“Mr. Hues, the commissioner, Mrs. Vykotsky…” I name my crimes between gasping tears.

“Oh, love.” He shakes his head and runs a bruised hand through his curls. “There’s something I should have told you a long time ago. I killed the old witch. I walked into the foyer of the Commodore Club and was so filled with anger with how she treated you. I snapped her neck before I could think twice. Our magic was already bound. It couldn’t’ve been you. I shouldn’t’ve let you believe it was.”

“But I—” It wasn’t me? The guilt doesn’t dissipate. It still sits heavy as a rock in my throat. She came to the Commodore Club that day for me. “But I still don’t want you to die,” I say, voice somewhere small and far away, thick with tears.

He smiles, revealing the dimple right under his left cheekbone. “Ah, I’m none too crazy about the prospect myself.”

“But you’re going to do it anyway?” I ask.

He nods and takes two large strides toward the veil. I want to cry out. I want to stop him. I want it to swallow him whole. I want to take back everything I’ve ever done that led me to this moment.

Right before he reaches the shimmering surface, he pauses and looks back. His curls in a riot around his head, his full bottom lip split down the middle, his jaw sharp and determined.

He’s looking at me like he wants to crawl inside of me, unspooling, unnerving, and punishing.

“Why?” I sob, broken.

He takes a breath, then smiles, softly, like we are seventeen and in Forest Park again. “Because I love you.”

There are some truths you just can’t swallow.

Finn steps into the veil and disappears.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

And here it is, the terrible truth of my life: there isn’t anyone who has loved me and gone unpunished for it.

“No!” I cry, falling to my knees in my dirt. “No, no, no—” I sob over and over again, crying for a boy who deserves no tears from me.

Maxine and Lena haul me up off the ground, and I collapse backward into their chests.

“Shh, it’s all right,” Lena soothes me. “It’ll be all right now.”

“Look, Frances.” Maxine extends a finger and points at the veil. “It’s already working.”

I open my swollen eyes to see the veil flickering. It’s as if it’s collapsing in on itself like a dying star. The unreality of it all is hard to take in.

The silver surface ripples and glints, growing smaller and dimmer by the second.

Then—with a mighty gust of air, the torches are extinguished, leaving us in total darkness.

The veil flashes brilliant white, leaving spots in my eyes, then winks out completely.

There is a boom so loud it makes my ears hurt, and then there is nothing.