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“All this time I thought I was praying to the star above. But I’ve been praying to you.”
“The world could burn, and the heavens could turn to dust. But you and I endure, Willa. This…this is eternal.”
Who cares about feeling the silk of flowers, when I’m the only one with the pleasure of feeling the silk of Willa’s skin?
Willa grins. “You’re incorrigible.” “Entirely.”
“I won’t wish away one moment of being with you, Willa. Not for the island. Not for anything.”
Because though the island has begun to heal, I know in the depths of my magic—in the deterioration of my body—my time is running out.
“There is nothing to find in the colors of the sunset, I can’t find in the colors of you.”
And in fact, it isn’t just his eyes, but all of him that’s grown dimmer over the past few weeks.
our bed.” I shiver,
figurehead towers above us—a skull with flowers and ribbons growing out of the hollows of the eyes and nose and mouth.
The black sails ripple in an invisible breeze, as if the ship is on the precipice of a long journey,
This ship represented everything I’d always longed for growing up under Pan. The crew became my family. The ship became my home.
Always chasing another horizon, another shoreline where I might find something to fill the eternal hole inside me.”
“I never did.” He meets my gaze. “Until you.”
took something he loved, even if his love was twisted and dark. So he stole mine."
“I needed you to know, Willa,” he says, his voice a rasp of a whisper. Soft and desperate.
“I would do it all over again. Every bit of the pain, the guilt, the darkness. I would choose the same path, and let the entire world know me as the villain, so long as it led me to you, Willa. Even if all I had with you was a few moments, I’d do it all over again.”
“You are not an anchor, Willa. You are the freedom I’ve always been searching for. And I hope you know just how deeply I love you.”
as screams echo off the high chamber ceiling and reverberate against my ears. I don’t understand they’re coming from my own mouth until Marina is at my side, taking my hands in hers, her face white with terror.
There’s no way the universe would give him to me, only to steal him away.
I can be the hero, if you will be my villain.
The tide has risen in the short amount of time
Tick, tick, tick.
The water laps against the keel in time to the rapid beat of my heart.
The very thing that connects us—pain—has also made us into survivors.
Niko and I—we’re eternal.
count. I know by the slick, cold feeling sliding over my skin, that whatever lies at the bottom of the staircase is dangerous. The heart of Letum. The lifeblood of Somnya. The Aeternalis’ creation borne of dreams and adventure and magic.
For Niko. For Letum. But more importantly, for me.
“The stories, Willa…they all paint Niko as a villain, but he’s something far worse—a sniveling hero.”
“You’ve experienced far too much of humanity to fall for a few simpering words and a good fuck.”
“There can only be one anchor. If you tie yourself to the island, the Carrion King will die.”
“I can’t wait to watch every time you remember, Willa,” Dawson breathes above me, his voice drifting further and further away as I grab hold of the paintbrush in my mind. “When eternity sprawls out before you, a never-ending path of monotony and loneliness.”
“Remember how hard you fought for this.”
I am the anchor of Letum now. Which means the deaths of the Strayed are now mine.
Dawson was right. The King of Carrion is dead.
“You promised,” I cry. “You promised me we were eternal. That you wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“You promised, you promised, you promised.”
Every piece of me I trusted him with will die along with him. The good and the kind and the brave.
But Tiernan—kind, funny, loyal, Tiernan—doesn’t stop trying. Not for Niko, I realize, but to protect me.
You are mine.
Mine, mine, mine.
Tick, tick, tick. A taunt, a curse—that even if I dabble in the darkest parts of the universe, if I erase every other human from existence, my heart will stubbornly beat on.
Smeeger,
“I say this with love, Sam…but kindly, fuck off,” I bite acerbically, as my legs wobble beneath me. Now that I’m standing,
“You are more than a dream…more than my most wild imaginings.”
To give you all the power you’ve ever dreamed, so that all your most beautiful imaginings would come true. To love you as well as I could in my last moments.”
“I told you there is always a cost to power, and I knew you would never accept the price of this one.”
“You are worth more than the pieces of yourself you can tithe.”
I’ve never possessed the kind of strength needed to deny myself the privilege of giving Willa everything she deserved. Of using the little I possessed to ensure she was happy and powerful and free.
“Do you hear me, Niko? I told you what I wanted. You. Your death, your cruelty, your possession. Your mercy, your kindness. You were my power. You were my freedom. I only ever wanted all of you.”
