“Thanking me? For what?” Vesta asked. “You brought me back, dude!”
“For being yourself,” he answered. “For your relentlessness and determination. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to rebel against the rules, at least once in a while. It makes everything more fun.”
Vesta giggled, her body glued to mine. I was still wrapping my head around this new reality of ours. My heart ached from the trauma of losing her, in the first place. I doubted the sensation would go away soon.
“I got lucky,” she said. “I got the cool and rebellious Reaper.”
“Stay safe, Vesta,” he replied, preparing to bid us farewell. Too many people around us were looking at him, eager to come up and hug him, to thank him. I had a feeling he wasn’t that much into this part of the process. “Don’t change who you are. Always question everything, and you might just live a very long life, before we meet again.”
“Let me guess. You plan on being the one who reaps me?” she chuckled, and he nodded in return. The thought sent shivers down my spine. I hoped that wouldn’t happen for a long, long time. “It’ll be an honor when that day comes,” she added. “Just make sure you don’t rush back over here, okay? I’ve got plans.”
“I promise,” he said, then looked at me. “And you… You’d better cherish her until your last breath, or you’ll answer to me.”
“I’m inclined to take you seriously,” I shot back, slightly amused but also quite chilled, down to the bone. I knew he’d meant it.
The crowd gasped, disappointed when Seeley disappeared, likely joining the other Reapers in their otherworldly plane. No one could even see beyond the sanctuary at this point. Derek and Sofia were brought back together, their family whole again. Vesta and I stayed close, laughing and crying at the same time. We felt Kailani, Hunter, and a few others hug us, but we couldn’t even look away from each other.
Kailani smiled at Vesta. “Your parents are on their way. All the fae have been released from quarantine.”
It made Vesta light up, almost glowing on the inside, as she braced herself for what was bound to be a teary reunion.
I heard the Novaks whispering sweet words to one another. Soulmates returned. Love was reaffirmed. Parents got their children back. Husbands got their wives back. The world made sense again, and the sanctuary burst into waves of laughter and tears of joy. Every inch of this place was bathed in a milky white moonlight and the relief from hundreds of creatures who’d been spared by Death.
The future was bright again. The future was there, once more, for us to reach out to and build. My fiancée had been returned to me, and I couldn’t even breathe from all the happiness.
“I worry my heart is going to explode,” I managed, running my fingers through her hair, thankful to feel its silky texture against my skin. She kissed me again, her lips as sweet and as soft as honey. I tasted her, I devoured her, and she exhaled sharply when her palm settled on my chest.
“Oh, wow, you’re actually right,” she said, giving me a worried glance. “Take a few deep breaths, honey, or you’ll hyperventilate and pass out.”
I laughed, throwing my head back in sheer delight. “Then let me pass out. It would be for the most wonderful of reasons.”
The Novaks surrounded us, laughing and cheering. The life had returned to River’s face, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. She deserved every second of this. We were all back together again, but our emotional wounds would take a long time to heal. For a short while, we’d all lost the people we loved most in this world. It could not be deleted by Death’s resurrection order. It made it all better, yes, but it did not erase what happened.
For now, we rode the wave of joy and love. Tomorrow, we’d all have to wake up and face what we went through. The grief would take a while to fade away, and the memory of our losses would never disappear. I had a feeling we’d all remember this for as long as we lived.
When we were all sated by the sudden influx of glee and reassurance, the prospect of fallout from this entire incident began to rear its ugly head. There was no rest for us yet. Several issues needed to be addressed, including the immediate aftermath of the ritual.
“What do we do next?” Kailani asked.
Rose was glued to her brother, much like River and Sofia. She sighed deeply. “We’ll have to check every world in the GASP federation,” she said. “See if there were any victims besides the fae who might’ve gotten hurt by the ritual’s final stage. You know, before Tae canceled it.”
Derek nodded in agreement. “We’ll need to do a tally of Hermessi cult members, as well. They’re likely to still be loyal, indoctrinated into this idea of an end of days.”
