"I think that, no matter what happens next, we'll all be okay," he said.

"How? You're dead. Not sure you noticed."

He chuckled. "I am well aware, thank you, my love. But even so. My death will not have been in vain."

"Maybe she can help you," I said.

"Who?"

"Death. Maybe she can help you. From what I'm gathering out of these comms reports, the ritual didn't happen. It was stopped. Which has to mean that our Tae found Death. So, I don't know… as a reward for his accomplishments, she could undo what happened to you. What happened to the other fae, as well. All these deaths are unnatural. They shouldn't have happened."

Sherus walked over to me. Outside, the evening set in stars and indigo stripes over The Shade, the silhouette of the nearby redwood forest clearly outlined like ink drawings against the glimmering sky. It gave me a sense of peace—the complete opposite of what was going on inside my soul.

He couldn't touch me, but he could still get close enough for me to grasp the impression that I could at least sense him. "Nuriya, let's not get our hopes up," he said. "You and I are both grown people. We've had our share of madness and death, long before this happened. We can't rely on higher forces for anything. We did that with the Hermessi, and you saw what happened."

I scoffed, lowering my gaze. "We brought them out to save us from Ta'Zan, only for them to turn on us with their stupid ritual. Yeah, I see your point."

Even so, I didn't want the truth that Sherus was hinting at. It would've left me without my soulmate and my son without his father. The loss was too big. Too difficult to stomach. Impossible to ever get over. I hadn’t made it this far in life to take such hits. It just wasn't fair.

"Maybe we'll get lucky, like you said," Sherus replied. "But we should not hope for it. Most importantly, we should be careful, going forward, of seeking favors from any of the entities that make this world move and spin."

Looking back, I had to admit, even the swamp witches' relationship with the Word, a cosmic force of its own, was rather complicated. During the apprenticeship, it could either fuse with them or kill them. And it didn't jump out with a solution for everything. The Word, for better or for worse, had taught its subjects not to rely on it to save them. They could use it. They could channel its strength. Sometimes, it stepped in, sure, but it wasn't reliable. Its interventions were unpredictable.

And if there was one thing we'd learned, it was exactly what Sherus had just pointed out. We could no longer allow ourselves to mess with or depend on these godlike entities.

The damage the Hermessi had done was, in many ways, irreparable.

"The loss of life…" I mumbled, a thought surfacing into my consciousness. I'd been so preoccupied with Sherus and Taeral that I'd nearly forgotten about all the other fae.

"Nuriya. You have that pensive look that sometimes worries me."

"Whatever happened to the sanctuary fae?" I said. "I haven’t heard reports yet. Agents said they were heading back there to see, but no one's said a word in almost twenty minutes."

He smiled again, and, for a mere flicker in time, I had the false sensation that everything would be okay. My skepticism cut deeply, but it was necessary. Sherus was right. I couldn't delude myself about this.

"I'll be okay in here," he replied. "Why don't you go to the grand hall? I think the GASP seniors are still gathered there. Find out what's happening."

"Perhaps our son will say something in the meantime," I said hopefully.

"Regardless of whatever he tells you, make sure he knows I love him," Sherus said.

My eyes felt wet. Tears were pooling again, and I needed to get out before I broke down and cried. It wouldn't have been the first time today. Exhaling sharply, I shot to my feet and gave my husband a brief nod.

"I'll see you in a bit, Sherus."

I vanished, teleporting myself across The Shade and right inside the grand hall.

I found the whole of GASP here. All of them looking rather conflicted, torn between grief and relief. What an odd pair of emotions to behold across so many familiar faces.

“Any news?” I asked, feeling stupidly hopeful.

A thousand storms were raging through my heart, as I’d yet to hear from Taeral. Perhaps knowing that he couldn’t be killed had taken some of the edge off, but I was still worried. It was in my nature as a mother to worry—about his wellbeing, his state of mind, anything that could make him feel anything less than happy and fulfilled.

Derek and Sofia were the first to greet me. They didn’t seem happy at all. No one could bring themselves to experience such a thing. The haunted looks in their eyes stabbed my heart with invisible daggers. I could only imagine how they felt, considering how much of their family they’d had to leave behind in the sanctuary on Calliope.

“We think Taeral and the crew managed to stop the ritual, somehow,” Derek said, his tone grave and heavy. “But not before the five millionth fae was taken under the Hermessi’s influence.”

