Connor’s mouth quirked up at a corner. Ithan nearly broke down at that half smile. Gods, he’d missed it. Missed his big brother.
But the Dead Gate glowed brighter—as if the time had come. As if it couldn’t hold all those souls, the secondlight they’d become, much longer.
Connor said to Ithan, “You do make me proud, you know. Every day before now, and every day after. Nothing you do will ever change that.”
Something ruptured in Ithan’s chest. “Connor—”
“Tell Bryce,” Connor said, eyes shining as he stepped toward the glowing Gate, a wall of light now shimmering in the empty arch, “to make the shot count.”
Connor stepped into the archway and faded into that wall of light.
He was gone. And this time it was just as unbearable, as unfathomable to have had his brother here, to see him and speak to him and lose him again—
The light began shrinking and contracting, pulsating, and Ithan could have sworn he heard the hissing of Reapers rushing toward them in the distance. The light shivered and imploded, condensing into a tiny seed of pure light.
It floated in the Gate’s archway, thrumming with such power that the hair on Ithan’s arms rose.
“Put it in the bullet,” Jesiba ordered Ithan, who unscrewed its cap and gingerly approached the seed.
All the souls of the people here … the dreams of the dead, their love for the living …
Ithan gently slid the bullet around the seed of light and replaced the cap. He lifted the bullet between his thumb and forefinger, its point digging into his skin.
As the light floated up through the bullet, Memento Mori was briefly illuminated, letter by letter.
Then it faded, the dark metal stark in the gray light.
“What now?” Ithan rasped, barely able to speak.
Connor had been here, and now he was gone. Forever.
“I have Reapers to sort out,” Hypaxia murmured, staring off into the distant mists, to where the hissing was growing louder.
Ithan mastered the hole in his heart enough to ask, “What about Sigrid?”
Hypaxia said carefully, “What would you like me to do with her?”
“Just, ah …” Fuck, he had no idea. “Tell her I want to talk to her.” He clarified, “I need to talk to her. But only once I’m back from the Eternal City.” If he ever came back.
Hypaxia nodded solemnly. “If I encounter her, I will convey the message.”
“The Reapers won’t take the power shift well,” Jesiba warned Hypaxia.
“Then I appoint you my second in command and order you to help me,” Hypaxia said flatly.
“Happy to oblige,” Jesiba said, examining her red-painted nails.
“You can’t kill them,” Hypaxia warned the sorceress.
Jesiba gave the witch a wry smile, and nodded to Ithan, who pulled himself from his grief long enough to meet her steely gaze. “Get your ass to Pangera, Prime. And get that bullet to Bryce Quinlan.”
* * *
Tharion didn’t speak, barely breathed, until he and Sathia were back in the open air. It had taken a few hours to coordinate with his former colleagues about how they’d conduct the exodus from the city, how they’d get the message around without alerting anyone to the plan. Word was bound to leak at some point about the Blue Court harboring refugees, but hopefully by then they’d have a good number of people Beneath. And then the Blue Court would go into lockdown, praying that the River Queen’s power could hold out against the brimstone torpedoes of the Omega-boats docked in the river. It was risky … but it was a plan.
Only when they’d ducked for cover in a shadowy alley did Tharion say to Sathia, “We did it. We fucking did it—”
She smiled, and it was beautiful. She was beautiful.
But a voice crooned from the shadows of the alley, “Isn’t this an interesting turn of events?”
It was all Tharion could do to draw the knife at his side and step in front of Sathia as the Viper Queen emerged into the light, her drugged-out, hulking Fae assassins flanking her.
“I don’t have any quarrel with you,” Tharion said to the Viper Queen, who was clad in one of her usual jumpsuits—ocean blue this time, with high-top sneakers in an amethyst suede with maroon laces.
“You burned my house down,” the Viper Queen said, her snake’s eyes glowing green. Like a Reaper’s eyes. The Fae assassins behind her shifted, as if they were an extension of her wrath.
“Colin?” Sathia blurted, and Tharion found her gaping at one of the Fae males. “Colin? I thought you …”