Page 73 of Laced in Longing

And then I see it—the garden he’s told me so much about.

It’s nothing like I imagined, but so him. Different colors rise into the sky, a couple dozen feet tall at least, arches formed where the tops intertwined. Paths split in every direction like a maze, and I have a feeling he built this for the pure joy of getting lost in it.

Roses as big as my head. Lilacs heavy enough that their stems bow. Blue and white and orange and pink are everywhere.

And there, at the mouth of the nearest path, planted where I can’t possibly miss them, dahlias. Deep black petals with the tips gone a dusty rose.

My hand claps over my mouth. “They’re mine,” I whisper. “They’re all mine.”

He doesn’t say anything, content to watch my face the way he always has.

“Every life.” I descent the patio steps until the ground under my bare feet is cool and damp. “Every single one, you grew it. And you—Ash, some of these were a hundred years ago⁠—”

“They have never once stopped blooming. I would not let them.”

I whirl to face him. He’s on the bottom step with his hands at his sides while his throat works, and he is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in either world.

“I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this,” I say—to him or myself, it no longer matters. “I want you to understand that I’ve spent twenty-seven years with a hole in me, and I thought I was born wrong, but it turns out I was just…I don’t know the word for it.”

“Homesick.” He’s exactly right.

“Yeah.” The heel of my hand against my left eye. “Homesick. For a home I’d never been to or knew existed.”

He crosses the last step and takes my face in both hands, and for once there’s no fabric or hesitation—just him.

His eyes search mine before he speaks. “You are home. Say it back to me.”

“I’m home.”

His eyes close, and he almost looks pained. “Again.”

“I’m home.” My fingers curl into his shirt. “I’m home, I’m home, I’m—thank you. For not giving up and for always coming back even when I kept saying no. Thank you.”

“Flower.” His mouth brushes mine, barely. “There was never any version of this where I did not come back to you.”

Behind him, the whole ridiculous garden waits there in the endless dusk, and every flower in it is one I picked out for myself in a life I haven’t remembered, kept alive by a man who did.

There’s no uncertainty within me as I kiss him properly, and for the first time ever, I don’t want to be anywhere else.

EPILOGUE

ASH

The garden has never looked like this.

I built it over centuries, tended it through her continued absence, spoke to the roots when there was no one else in either world who would sit still long enough to listen to me talk about her. And it was beautiful. It was mine—for her—and I was proud of it.

Then my flower touched it.

Four months later, the arches have doubled in height. The lilacs bow so heavy the paths beneath them have purpled with fallen petals, and the roses along the eastern wall opened wide enough that they cup rainwater. On the rare times it does rain.

Nothing died back. Nothing shriveled or struggled. Whatever she is, whatever the Bright Gods stitched into her before they lost track of her and shoved her into a mortal body, it emerges from her palms and into everything she touches.

Including me.

She walks a few steps ahead of me now, barefoot as always, though I’ve had a dozen pairs of slippers made for her that she refuses on principle. Her loose hair sways down the length of her back while the hem of her dress drags through the petals and gathers them.

She stops at the new bed near a fountain and crouches, thumbing a leaf.