He does not know which direction is up any longer. The free-fall is dizzying and his chest feels as though it might burst if he does not remember how to breathe but breathing feels so complicated. Must be getting somewhere near the center of the earth, he Alice-thinks.
Then there is light in a direction that is likely below. It is dim but approaching at a faster rate than he thought possible.
Thoughts clutter his mind, too many to focus on one, as though they are all vying to be final. He thinks that if he is about to die he should have begun collecting his final thoughts earlier. He thinks about Zachary and regrets a lot of things he didn’t say and didn’t do. Books he didn’t read. Stories he didn’t tell. Decisions he didn’t make.
He thinks about the night with Mirabel that changed everything but he’s not certain he regrets that, even now.
He thought he would have figured out what he believes before it all came to an end but he has not.
The light below grows closer. He is falling through a cavern. Its floor is glowing. Dorian’s thoughts become flashes. Images and sensations. Crowded sidewalks and yellow taxis. Books that felt truer than people. Hotel rooms and airports and the Rose Room at the New York Public Library. Standing in the snow looking at his future through the window of a bar. An owl wearing a crown. A gilded ballroom. An almost kiss.
The last thought that crosses Dorian’s mind before he reaches the illuminated ground below, as he tries to move so that he might hit it bare-feet-first, the thought that wins its place as the final thought of a long, thoughtful fall is: Maybe the Starless Sea isn’t just a children’s bedtime story.
Maybe, maybe beneath him there will be water.
But as the fall reaches its end and Dorian crashes into the Starless Sea he realizes no, it is not water.
It is honey.
ZACHARY EZRA RAWLINS stares at Mirabel as she stands impossibly in the doorway. She is covered in dust, powdered stone that blankets her clothes and her hair. Her jacket has a rip along one sleeve. Blood blooms red over her knuckles and in a line down her neck but she seems otherwise unharmed.
Mirabel puts the ginger cat down. It rubs against her legs and then walks back to its preferred chair.
The Keeper murmurs something under his breath and then he walks toward her, navigating his way through the piles of books without taking his eyes off of Mirabel.
Watching them look at each other Zachary feels suddenly that he is trespassing in someone else’s love story.
When the Keeper reaches Mirabel he pulls her into such a passionate embrace that Zachary turns away but turning away puts him face-to-face with the painting again and so he closes his eyes instead. For a moment he can feel, sharply and strongly, within the air in his lungs, precisely what it is to lose and find and lose again, over and over and over.
“We don’t have time for this.”
Zachary opens his eyes at the sound of Mirabel’s voice to see her turn and walk back through the door to the office. The Keeper follows.
Zachary hesitates but then follows them. He hovers in the doorway, watching Mirabel kick the desk chair toward the fireplace. One of the jars on the mantel topples, scattering its keys.
“You didn’t think I had a plan,” Mirabel says, climbing up on the chair. “There has always been a plan, people have worked on this plan for centuries. There have simply been some…complications in its execution. Are you coming, Ezra?” she asks without looking at Zachary.
“Am I what?” Zachary says at the same time that the Keeper asks “Where are you going?” and the questions overlap into What are you? which Zachary thinks is also a very good question.
“We have to rescue Ezra’s boyfriend because apparently that’s what we do,” Mirabel says to the Keeper. She yanks the sword from its display over the fireplace. Another container of keys shatters and spills.
“Mirabel—” the Keeper starts to protest but she lifts the sword and points it at him. It is obvious from the way she holds it that she knows how to use it.
“Stop, please,” she says. A warning and a wish. “I love you but I will not sit here and wait for this story to change. I am going to make it change.” She holds his