several seconds. We all need to go. Yet none of us can bring ourselves to move.
This isn’t goodbye,I try to tell myself. The two have already said they won’t leave Eclipse City, at least not yet.So why…why does it feel like the last time I’ll ever see them?
“Where are you going to go?” I ask, thinking they might answer with a bit more detail now that there are no Worldkeepers around. Though, logically, I know better. Everything echoes down here, and there might always be someone in the shadows.
“I had half a mind to buy a home in Fated Heights,” Twino says.
“Pfft.” Gregor’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. “Where do you think you’re going to get the money for that?”
Twino grins slightly. “I handled the accounting for the Starcrossed Club, remember?”
“You…” Gregor shifts Arina in his arms as he takes a step forward. “That was the club’s money.”
“Do we need it now?” Twino glances between us. Ren is looking rather smug at his love’s side. I can’t stop a mischievous grin on their behalf. “The money was in the bank under an alternate name Bristara went by, not the club’s.”
Ren straightens. “And this kindly older woman happened to have a nephew who will come to claim her fortune, now that word of her untimely demise has reached him. Such a shame she had no other heirs.”
I let out a laugh.
“You can’t honestly let this happen,” Gregor says to me.
“There’s no more club.” I shrug. “I don’t need it. And you’re throwing in your lot with the Worldkeepers. Let Twino and Ren use it. We all worked for that money, seems only fair some of us reap the reward.”
“Thank you,” Ren says to me.
“Stay safe, please.” My throat is thick with a lump I can’t swallow as I pull Ren then Twino in for a tight embrace. Twino and I linger over our hug a bit longer.
“As safe as anyone can be these days,” he says softly.
I nod.
“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do,” Ren says as Twino and I break apart.
“That leaves plenty of room for trouble,” I point out.
“I know.” He grins.
“Shall we?” Twino looks to Ren.
“Lead the way.”
The two men walk into the tunnel, figures growing smaller and fainter in the flickering lamplight until the darkness swallows them completely. This is it…the end of the Starcrossed Club. The end of everything that’s ever made me feel safe since Mother’s death. The end of what made me who I am.
The same feeling as earlier returns with more clarity.It’s not goodbye…But it is the end of an era. A turn of fate’s wheel. I will see themagain, but when I do, our paths won’t be overlapping anymore. Not as they have been. We’ll be “old friends” catching up. It’s not bad. It’s just different in a way that makes my heart ache.
Everything I loved is leaving. I look to Gregor, and judging from his expression, he’s having many of the same thoughts.
“It’s just us now,” I say softly, my eyes falling to my sister cradled in his arms. It still hurts to look at her.
“Hey…” He takes a step closer. “For ‘just us,’ we’re going to be pretty fucking unstoppable.”
