You go get to hang out with a bunch of weird, seriously screwed up humans.”
“I’ll fit right in, then.”
“My thoughts exactly!
You and your entire world have changed me, pulling me further and further from myself. I am not proud of it. She remains unsullied.”
“Well, goody for her.”
“Child?” The Light Queen’s voice stilled the turbulent waves of my soul, singing calm and grace to every fiber of my being. Neamh. Ah, there, I was pissed off again.
Neamh. Evie. Neamh. Evie. Lend, Lend, Lend. Neamh. Evie.
“What are you doing, my love?”
I scowled at Reth for breaking my concentration. “Thinking. Shut up.” The Light Queen was speechifying up on a podium made of liquid light, her radiance bathing all the faeries in a glow that was nearly overpowering. Within a few seconds of being around this much faerie glamour I was having a hard time seeing straight and found myself slack-jawed and dazed. Thus, the name equivalent of pinching myself.
I realized at some point she had stopped talking, and now every single set of faerie eyes—a few hundred of them—were trained intently on me.
“Oh, uh, hey.” I waved. “What did I miss?” I whispered to Reth.
“You’re supposed to tell us how to convince the Dark Court to join us.”
“I—What? Seriously? I’m only here to make sure everything happens. I thought the queen would have a plan! I’m a glorified doorman. I open the gate, I close the gate. Nowhere in my job description of Empty One does it say I also manage to convince a mob of anti-Evie faeries to saunter through the gate.”
Reth smiled. “And just when she’d finished praising human ingenuity and assuring us that everything will work out according to plan.”
“Yes! Plan! Her plan! Gosh, you guys are sucking it up all over the place. Aren’t you supposed to have these things in place for centuries, or were you too busy writing pretty little poems to describe the plans that you never bothered actually making them?”
His golden eyes, now with fine lines around them, twinkled with amusement. “We had a plan, my love. I was to fill you up and you were to open a fate for us immediately. But I seem to recall you doing everything in your power to resist and change that plan. So now we’ve had to account for all the other creatures from our world and conform to your requirements. I think you’ll find that we fey, while obviously superior in nearly every way, are not quite as adaptable as temporary creatures. If you want improvisations, you’ll have to provide it yourself.
What is it?” Lend asked, noticing my stare as he wrapped his scarf around my neck. I was far, far from cold right now, but it was sweet of him. “And why is your voice different?”
“You really are beautiful. And I really want to kiss your brains out. But I’ve got to make a gate and save the world and stuff first.”
“Kiss my brains out after?”
I bit my lip. “Are you going to . . . will there be an after?”
“Hurry, please,” Reth said.
Lend ignored him and pulled me closer, his lips touching my ear. “The only world for me is the one you’re in. Let’s make the best life we can here and not worry about what comes after. I want to grow old with you.”
“Really? We’ll get rocking chairs and be all cute and wrinkly!”
“You’ll be wrinkly. I’ll just pretend to be.”
I punched him lightly in the stomach, but closed my eyes, my own soul once again singing out louder than the others in me. “Best plan I’ve heard this week. And, trust me, I’ve heard a lot.”
“I love you forever, Evie.”
I pulled back and kissed him, all the energy and light in me springing up in joy and passion and happiness. “I love you forever, too, my Lend.”
“Wow, your lips are really hot. Literally and metaphorically. But mostly literally.
I won’t let this happen! I’ll—” Her shrill voice cut off, although her mouth kept moving. I turned to Reth, who raised an eyebrow at me from his seat on the ground.
“I am not going to miss humanity,” he said.
I laughed. “Humanity’s not going to miss you, either.”
Raquel smiled, then motioned to the werewolves, who were only too happy to come and bodily haul away a now rapidly flailing Anne-Whatever Whatever.
“Will she get her voice back when you leave?” I asked Reth.
“I may have accidently made that permanent.”
“Well darn. Too late now!
Stop,” a woman shouted. Everyone turned to see someone in a power suit and sensible pumps stomping out of the trees toward me. It was not Raquel. Raquel was running after her, swearing rapidly in Spanish and trying to grab Anne-Whatever Whatever.
“Wow, you are so not invited,” I said.
What do you think will happen to IPCA if you take all these creatures out of the world?”
“Hmm. I believe the answer falls somewhere under the categories of Don’t Know and Don’t Care. Take your pick.
I want you to know how proud I am. You’re doing the right thing, and I don’t want you to worry about what’s going to happen after. We’ll figure it out.” She looked back at David and beamed, as happy as I’d ever seen her.
“I have no doubt of that. Although I do have one serious concern.”
“Yes?”
“UPARG? It doesn’t roll off the tongue in quite the same way IPCA did.”
Raquel heaved a why must you joke at inappropriate times sigh, then lifted her chin haughtily. “Well, maybe we won’t invite you to be a part of it, then.”
I laughed. “Please, by all means, leave me out. I think it’s high time I retire.”
“Even if we issue you your own custom companion Taser for Tasey?”
I pursed my lips thoughtfully. “We’ll talk when I’m done here.
He waved and shouted, “All clear on the front! Also, to my fabulous faerie friends, good-bye and good riddance!” He let go of Carlee’s hand, turned around, and dropped his pants.
Jack’s brilliantly white, moonlit mooning of the unearthly crowd was strangely beautiful. Lend was less amused, rolling his eyes and muttering, “My mom’s right there. Can’t we send Jack, too?
Okay,” I said, looking up to find the gate in the stars. I lifted a hand, only to have it jerked violently down.
“What are you doing?” Reth hissed.
“I’m making the gate!”
“Not that one.” His eyes were wide with—fear?
“Why are you so scared of that gate?”
He looked to the side, deliberately avoiding staring at the stars. “Because that is . . . that is another part of eternity. It’s not ours.”
I frowned. “But I sent the other souls there.”
“Yes, and without bodies they were ready to go there. But I am not, nor will I ever be.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Ooh, poor little Reth, are you scared of what happens after you die?”
His voice and face were shockingly sincere, his skin pallid and his lips nearly blue. “More than anything. I have no desire to discover that realm of eternity. None of us do, which is why we need that gate. Myself most desperately. Now, please.”
I looked back up at the stars, trying to figure out if I was scared of that gate or not. And, strangely enough, I discovered I wasn’t. It was like Lend and I had talked about—no one could say when they were going to die. You did the best with the time you had, filled it with people and things you loved, and hoped that whatever came after was as good or better. I was finally okay with this whole finite mortality thing.
“Alright, you big pansy. I’ll figure out the other one.
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