“… that is not true. i am a part of you. and you are the all of me…”
“Bullshit!” she screamed, lightning tearing at the skies. “You’re a leech! A fucking parasite! You love me because of what I give you, and that’s all!”
“… mia—”
“I want you gone, do you hear me?”
The not-cat tilted his head. Shivered slightly. And for the first time since the turn they met, the first time he spoke to her from the dark of her own shadow, all those years and miles and murders ago, he sounded afraid.
“… what do you mean…?”
“I mean get the fuck away from me!” she roared, spittle flying, snot spilling down her lips. “Go back to the ’Grave and crawl into the black you fucking came from. Find someone else to ride. I don’t want you anywhere near me!”
“… mia, no…”
She stood there with hands in fists, the blood of her friends pooling about her feet, head pounding in time with her pulse. The sight of those bodies, the memory of Bryn’s laughter, the smile on ’Waker’s face as he pranced about in his decrepit old theater … it filled her belly with broken glass, her eyes with scalding tears.
Eclipse coalesced between them, her voice low with sorrow.
“… PERHAPS YOU SHOULD GO…”
“… ah, always can we count on you, mongrel, for advice both ill-timed and unasked for…”
“… SHE TOLD YOU TO LEAVE…”
“… you have no right to a voice here. i have walked with her for eight years, and you, a handful of heartbeats. now silence your tongue before i rip it out…”
“… DO NOT PUSH ME, MOGGY…”
“… then get out of my w—”
“ENOUGH!”
Mia drew back her hand, clawed at the air between them, at the dark he was made of. The shadowcat yowled and flinched at her blow, a fine black mist spattering against the wall behind him before evaporating into nothingness. He tumbled away, disappearing and coalescing on the broken level above her head.
“Get out of here!” she roared.
“… mia, don’t…”
“Go!”
“… mia…”
“GO!” she cried, raising her hand again.
And with one final look
A soft sigh
“… as it please you…”
He vanished.
Mia slumped down onto her knees again, arms wrapped around her chest to hold in the sobs. Of all the deaths she’d seen gifted or given in kind, these hurt worse than almost all of them. These were her friends. Folk who loved her. People she’d risked everything for and who’d risked everything for her in turn. All those months in the collegium together, bleeding together, living and fighting together, and in the end, this was where it finished. Some broken tower in a stretch of nowhere.
All of it had been for nothing.
She felt a gentle touch on her shoulder.
“THEY ARE BY THE HEARTH NOW, MIA,” Tric murmured.
Thunder rocked the skies above. Bitter tears welled in her eyes.
“You think that makes this easier?” she whispered.
“IT IS WARM THERE. FULL OF LIGHT AND LOVE AND PEACE.”
She hung her head. Face twisting as she tried to hold in the sobs. The wind was colder than she could ever remember feeling. The hands of fate, colder still. And yet, these weren’t just platitudes Tric was speaking—he’d actually been beyond the veil between life and death. And if there was some kind of peace in it …
“What will they see?” she whispered, looking up at him. “What did you see?”
The deadboy turned to the storm above, watching the rolling gray with eyes the color of night. Thunder rumbled again, and Mia shivered in the chill. It was a long time before he answered.
“WHEN I AWOKE AFTER I FELL,” he said, “IT WAS IN A PLACE WITH NO COLOR AT ALL. THE QUIET MOUNTAIN LOOMED AT MY BACK, SHROUDED IN EVERNIGHT. BUT BEFORE ME, FAR IN THE DISTANCE, I COULD SEE A BRIGHT HEARTH. I COULD FEEL ITS WARMTH ON MY SKIN. AND AROUND IT, I SAW THE FACES OF ALL THOSE I’D LOVED, GONE FROM THIS WORLD.” He sighed softly. “I KNEW I BELONGED THERE. THAT EVERYTHING WOULD BE WELL WHEN I SAT BESIDE IT. AND THAT IS WHERE THEY WILL BE NOW. WARM AND SAFE AND FAR FROM ALL THIS. TOGETHER.”
“So why…”
Mia sniffed hard, tried to steady her voice.
“Why didn’t you stay there if it’s so fucking wonderful?”
“IT…” The boy shook his head. “… I SHOULDN’T SPEAK OF IT.”
“Tric.” Mia reached for his hand. She was surprised again to feel the warmth of it. Where once he’d been hard as stone, there was now a suppleness to his skin, his fingers pitch-black against her