“Good-bye, Apollo,” said the Sibyl’s voice, clearer now. “I forgive you. Not because you deserve it. Not for your sake at all. But because I will not go into oblivion carrying hate when I can carry love.”
Even if I could’ve spoken, I wouldn’t have known what to say. I was in shock. Her tone asked for no reply, no apology. She didn’t need or want anything from me. It was almost as if I were the one being erased.
Harpocrates met my gaze. Resentment still smoldered in his eyes, but I could tell he was trying to let it go. The effort seemed even harder for him than keeping his hand from his mouth.
Without meaning to, I asked, Why are you doing this? How can you just agree to die?
It was in my interest that he did so, sure. But it made no sense. He had found another soul to live for. Besides, too many other people had already sacrificed themselves for my quests.
I understood now, better than I ever had, why dying was sometimes necessary. As a mortal, I had made that choice just a few minutes ago in order to save my friends. But a god agreeing to cease his existence, especially when he was free and in love? No. I couldn’t comprehend that.
Harpocrates gave me a dry smirk. My confusion, my sense of near panic must have given him what he needed to finally stop being angry at me. Of the two of us, he was the wiser god. He understood something I did not. He certainly wasn’t going to give me any answers.
The soundless god sent me one last image: me at an altar, making a sacrifice to the heavens. I interpreted that as an order: Make this worth it. Don’t fail.
Then he exhaled deeply. We watched, stunned, as he began to crumble, his face cracking, his crown collapsing like a sand-castle turret. His last breath, a silver glimmer of fading life force, swirled into the glass jar to be with the Sibyl. He had just enough time to twist the lid closed before his arms and chest turned to chunks of dust, and then Harpocrates was gone.
Reyna lunged forward, catching the jar before it could hit the floor.
“That was close,” she said, which was how I realized the god’s silence had been broken.
Everything seemed too loud: my own breathing, the sizzle of severed electrical wires, the creaking of the container’s walls in the wind.
Meg still had the skin tone of a legume. She stared at the jar in Reyna’s hand as if worried it might explode. “Are they…?”
“I think—” I choked on my words. I dabbed my face and found my cheeks were wet. “I think they’re gone. Permanently. Harpocrates’s last breath is all that remains in the jar now.”
Reyna peered through the glass. “But the Sibyl…?” She turned to face me and almost dropped the jar. “My gods, Apollo. You look terrible.”
“A horror show. Yes, I remember.”
“No. I mean it’s worse now. The infection. When did that happen?”
Meg squinted at my face. “Oh, yuck. We gotta get you healed, quick.”
I was glad I didn’t have a mirror or a phone camera to see how I looked. I could only assume the lines of purple infection had made their way up my neck and were now drawing fun new patterns on my cheeks. I didn’t feel any more zombie-ish. My stomach wound didn’t throb any worse than before. But that could’ve simply meant my nervous system was shutting down.
“Help me up, please,” I said.
It took both of them to do so. In the process, I put one hand on the floor to brace myself, amid the shattered fasces rods, and got a splinter in my palm. Of course I did.
I wobbled on spongy legs, leaning on Reyna, then on Meg, trying to remember how to stand. I didn’t want to look at the glass jar, but I couldn’t help it. There was no sign of Harpocrates’s silvery life force inside. I had to have faith that his last breath was still there. Either that, or when we tried to do our summoning, I would discover that he had played a terrible final joke on me.
As for the Sibyl, I couldn’t sense her presence. I was sure her final grain of sand had slipped away. She had chosen to exit the universe with Harpocrates—one last shared experience between two unlikely lovers.