I’d turned Hell’s black lake into dust, and now our rotting little boat drifted on a sea of nothingness, our knees touching as we sat across from each other on cold, damp benches .
Minutes passed in deadly silence, time stretching before us like hours. Days. Even the ghostly clouds had drifted away, as if the trapped spirits had grown tired of waiting for Death to explain.
“Jonathan is trapped in your realm,” he finally said. “I chased him through the black forest, but he eluded my capture. Something is very, very wrong with him. He’s no longer part of the natural order, and therefore not subject to its rules. He didn’t seem to recognize where he was, or how he’d gotten there—only that he wanted out.”
“He’s a hybrid now,” I said. “Vampire, shifter, who knows what else. He jumped through the rune gate, and then…” I closed my eyes, my body trembling at the memory of the winged beasts that attacked us. That stole Darius’s memories. “Liam, Darius lost his—”
“There’s no need for you to relive that pain. I know what happened. ”
“Oh. Right.” I opened my eyes, and he lowered his, his cheeks colored with something that looked a lot like shame, though I couldn’t imagine what he had to be ashamed about. It wasn’t Liam’s fault he knew all possible outcomes before they happened. That was just one of Death’s many burdens.
At least, that was how I saw it. God, I couldn’t imagine carrying that kind of weight.
I reached for his hand, but his own was cold beneath my touch.
“I could do nothing to help you,” he said, still not meeting my eyes. “Nothing to warn you or turn back the ceaseless march of time. The attack, Ronan’s decision to bring you through the hell portal, Darius’s memory loss… all of those things belonged to an infinitesimal set of possibilities in an infinite sea of others. I saw those terrible events unfold, but I also saw you arriving in your magical realm to meet me as we’d planned, and returning home safely. I saw other outcomes where Ronan died, where Darius was lost in the hell portal rather than you, where you were the one whose memories were swallowed. I watched you turn on your beloved demon, stabbing him in the chest with your blade because you perceived him as a threat instead of your guardian. I saw the three of you enter your portal at the Pool of Unknowing, arriving in the magical realm unharmed together. I saw you healing Jonathan rather than attacking him, reversing the damage his twisted experiments caused his own body and urging him to relinquish his evil quest. I saw you sending Ronan and Darius home through the hell portal, only to remain behind to fight the memory eaters yourself. In one version of events, you even became Queen of the Shadowrealm, sacrificing yourself once again for all those you cared for. And I saw Jonathan escaping into the material plane, unleashing his terror on the remaining witches of Blackmoon Bay… and beyond. It wasn’t until I felt the pulse of your soul in this terrible place that I knew the final, irrevocable outcome from all of those possibilities.”
“So all of those things… those were all actual possibilities?” I asked, still uncertain about how it all actually worked. Still in awe.
Liam nodded, then tipped his head back, gazing up at the now cloudless sky. It’d faded from orange to the palest gray, not unlike the skies of Blackmoon Bay just before a misty rain. I could almost taste the salty air of home on my tongue.
“Each one of those scenarios was equally likely until the decision just prior to it. In all things, Gray, with each decision one makes, hundreds of other pathways branch outward. No matter how large or small the choice seems in the moment—which side of your mouth you start brushing your teeth on, whom you confide in about your deepest secrets, where you decide to live, which route you take to work, the words you speak to express yourself, the way you style your hair on a given day—you are changing your possibilities, and therefore your fate, with every one. As Death, I see all of those possibilities at once, at all times. Unless…”
“Unless?” I prodded, losing patience with his obvious stalling. He’d come here to offer me some kind of choice, and so far all we’d done was rehash the terrors that had landed me in this rotten boat. I didn’t blame him for trying to ease into it, but really, what was the point?
“Rip off the Band-Aid, Liam.” I spread my hands, indicating the hellscape around us. “How much worse could things possibly get?”
Liam finally met my gaze again and took my hands, his touch gentle, his eyes filling with an emotion I recognized instantly. I was intimately familiar with it, in fact; I’d stared it down in the mirror almost every day for the last decade.
Guilt.
“I see all of those possibilities,” he repeated, so softly I had to lean in to hear the rest, “unless there are truly no other options.”
No.
Other.
Options.
Each of those words echoed across the black sea, hammering into me like another nail in the coffin.
“Before you came into my presence,” he said, his voice ragged with an ache so deep it made my own bones hurt, “I did not know it was possible to feel such a deep well of regret.”
“You… you regret meeting me?” I tried but failed to keep the hurt from my voice. I couldn’t imagine my life without Liam. Or Death. Or any of the ravens or owls or smoke-and-feathers illusions he’d embodied. He’d taught me so much, but I was starting to care for him so much more than as a mentor, or even as a friend. He’d come to mean something to me I hadn’t even been able to put into words yet. In the absence of those words, the sparks we’d created on the beach had felt like the closest approximation.
I’d mistakenly thought he’d felt that way about me, too.
I released his hands, but he leaned forward and grabbed mine again.
“Look at me,” he whispered. “Please. I need you to look at me. To hear this as well as see it.”
When I finally did as he asked, I found him in tears.
“I couldneverregret meeting you, Gray. You have been a light I neither expected nor deserved.”
“Then what is it? What are you trying to tell me?”
Crushing my hands in his grip, he shook his head and said, “I have wronged you, Gray Desario. More terribly and irrevocably than you can possibly imagine. And even if your soul is cursed to be hell’s immortal prisoner and I remain here at your side, and together we gaze upon the very sunset of the human race, it still would not have been enough time for me to make amends for what I’ve done.”
