Cillian’s father radiates menace and power. “I will kill your friends one by one while you watch, and then burn away your humanity to see if anything is left in the ashes of my divine—”
Honora kicks him so he once again falls off the catwalk. She rolls onto her back, breathing hard. “Save her.”
Leo puts both of his hands on Artemis while I hold her. I don’t know if it’s going to work, and for a few blistering seconds I’m sure it won’t. But she gradually goes still and colder until she collapses into my arms. I check her pulse, desperate, barely able to see with the burned light images on my vision.
Her heart is beating. She’s still alive. I cry, cradling her. Cillian rushes to Leo, who is as blindingly brilliant as Artemis had been. Leo puts both hands on his shoulders. “Are you sure?” he gasps.
Cillian swallows hard but nods. “Better me than the hellgod who wants to kill you all.”
Leo puts his forehead against Cillian’s, and he slowly dims. Cillian gets brighter, but not in the unstable way Artemis and Leo did. He seems to somehow come even more into focus, every feature in perfect clarity, to where I could swear I can see each eyelash from here. He’s high-definition in a fuzzy world. His skin isn’t brown anymore so much as metallic, gleaming in the harsh cavern lights.
“You good?” Leo falls back and sits.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Cillian looks down at his own hands in wonder. “I—I think I got it.”
“It will overpower you!” Cillian’s father shouts from where he’s clinging to the side of the cavern. Each exit has been filled by one of the remaining zealots. Two of them have my mother and Esther at knifepoint. My mother looks at Artemis in my arms, and I try to smile to reassure her, but it’s weak. The zealots all have crossbows trained on us, and none of us are in any shape to fight our way out.
“You cannot hold it forever!” the hellgod shouts. “You are a bastard, a half-breed, and I will kill everyone you love while you watch. I will bleed them dry while you—”
“The third form,” one of the black-cloaked zealots chants, pointing. But they aren’t pointing at Cillian’s dad. They’re pointing at Cillian. They all drop to their knees. Cillian rolls his eyes.
“No,” his father screams. “I am your god! I am the only god left in the world! I will kill everyone you—”
“Can you stop him, Nina?” Cillian looks at me, desperate.
I don’t even know if I can stand up. “I’m—I’m tapped out. And you saw how little the crossbow did to him. I could …” Decapitate him? Would he be capable of recapitating himself? He might not be at full power, but he’s still a hellgod. “We can try?”
Cillian’s eyes are brimming with tears. “You were a pretty good dad for a while there,” he says.
“You do not deserve anything of me. I will tear that one you seem to love limb from limb,” the hellgod answers, pointing at Rhys. “But first, I will end the one who made this all possible.” He leaps through the air, grabbing the edge of the catwalk where my mother and Esther stand, unarmed. He pulls himself up and reaches toward Esther. She and my mother back up but trip on the kneeling zealots behind them.
“Nina!” Cillian cries, terrified.
I don’t know what to do. We can’t have come this far to watch this happen now. But I can’t get over there in time. No one can.
No. Not no one. “Tsip!” I shout. She pops into existence on a catwalk across the cavern.
“You can take someone beyond reality if they don’t mind all their molecules being dissolved?”
“Yes!” She nods enthusiastically.
Cillian points at his father, tears streaming down his face. “Do it.”
She shrugs and disappears. Cillian’s father has one moment to look truly godlike in his wrath as he looms over our mothers before Tsip pops in next to him and then pops him right out of existence.
We all sit in the ringing silence left in his wake. Tsip reappears empty-handed. I feel a sudden rush of relief that she’s actually empty-handed and not holding any eyes. This is already too much trauma for Cillian to process.
“Are you okay?” I ask him. I know his father was an evil hellgod who was going to kill all of us, but he was still Cillian’s dad.
Cillian shakes his head. His brow is furrowed, but he still looks more like he belongs as a display of fine art in a museum than a real person. “My da died a long time ago. That wasn’t him. Not really. It had to be done.”
Across the way, my mother helps Esther stand. Esther is crying as she turns to hurry back through the catwalks to find us.
I’m struck with the thought that Cillian turned out to be the only one of all of us actually qualified to be a Watcher. He was faced with an impossible choice, and he chose the world. But we’ll be here for him, forever. We’re his family. And I think he knows it.
Rhys walks hesitantly to his boyfriend. He keeps adjusting his glasses like somehow it will change the way Cillian looks. “So. Erm. You’re … a god now?”
Cillian looks down at his hands. “Guess so. That or I’m totally off my nut and none of this is actually happening.”
“It’s happening.” Rhys takes Cillian’s hand in his own. “What about what he said—that you won’t be able to hold it?” Everyone looks at me like I’ll have an answer. For a moment I’m horrified that we’ve traded an immediate apocalyptic problem for the same problem in the near future. Then Leo shifts closer to me, and I realize I’ve done it.
I’ve saved everyone. Everyone I could, at least. Not poor lost murderous Imogen, or Cillian’s father, if any of him was left in the hellgod’s mess of a brain. But Faith was right. I used every ounce of power I had, the good and the bad, each part of myself. And we all came out on the other side. Including me.
“Two birds, meet one stone!” I lean back, laughing in relief. “We have a half god who will need siphoning and a half demon who can’t stand the idea of harming even demons by draining them.” I gesture to Leo and Cillian.
They look back at each other appraisingly. Cillian shrugs. “Could work.”
“You sure?” Leo asks.
“You can be my chief minion.” Cillian laughs at Leo’s horrified expression. “No? Head zealot. High priest.”
Rhys shakes his head. “God, you’re the worst.”
“You can still call me Cillian. We’ll save ‘God’ for formal occasions.” He’s joking, but his expression is still a bit shocked and raw. Rhys pulls him close and hugs him tightly. Esther bursts out of a tunnel onto our catwalk and wraps them both in her arms. She’s murmuring something quiet and broken that I know isn’t for me, so I don’t try to hear.
My mom sits next to us, and I lean against her, but I don’t let go of Artemis. I’m not letting go of her for anything. Plus, I’m bleeding quite a bit from my various stab wounds and frankly not feeling very mobile. Just exhausted and grateful. Leo lies back, his head brushing my leg. I finger-comb his hair away from his eyes, and he closes them, smiling. He looks stunned but happy. It’s not lost on me that only a few hours ago he was ready to die, but now he has a way to live without harming anyone. Sometimes we get happy endings.