back to exploring, which is what I was doing in the first place before I was doing anything else and I think I was supposed to be exploring all along. Does that sound silly?”
“That sounds like a great adventure.”
Eleanor smiles to herself. She and Mirabel have the same smile. Dorian wonders what happened to Simon, now that he understands how much space and time there is to be lost in down here. He tries not to think about how much time might have passed above already as Eleanor collapses the map, folding the Heart down into the Starless Sea.
“We’re near a good place for the goodbye,” she says. “If you’re ready.”
Dorian nods and together they return to the deck. They have traveled into another cavern, this one carved with massive alcoves, each alcove containing a towering statue of a person. There are six of them, each holding an object though many of them are broken and all of them are covered in crystallized honey.
“What is this place?” Dorian asks as they walk toward the bow.
“Part of one of the old Harbors,” Eleanor answers. “The sea level was higher the last time I passed through. I should update my map. I thought she’d like it here. She told me once that people who died down here were supposed to be returned to the Starless Sea because the sea is where the stories come from and all endings are beginnings. Then I asked her what happens to people who are born down here and she said she didn’t know. If all endings are beginnings, are all beginnings also endings?”
“Maybe,” Dorian says. He looks down at Allegra’s body, draped in silk and tied with ropes to a wooden door.
“It was all I had that was the right size,” Eleanor explains.
“It’s appropriate,” Dorian assures her.
Together they lift the door and lower it over the rail and down to the surface of the Starless Sea. The edges dip into the honey but the door stays afloat.
Once the door has moved a distance from the ship Eleanor stands up on the rail and tosses one of the paper lanterns onto the door. It lands over Allegra’s feet and tips, the candle inside catching first on its paper shell and then on the silk, working its way over the ropes.
The door and its occupant, both aflame, drift farther from the ship.
Dorian and Eleanor stand side by side at the rail, watching.
“Do you want to say something nice?” Eleanor asks.
Dorian stares at the burning corpse of the woman who took his name and his life and made him a thousand promises that were never kept. The woman who found him when he was young and lost and alone and gave him a purpose and set him on a path that has proved to be more surprising and strange than he was led to believe. A woman he had trusted beyond all others until a year ago and a woman who would have shot him in the heart very recently had time and fate not intervened.
“No, I don’t want to say anything,” he tells Eleanor and she turns and looks at him thoughtfully, but then she nods and returns her attention starboard, considering the now distant flames for a long time before she speaks.
“Thank you for seeing me when other people looked through me like I was a ghost,” Eleanor says and an unexpected sob catches in Dorian’s throat.
Eleanor puts a hand over Dorian’s on the rail and they stay like that in silence, watching long after the flame fades out of sight and the ship continues to steer itself to its destination.
The burning door illuminates the faces of the ancient statues as it passes.
They are only stone likenesses of those who dwelt in this space long before but they recognize one of their own and pay their silent respects as Allegra Cavallo is returned to the Starless Sea.
ZACHARY EZRA RAWLINS stares upward toward a dim light that shines (not brightly) at a distance he had already thought of as deep from a spot very, very far below it.
What’s the opposite of a fear of heights? Fear of depths?
There is a cliff, a shadow that stretches up to the dim light from the city. He can sort of see the bridge. There’s only the barest amount of light where he’s landed, like warm-toned moonlight.
He does not remember landing, only slipping and continuing to slip and then having already landed.