“I say jail for life is definitely an option for those bastards,” Lucas grumbled, his arms locked around Avril and Marion’s necks. He stopped to drop kisses on their foreheads once in a while, as if just to make sure that they were real. That this was all real. Not that I could blame him, since I, too, occasionally squeezed Vesta in my arms for the same reason. “They did this willingly. They were well aware of what the plan was, the kind of damage it would do.”
“I agree,” Sofia replied. “We cannot show mercy to these people, not after what they helped the Hermessi do. Five million fae literally died because of them, and the fact that Death brought our people back does not lessen the cultists’ crimes.”
“Where’s Nuriya? She was here earlier,” Ben said. He wobbled a bit as he looked around curiously, still taking some time to get reacquainted with his own body. He’d been held up by his wife and daughter and granddaughters in their hugs, until now, but he’d moved back a bit to stand on his own. Technically speaking, it wasn’t even his original body. He’d gotten it from the fae during his first brush with the ghostly afterlife. I figured he’d gotten attached to it in the meantime.
“I think she went back to Sherus,” I replied. “He came back too, just now, just like the rest of you.” I could only imagine the joy in her heart over this. From the moment the fae had drawn their first breaths here, Nuriya must’ve zapped herself right back to the glass house.
“Good. That’s really good… And regarding the cults, I think they will die out, eventually,” Ben said. “Of course, I do agree that they need to spend the rest of their lives in jail, but we should also be aware of the fact that we didn’t succeed in catching them all. There are plenty of cultists still out there.”
“But you’re right, they’ll die out,” River replied. “There’s no ritual for them to work toward.”
“And no Hermessi for them to reach out to,” Derek added. “I’m rather certain that this complete undoing of the ritual has thrown the elementals back, as well. They no longer have the five million fae’s energy to feed on.”
I nodded slowly, briefly glancing at Vesta. There was relief in her blue eyes. We both knew it would take a while to make sense of everything and fully recover, but it was going to be okay. As long as we had each other, we’d all push through and find our way back to a certain sense of balance in time.
After the Hermessi’s involvement, I understood that the world would never be the same again. We certainly wouldn’t be, as we were now aware of entities that existed beyond death, beyond our otherwise supernatural existence. There were Reapers and ghouls, the latter already known to us. Then, there was Death herself and the world of the dead, which we knew nothing about—frankly, at this stage in my life, I didn’t want to know anything, anyway. Then there was the Word and its swamp witches. The elementals and the pink waters. Sheesh, there was so much more to the universe than I’d thought.
And so much left to uncover… to explore.
This was as close as we’d get to a happy ending. Just us, being thankful for each breath, for another chance at building bigger, brighter futures. The world was not exactly our oyster anymore, but we were part of it anyway. We just needed to learn how to navigate it without disrupting the natural balance of things.
The last thing I wanted was to meet another Reaper anytime soon.
Harper
As soon as we saw what happened in the sanctuary, Caspian and I took Benedict, Yelena and little Sophia through the Calliope portal straight to Neraka. There, confusion had been quickly replaced by joy and cheers, as the local fae had also been brought back to life. The daemons had burst onto the surface, screaming and howling, thrilled to have survived this.
We found Fiona and Zane quickly, right outside the entrance to Infernis. Night had settled over the land, the moons glowing gleefully in the sky, and stars twinkling and smiling down at us. The Imen were already pouring back out, as well, joined by the Manticores—they’d all been moving through the daemons’ tunnels, looking to evacuate the area.
Many were still coming back, and they would need time to readjust to their lives, but at least they’d made it. They lived, and that was all that mattered.
Fiona burst into tears when she saw us coming, her arms wide open as Benedict and Yelena brought Sophia back to her. “I’m sorry… mom, dad… my sweet little baby… I’m so sorry,” she said, as she held her daughter again.
I could only imagine what was going through her head. She’d thought she would never see Sophia again. She’d braced herself for death, and yet, she was here, holding her baby once more. The universe could seem like a cruel place at times, but, by the stars, it sure knew how to reward us.
