“Yes,” I swore, choking on the words as they broke in my chest.
“I knew you did.” She smiled through her tears. “Tell Varic I love him too, and tell him… tell him… tell him that Cassius is by our fountain. He’ll know.”
“I will,” I promised, cupping her cheek with my bloody left hand, wanting to touch her face and feel the warmth there.
“I’m just like Cassius,” she whispered, and I could tell that talking was hard for her as each breath became labored. “I just want to go home. And even though I would have loved to see New Orleans, I want to see him more.”
I nodded again, because otherwise I’d break down, and I wouldn’t do that to her. She needed me now.
“I’ll find Jarah first, tell him it’s okay, that he can go home too.”
“Don’t talk anymore; just rest until help gets––”
“It doesn’t––” She sucked in a breath. “––matter anymore.”
“Of course it matters, you’re gonna be fine.”
She smiled so warmly up at me, like I was so dear. “I have to find Jarah in the house of the dead because I know he’s waiting, worrying about me, but he’ll see that everything is fine now.”
“You will not, you’re not going any ––”
“And then I’ll go home to Cassius.” She gasped, her breath faltering. “You keep my seal with you, my most precious possession, so you never forget me.”
“I will never forget you, and I will keep your seal forever.”
“Good,” she whimpered. “And take us, me and him, to our place.”
“I will,” I managed to get out, facing the truth in a horrible clutch of awareness and pain and knowing, more than anything, that I would keep my promises to her. I would be faithful.
“I love you.”
“I love you back,” I swore.
She lifted her arms, and I bent and hugged her, clutching her tight as she squeezed me back, her lips at my ear.
She said I love you three more times, and I held on even when her arms fell away.
Fifteen
There was the sound of boots, many of them, pounding over the marble floor, and voices, lots of shouting, garbled with anger and emotion, and then someone made a high keening sound, like an animal caught in a trap.
“Jason,” a broken voice uttered my name. “Please, please, please.”
A gentle hand was pressed to my forehead, to the side of my face, then to the side of my neck, and after all the fighting it was such a comfort. And that made sense, because that’s what heaven was supposed to be, peace after strife.
There was a shaky breath, and I used every drop of willpower I had to open my eyes because I wanted to see who was there to greet me.
Zev was leaning over me, his gray eyes a deep, dark charcoal even as they widened in astonishment. I had no idea why he was surprised. We were both dead, after all.
I tried to say something, couldn’t, swallowed hard and then coughed. “You’re not who I expected,” I whispered.
He was trembling, which, for him, even in the short time I’d known him, seemed distinctly out of character.
“I thought when I opened my eyes that Nerilla would be waiting, or my buddy Eddie,” I told him. “I’m not disappointed,” I made clear, because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “But I am surprised.”
Maybe since he was my champion in life, he was the first one who met me after I died. Perhaps that was what Nerilla had meant about finding Jarah before she went home to Cassius. I had no idea that taking a champion extended into my afterlife.
It hit me then, that my life was truly over. I sighed deeply and closed my eyes, the tears coming fast, hot, slipping from under my lids. Already, I was missing Varic.
I wondered if he’d fall in love again, and if so, would he forget me?
“Jason,” Zev crooned, stroking my hair. “Open your eyes, my consort.”
It was really hard to do, took great concentration, like trying to wake from a dream. All I had to do was pry my lids apart, but it took so much effort.
“Please,” he entreated, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about this kinder, gentler Zev.
Opening my eyes, I looked back up into all the beautiful storm-washed gray.
“I’m not dead,” he told me. “And neither are you.”
I had to cough again, softly, to get my voice working. I felt really bad to have to be the one to break it to him. “I’m so sorry, Zev, but you are. We’re both dead.”
He shook his head. “No, my consort, we’re both very much alive.”
That made no sense. “But Gideon said you were dead.”
“I know,” he soothed me, lifting my left arm, stretching it out so my hand rested on my hip. “I would roll you to your back, but your head is bleeding and swollen, and I’m afraid it would hurt you.”
Nerilla was next to me, on her side just like I was, eyes closed like she was sleeping, her thick black lashes lying on the deep bronze skin of her cheek.
Eris was suddenly there, dropping down to one knee next to Zev before gently lifting Nerilla off my ruined right arm that was pinned under her. As I watched, she held her until Brenna stepped into my field of vision, laying a blanket on the floor so that Eris could place Nerilla on top of it before they both wrapped her up, all of her, the last tuck covering her sweet face.
I tried to get up so I could go with her.
“Wait, wait,” Zev ordered mildly, hand on my chest. “I need another blanket so you don’t get cold. Do you think you’re going be sick when I lift you?”
There were a lot of spots in front of my eyes. “I hope not.”
“I do too,” he told me, and I had to smile over the matter-of-fact quality of his voice. When I closed my eyes again, no amount of beseeching could get me to open them back up.
In the back of the SUV, I stared up at the underside of Zev’s chin, the interior lights on in the car for some reason. The cool darkness would have been better, soothing, but Zev probably had his reasons for wanting them on, and I didn’t want to bug him.
“Where’s Varic?”
Zev looked down at me, and I finally noticed the healing wounds on his left cheek, throat, the dried blood on his shirt and in his hair. “At the palace. I was already halfway here when Gideon and all he’d done was discovered.”
“How did you know?”
“As soon as I hacked my way out of the hall, after first playing dead, I found Tiago, and while he went to question Dureau, I collected those I knew you trusted and came for you.”
“And you knew right where I was.”
“Yes.”
“Because you were sure it was Gideon all along.”
“I was.”
“And since you were halfway here, it made no sense for Varic to come just to meet us on the road.”
He nodded.
I took a breath. “Did you know Nerilla was here?”
His face clenched painfully. “I thought, perhaps, since Jarah was dead.”
“How did––” I caught my breath as a knife of pain drove through my arm. “––you get out of the hall?”