Page 109

“And I couldn’t help but think that if someone you care about really is dead, they’d probably want you to feel the same peace they get to feel now.”

With a rustling of leaves that hummed out a gentle melody, Billy was gone. “What?” I asked at the peculiar expression that crossed Coen’s face.

“That’ll never get old, watching you randomly start talking to animals I didn’t even realize were there. Was that the opossum you told me about?”

“You remembered!” I brightened for a second, then replayed Billy’s words in my head. Garvis would want Coen and I to feel peace. To escape the dark cloud.

“Will you take me to him?” I asked quietly. “One last visit?”

Coen understood what I meant and nodded, the smoky quartz of his eyes glossing over with his own hurt and hope.

And with a tug of his darkness around my waist, we were gone.

I laid him to rest on a lonely isle to the north.

Coen had told me that, but I wasn’t prepared for how breathtakingly beautiful Garvis’s final resting place was when we materialized on the sand.

A gentle mist wrapped around the whole isle, smudging the edges of where glass waves lapped the beach in soothing strokes. The sand itself rose until it melded with a field of plumerias that hadn’t quite bloomed yet.

“This way.” Coen took my hand and led me inland.

We ended up at a mound encircled by rocks he had obviously placed here by hand. As soon as we sunk to our knees before it, my chest cracked open.

“I—I’m sorry,” I choked out. Maybe to Garvis, if his soul was still somewhere here, sitting next to his bones on the beach like we were. Maybe to nobody at all, if he’d gone somewhere else. The words tumbled out anyway. “I’m sorry you saved me, but I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry you never got to travel and fall in love and find your spark. It’s not fair.”

Kitterfol Lexington had wanted my life. Not his. Yet he had paid for it anyway. And maybe it was because of that injustice that I couldn’t seem to pick up my knives again. They were supposed to help me defend myself, not rip away a friend’s life. Not remind me of that single moment when Garvis had exhaled for the last time.

“You know what he would tell you,” Coen said from beside me.

“What?” I shook my head, blinking, and touched his arm. “I’m so sorry. You knew him longer. He was like your family.” Now my tears burned for Coen. “I’m so sorry that you lost him because of me. I wish I could go back. Redo it.” And spare you from this grief, I couldn’t get out when the words swelled in my vocal cords.

Coen shook his head. My reflection wavered in his eyes.

“Did you force Garvis to go to Hallow’s Perch?”

“What? No.”

“Did you command him to come save you when you were cornered?”

“No, but—”

“Did you personally use your knives against him?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then I didn’t lose him because of you, Rayna. But I did get you back because of him. He taught you how to protect your mind when I couldn’t bear to be in it. He helped you thaw the ice around your heart, and I…” Coen turned toward Garvis’s grave. “I will never forget that, brother. I–I have hope. Hope that wherever you are right now, you’re doing everything you didn’t get to do in life.”

Coen turned to me. Grasped my hands. Steeled his breath.

“The island’s counting on you to get your shit together, Rayna. Stop blaming yourself for the horrible thing someone else did. And don’t let yourself be a weapon for anyone else anymore. You don’t have to use your knives if you don’t want to, but you know deep down that was never your problem. That’s what Garvis would tell you right now… in a much nicer way than I ever could, of course.” Coen scratched his head. “Come to think of it, that’s probably what he’d tell me, too.”

I gave a watery laugh. Garvis would have led us to that realization in a roundabout way, leading us through the stars and flowers of our own minds until we confronted the truth.

Maybe, in a way, he’d led us there here. Now.

Sucking in a breath, I let out a humming tune that Mrs. Wildenberg had taught us to sing to encourage plants to grow. The plumeria buds around Garvis’s grave began to unfurl, soft, waxy petals opening up in a rippling circle. I kept humming until they wreathed him, cradling him like a cloud on the edge of nowhere.

Then, slowly, I reached down and pulled out my crescent knife. You don’t have to use your knives if you don’t want to. I could bury them here next to Garvis and never look back. I could throw them out to sea until the waves consumed them.