“Don’t you get it?” Raven stepped up close, dressed in the black satin pajamas Jack had helped him into hours earlier. Jack was still wearing his clothes from the previous night. Green shirt. Rolled up jeans. They were exhausted and disheveled. They were unstoppable and wild. “I could live in a castle or I could live in the trees. It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re with me. You are my family, Jack. You are my home. All of us can live here together. Lily can have her old bedroom—”

Lily tilted her head up, taking in the sight of the white, billowing curtains. “I’m redecorating everything. I can do that, right?”

“Of course.” Raven nodded at her, smiling. “Belle can have the guest room next door, unless she wants to stay with Edwin. Do you?” he asked tentatively, and Belle let out a bark of a laugh. It startled some blue jays from a tree. But down below the branches, nobody jumped.

“I was already planning to bail.” Belle gestured to a suitcase tucked under the fort of sheets. “I can’t stay there anymore. I’ll never be free if I’m living with him.”

“Then it’s settled.” Raven’s fingers slid into Jack’s hair. He guided Jack closer to him, until their foreheads were touching. “We’ll live on the estate together. The house will be our home, and we’ll plant vegetables where the roses used to grow. You’ll never be hungry again,” he whispered, so that only Jack could hear. “You’ll never be alone.”

It sounded like a fairy tale. A story to whisper to a child who was too terrified to sleep. But Jack had separated the world into heroes and villains long ago, in order to survive a life that shouldn’t have been so wicked, and he wanted to believe there was kindness to battle the cruelty. Glittering light to cut through the darkness. He wanted to believe that love was stronger than hate, and as his eyes met Raven’s, love surged in his chest, beating back the pain that had threatened to swallow him for so long.

Raven loved him, and he loved Raven. The four of them could be a family, and no matter what the world tried to throw at them, they would survive it together. It wouldn’t be easy, but it never had been. They could’ve given in to the darkness years earlier, and become like the monsters around them. Grown claws. Cut out their own hearts. Instead, they’d chosen to fight for one another, and maybe they wouldn’t live happily ever after, because life wasn’t a fairy tale.

But they would live happily.

Acknowledgments

To Mandy Hubbard, my unstoppable knight of an agent, for constantly fighting on my behalf. You make my work stronger, fiercer, and bolder every time. Thank you.