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

by Wendy Heiss

In a sense, death agreed well with her. It had made her invisible. Untouchable. It had made her everything that she had wished to ever be. Somehow though, to her deepest chagrin, she was still not invisible to life. To him. To the one she’d most wanted to be invisible from.

“We can still love things that don’t love us back.”

After so long in her duty as a Reaper, Silene knew for certain that if love was all it took to save someone, they’d all be eternal.

“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.” “You really must be bored.” “Unbearably.”

Gabriel wondered—he wondered if she’d always sensed him, if she knew he’d always been watching for years, hundreds of them.

Gabriel had not once kneeled before anything or anyone, king nor queen, God or Goddess, but for whatever he’d done to deserve her hate, he wanted to kneel before her and beg.

“What’s the point of anything, Silene? Why does anything have to have a point, or make sense, or have worth, or anything like that? Why can’t it just merely exist?” He shook his head, taking a big gulp of the liquor and handing the bottle to her. “Humans are obsessed with putting prices and worth on anything. Valuing and devaluing things that were never meant for them to value or devalue. Anything for the sake of greed, right? Anything for the sake of power? Ingrained on them from the very first breath they take.”

“You have a perfect back,” she said, an unusual skip to her words, “to stick a knife in it.” “Don’t flirt with me, Silene.”

“There hasn’t been a moment ever since the first time I found you that I’ve looked away.”

They started with: Miss me already? The next day. You will have to leave your room. Your lilies look like they need water. And the next. I’ve watered your lilies, you cruel Reaper. And the very next. You must miss me. Surely you miss me. Then again, the very next. Let me see you. Fine, let Tommy see you. And another. 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, just come out. Please.

“Put me down.” “Always trying to run away from me, my ruin.” “I will jump, Gabriel.” “I wouldn’t let you.” “You can’t touch me.” “I will stop the very earth from spinning if I have to.”

No colour had ever mattered to Gabriel. Colours were just colours. But her eyes. Oh, her eyes. The moment he’d looked into them long ago, every existing thing had held a breath with him in acquiescence. He was sure nothing to ever graze any realm, space and nook in the vast universe could replicate that very same colour.

Something cool rested under her chin, and she jolted when she looked down at the tip of a butter knife against her skin. Gabriel used it to gently turn her head in his direction. “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.”