Where the Light No Longer Follows (Blue Fairytales, #3)

by Wendy Heiss

“Besides, he is waiting for the human girl he met years ago.”

MY SHAYYLAAAA

Not as much afraid of what would happen to something like her if she was grazed by his deadly touch,

Wendy i swear to god if you rip my fucking heart out with this book i will kill myself

“What can I say? I like sad, pretty girls who look at me like they wish nothing more but to bury my existence six feet under.”

He wanted to remember her. Everything about her. He wanted everything about her engraved on his skin, for the ink to take root on his bones, for them to feed into his marrow.

Silene stood still, unable to move by Lethe, carrying the bucket of water she’d collected from the river for her flowers, holding it tightly to her chest as she looked at where Death stood almost every morning and all nights, staring at the bright gates of life across the river, waiting for the human woman who he’d left his heart with to sail through them and back into his arms.

Lifting her brush from the bucket, she flicked it in his direction, splattering paint on him. She froze, a hand flying to her mouth, shocked at what she’d done. Ever so slowly, his head turned in her direction and he wiped the paint from his cheek. “So mature,” he said, brushing just the very tip of his paintbrush on her jaw and smearing paint on her face.

“Any other request, my great misfortune, my beautiful demise?”

His teeth dug onto his bottom lip as he looked up at her. “I quite like it down here. Have come to realise why humans get on their knees to pray. Certain things do look like quite something to behold from down here.”

“Deny me, my ruination,” he called as she stepped into the boat over Lethe. “It makes begging all the more enjoyable.”

“Shouldn’t you be busy with—I don’t know—whatever your godly self should be doing?” she shouted back. His words slipped through the veil between worlds as she entered Asphodel, “I want to be busy with you.”

Come out of that damn home and glare at me, shout at me, come out and throw rocks at me, and tell me every single thing you hate about me, but just come out. Please. I can let you throw stuff at Tommy, too, if you’d like. PS: Your lilies are looking a little sad. Are their stems supposed to be bending like that?

“You smell like heaven.” Ignoring the chill that chased down her limbs, she said, “Didn’t know the heavens had a smell.” “Mine does.” “Also didn’t know you owned one. But then, you seem to own many things.” “I don’t own her,” he said, reaching for a veil and pinning it at the back of her head. “But she does own me.”

“You’re so beautiful, Silene. I wanted someone to think you’re mine. Anyone. Even if only briefly.”

“My taunting eidolon, my lovely apparition, my beautiful phantom,” he murmured as a tear fell against the glass frame. “How many more nights must I mourn you?”

“A surprise,” he said, bringing a rose from behind him and brushing the soft petals against her cheek and down her jaw before offering it to her to take. “It will die,” she said, hiding her hands behind her back. “All things die, Silene. All living things wish they could die by gentle hands. This rose will have the gentlest, kindest death of all. A mercy to wither in your hold.”

“Why did you want to come to a theme park?” Silene leaned against the open ledge, looking over the park and the city lights on the horizon. “Saw it in those human magazines. It was in an article called ‘Ten things to do before you die’.” She sighed. “I can see what they mean. It is beautiful up here.” “It really is,” he said, looking at her.

No colour had ever mattered to Gabriel. Colours were just colours. But her eyes. Oh, her eyes.

“Who else has seen your world? Visited your home for terrible tea, met Tommy, been taken out to theatres and cafes?” “Only the one that mattered.”

“I’m not beyond slaying any demon, human or not, if you ask me to, my ruin. Just ask me. Tell me what is hurting you and I will hurt them back two-fold.”

He only raised his head when she carefully and very gently brushed her fingers against his hair. It was a brief, tentative touch, but he looked at her as if he’d found salvation.

“Have I told you,” he said, moving her billowing hair out of her face with the gentility of the wind. “How much I love how you say my name? Like you wish to gut me and eat me alive. I’d let you feast on every single bone. I’d let you pull me apart however you’d like.”

One moment she was there, where she had always been, two feet apart from him. And the next, her arms were reaching over his shoulders, closing around his neck as she got on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. Pain struck her across her chest first, grasping her heart in a firm, tight grip until she could barely breathe. But she’d been barely breathing for hundreds of years now so she paid no mind to it. How could she when his hands cupped her face and pulled her limp, pain ridden body to his firm one.

“I don’t know what I am without them,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I am without the violence.” “You’re Silene. My beautiful Silene with the gentlest, kindest hands. It wasn’t the violence that made you gentle, my ruin, it wasn’t the violence that softened you. You were kind and soft and gentle despite it. You won over all. In spite of all, you won. They could not change you, nor your heart—your kind, gentle heart. And what they could not change they hurt. So let me take it away. Let me rip apart those memories for you.”

“Gabriel—” His name stuck to her lips when he pressed his own over them in a harsh kiss. She was sure the whole universe had frozen. That time had vanished entirely. Maybe she was still in a cruel, cruel dream. Especially when nothing happened. There was no pain. Not at all. There was no pain when she kissed him back, or when her hands grasped his shirt to pull him to her, or when one of his hands cupped the back of her neck and the other banded around her waist to plaster her against him entirely. Seconds passed. Minutes passed. Maybe none at all. Their limbs had tangled with one another's, her fingers grasping his hair, and his fingers grasping hers as they kissed like two stars merging. She could not touch him enough and nor could he.

She lay on the passenger seat like a splatter of colour, a sight he thought he’d never see. A sight that made him so acutely happy it terrified him.

“You will be happy in your new life, my ruin. You will be so happy, that I can promise you.” How could he not know? How could he not know that she was happy now?

“Tonight,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and defeated. “Azriel has asked me to collect my last death. What will happen after…with you…and me?” “You will be reborn.” “And you?” “I will get to watch you live,” he said, smiling, dreaming. “Will I see you?” “No, my ruin, to your luck you won’t. But I will be there. In the sun, the flame of a candle, city lights, and every single moon beam. I will always be with you.”

“I’m never losing you again, Silene. I will rake through every world I know to find you. You will not see me, you will not remember me, but I will be there, you have my word. Will you stop sulking and let me look at you now?”

My beautiful, beautiful demise, live long and well. “Coward,” she murmured, tears clinging to her eyes. “You coward.” Ink started appearing on the letter, new words forming. I am. “Come here,” she whispered. Not if I am to ever let you go. She shook her head. “Then don’t.” I love you. Her knees gave to the ground, her body merely a pile of bones surrendered to the grave she’d opened in her own chest.

Pressing his brow to hers, he sighed. “You’re perfect. How can you fit so perfectly in my hold yet be the only thing I can’t hold onto forever? How can you be made for me so perfectly yet be the one thing I cannot have?”

“You have me.” “Say it again,” he demanded, his touch barely a whisper against her skin, like the gentle graze of spring wind, tentative and careful as he trailed the curves of her breasts until her limbs melted against his hold. “Tell me you’re mine like I am forever yours.” When his hand came around her throat, wrapping there so gently as if she was a flower stem, her eyes drew shut. “I’m yours.”

Holding her timekeeper tightly to her chest, she wished one last time that it would stop working. And when more seconds were wasted away on wishes that couldn’t be fulfilled, she gathered every little bit of strength she had to stand and leave and not scream: Let me be just a ghost only to haunt you for I can no longer love you.