Tessa had fallen asleep around dawn, sitting by Jem’s side, holding his hand, her head leaning on the wall. When she stirred awake, she found that the bed was empty. The blankets had been neatly pulled back up and the clothes were gone from the sill.

“Jem,” Tessa said, frantic.

Catarina was asleep in their little sitting room, her head basketed in her arms and resting on their kitchen table.

“He is gone,” Tessa said. “Did you see him go?”

“No,” Catarina said, rubbing her eyes.

Tessa returned to the bedroom and looked around. Had it all been a dream? Had the war driven her mad? As she turned, she saw a folded note on the dresser that said TESSA. She opened it:

My Tessa,

There will be no separation between us.

Where you are, I am. Where we are, Will is.

Whatever else I may be, I remain always,

Your Jem

Brother Zachariah walked through London. The city was gray with night, its buildings reduced to broken remnants of what they had once been, until it seemed a city made of ash and bone. Perhaps all cities would become the Silent City, one day.

He was able to conceal some things from his Brothers, even though they had ready access to his mind. They did not know all his secrets, but they knew enough. Tonight every voice in his mind was hushed, overwhelmed by what he had felt and what he had almost done.

He was bitterly ashamed of what he had said this night. Tessa was still grieving Will. They shared that grief, and they loved each other. She did still love him. He believed that. But she could not feel what she had felt for him once. She had not, thank the Angel, lived as he had lived, in bones and silence and on memories of love. She’d had Will, and loved him so long, and now Will was lost. He worried that he had taken advantage of her misery. She might well cling to what was familiar in a world gone mad and strange.

But she was so brave, his Tessa, carving out a new life now the old life was lost. She’d done it once already, as a girl coming from America. He had felt it as a bond between them long ago, that they had both come across the seas to find a new home. He had thought they could find a new home with each other.

He knew now that had been a dream, but what had been dreams for him could be real for Tessa. She was immortal and valiant. She would live again in this new world, and build a whole new life. Perhaps she would love again, if she could find a man who would measure up to Will, though in almost a hundred years Zachariah had not known any who could. Tessa deserved the richest life and the greatest love imaginable.