The wind stopped abruptly, and I fell to the floor.

“That was, by far, the coolest thing I have ever seen,” Max said in awe.

“Shut up, Max.” I heard footsteps, then Nathan knelt down and pulled me into his arms. “Carrie, are you okay?”

I couldn’t speak. I could only sob.

He crushed me in a hug that would have been smothering if I could have stopped crying to breathe in the first place.

“It’s all over,” he soothed, stroking my hair. “You did good.”

“We have to get her heart back from the Soul Eater,” Max said quietly. “Is there someone around here who can help?”

“Dahlia,” I said, wiping my eyes. Without questioning me, Max and Nathan helped me to my feet, and we shuffled into the foyer.

Dahlia descended the stairs, her face streaked with tears. “Did you do it?”

I nodded.

“Then come get your heart.”

She’d stuffed the grayish object into a Ziploc bag. She held it out to me, and I looked it over with uncertainty.

“That’s the one,” Nathan called. “I’d know it anywhere.”

I took the bag.

“If I ever see you guys again, I’ll probably kill you,” Dahlia warned.

“Then I hope I never see you again,” I said, and I meant every word.

I wanted to ask her if she’d stay at the mansion, or if she’d leave. More important, I needed to know if Clarence would be safe with her, since he’d rather stay here and die than face life outside these walls.

But Nathan and Max already headed toward the door, and I didn’t feel like pressing my luck by hanging around any longer.

I didn’t look back as we walked down the driveway, but I couldn’t help imagining that Cyrus’s freed soul glided through the watery afterlife beside me, all the way to the gate.

Twenty-Five

Something Ever After

It was a week before I could get through the day without crying. Most of the time, I stayed in Nathan’s room, curled up beneath the covers of his bed.

Nathan stayed at my side when he wasn’t overseeing preparations for the reopening of the bookstore. We didn’t talk. I don’t think I said a word to him until the sixth day, when my depression lifted long enough for me to decide that I had to ask about the vision I’d seen.

“How long were you married?”

Nathan sighed and lay on the bed beside me. “This is one of those unavoidable conversations, isn’t it?”

“Yep.” I reached for the mug of blood he’d left for me on the nightstand. It had begun to clot, but I drank it anyway, grateful that my appetite had returned.

Nathan cleared his throat. “Almost thirteen years.”

“You loved her a lot.” I laid my hand over his. I’m here for you. Let me in.

When he looked at me, his eyes were rimmed in red. “I love her.”

The present tense shocked me.

He felt it, but he didn’t apologize. “I don’t want you to think I don’t care about you. I do. The blood tie sees to that, I don’t have a choice in that matter. But I can’t let her go.”