“That… That means the fae… They died?” I replied, finding no better words for this kind of follow-up. Sofia teared up and nodded rapidly, then hid her face in Derek’s chest as he pulled her into an embrace. Oh, my heart…

“I am so, so sorry,” I managed, feeling their pain like a throbbing pulse in the pit of my stomach. No mother would ever want to bury a child, and for Sofia, this was her worst nightmare come true. She’d already lost Ben once. I, too, had experienced such agony before, because of Cyrus.

This time, she’d lost Grace, Caia, and Vita, as well. Derek had lost his brother. Aiden, his wife. River had it the worst of them all. She could barely move, as Lawrence and Field tried to comfort her as best as they could. But she was limp, her eyes glassy and blank. When would all these troubles end, I thought, while my gaze wandered past them and around the grand hall. Moonlight poured through the tall windows, dressing everything in a pale, pearly white. The glass table in the middle glistened quietly. The only sounds I could hear were the muted sobs of those present.

Yes, the ritual had been stopped. But at what cost?

Millions of fae were dead, gone forever. We knew Taeral and his crew had killed Brendel, but we were in the dark regarding the Spirit Bender and Death, how it had all been stopped. There was no news of the rebel Hermessi, either. Everything had come to a sudden halt, in a way we’d never asked for.

This kind of pain would never simmer down. It would burn through us forever. At least we still had a future to look forward to, as empty as it was without our fae friends and loved ones.

“We’ll have to open the portal soon,” Derek said after a long pause, stroking Sofia’s hair with one hand in a bid to comfort her. “We’ll need to go out there and assess the damage. The agents who stayed behind are already at the sanctuaries.”

“How did it manifest?” I asked, trying to get their minds away from Ben and the others, at least for a little while.

“The ritual?” Derek replied. Dark shadows had settled under his blue eyes, brushstrokes of grief that would take forever to fade. Sofia wiped her tears and raised her head, trying to get back into the conversation.

“They said the sanctuaries lit up all white,” she said. “We only got this account from a couple of local agents. The rest had already gone into hiding, but due to the matching details, it’s safe to assume it unfolded identically across the In-Between and the Supernatural Dimension. It went on like that for a while, then a pulse—the pulse we felt as well—rippled across the skies, and… that was it. The light faded. The air sort of cleared. The sanctuaries came back down and… silence, ever since.”

“Like it didn’t even happen,” Rose added, joining us. Behind her, River raised her head, wanting to say something. But no words came out, so she gave up and rested her head on Field’s shoulder—her son… the only one she had left. The poor soul. If anyone understood her pain, it was me. Granted, I’d gotten lucky. I’d been able to see my Sherus. River had found herself kicked out of the sanctuary with everybody else when the Hermessi had first begun the weaponizing stage.

“What news of Taeral?” Corrine asked. “Has he said anything?”

I shook my head, feeling my brows pull into a deep frown. “He’ll get in touch when he can,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely convinced. His silence worried me, especially after what had just happened.

This was a bitter victory, to say the least.

“Have you tried reaching out to him?” Ibrahim replied. “If his comms are down, you still have your Telluris link, don’t you?”

Pressing my lips into a thin line, I closed my eyes for a moment.

“Nuriya?” Vivienne asked, noticing my expression shift, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was displaying. I’d been working so hard to keep my composure, but I had grown tired. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I was falling apart at the seams, and it was happening before their eyes. “Are you okay?”

I broke down crying, and Aisha and Horatio rushed over from across the room, having heard my voice louder than usual. It wasn’t in my nature to bawl, yet I couldn’t control it. I cried so hard, my whole body shuddered. They held me tight, and I surrendered to everything that had been poking and stabbing me for the past couple of days.

My husband. The Novaks. Fierce little Vesta. Kailyn. Lucas. Every single fae that had been dragged into this hot mess. I cried for all of them, finding no comfort in an embrace but still feeling thankful that I wasn’t alone in this. I’d held it all in for too long, not wanting to show much to Sherus regarding my inner self, given his condition. I’d been so careful not to worry him or my son that I’d completely neglected myself.

And now, it was all coming down, brick by brick.

“I’m sorry, Nuriya,” Vivienne said, and I felt her arms come around Aisha and Horatio. I was in the middle of a group hug, as Derek, Sofia, Rose, Caleb, Xavier, and even Corrine and Ibrahim piled on. Soon enough, the others joined, and we turned into a mass of brokenhearted people who’d lost loved ones in this elemental nightmare.