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“I already have,” he answers. I lean against his chest and close my eyes, knowing that it’s entirely true.

Epilogue

Valerie & Rakan

The screech of packing tape cuts through the quiet living room as I drag the dispenser across the last cardboard box. Inside are three sweaters, the last of my grandmother’s mismatched coffee mugs, and the maritime law tome I once used to build a case against Sigurd’s company.

I slice the tape and add the box to the stack in the corner. Most of the cottage is already packed. It makes the room look larger than it ever did when I lived here. The bookshelves are bare, and the photographs have come down. Pale rectangles mark the places where furniture protected the wallpaper from years of sunlight.

Rain taps steadily against the windows. A fine coastal mist hangs over Saltweather today, softening the houses across the lane. I draw in a long breath without thinking about it, and the air fills my lungs easily.

For several days after we returned from the abyss, I kept waiting for the old burning pressure to come back. It never did. The completed claim settled whatever the first one left unfinished. Now the Saltweather air only smells like rain and the harbor.

I carry the tape dispenser into the kitchenette and drop it beside the kettle. Two mugs wait on the counter, already steeping with chamomile. I take both into the living room.

Hattie is curled into one corner of the faded couch with a tissue crushed in her hand. Her eyes are red enough that pretending she has allergies would insult both of us.

“Drink this before it gets cold.” I hand her the blue mug and sit beside her. “I put extra honey in it.”

Hattie accepts the tea with both hands and stares into the steam. “I still can’t believe you’re moving to the bottom of the ocean. What if you want to order pizza? You can’t even call anyone down there.”

“Sigurd’s staff can handle pizza. Bastian makes an excellent deep-sea flatbread.”

“It’s not the same.” She takes a slow sip and looks around the half-empty room. “The library won’t be the same either. I’m going to miss you yelling at the trolls.”

“I’ll ask Sigurd to improve the postal system. He enjoys fixing things nobody asked him to fix.”

Hattie gives a watery laugh and leans into me. I wrap an arm around her shoulders and pull her against my side.

“I’m going to miss you,” she says quietly. “Probably more than I’m prepared to admit.”

“I’m going to miss you too. You’ll just have to save up your complaints for my visits.”

We sit there for a while with the rain tapping against the windows. Hattie keeps both hands around her mug, and I let the silence settle.

“If you ever change your mind about visiting, Ysra can help with the pressure suit,” I offer.

Hattie shoots me an unimpressed look. “I love you, but I’m not voluntarily descending into an abyssal trench. I intend to keep saying that from the safety of sea level.”

“That confidence might last until curiosity gets involved.”

“I’m willing to take that risk.”

We finish our tea without rushing. Hattie carries both mugs into the kitchenette, and I pick up the last bag beside the couch. Our coats are waiting near the door.

We leave the cottage beneath a steady coastal drizzle and start down the sloping pavement toward the harbor. Rain slicks the cobblestones and carries the familiar smell of brine, diesel, and wet rope up from the docks.

Sigurd’s yacht waits at the end of the breakwater, enormous enough to make every trawler around it look temporary. Hattie slows beside me and squints through the rain at the polished black hull.

“He’s taking up half the municipal slip. I hope somebody charged him for all of that.”

“I’m sure the harbormaster found an appropriately insulting number. Sigurd probably paid it without looking.”

“That somehow makes it worse.”

The loading zone is already busy. My packed boxes move steadily up the metal ramp, and two hulking stone gargoyles carry the heavier furniture beside human longshoremen in high-vis jackets. A draft-horse centaur waits behind them with the last cart of books.

Then I spot Sigurd near the bottom of the ramp.