But then, a shaft of bright golden light shot out of me and into the hut, illuminating it.
I glanced down at myself to find the beam emanating from my heart. Another beam, born from my collar, joined the first.
Finally, I had Grim’s attention.
He looked to the window, eyes widening on me.
But the only reason I’d caught his attention was because the draft of the Black Basin had begun to wear off.
There was no way to know how long I had—how long either of us had—before I got expelled and the two of us were separated forever. Or for at least as long as this fever dream of guilt decided to hold on to Grim.
“Grim,” I called to him when he just kept staring at me like he didn’t recognize me at all.
But then his expression broke, his eyes softening.
“Helena,” he said. “It can’t be you.”
“Itisme,” I said, hope filling me to the brim, something that sent another shaft of light bursting through the flimsy shield the potion of the Black Basin had placed over my soul.
Pushing away from the window, I rushed to the door of the hut, which, this time, opened for me. I shoved my way through, stumbling into the sparse room, which dissipated the moment I entered, our surroundings reorganizing themselves into a certain nighttime balcony.
An autumnal breeze rushed between us, the air laced with the distant aroma of bonfire smoke.
Somehow, I’d been returned to my homemade costume of sunshine and rainbows.
Grim stood just as I’d found him that night, hooded and robed, solemn and alone with his scythe gripped in one hand.
I rushed over to him as more light broke through my being, casting our surroundings in a bright glow.
When I reached Grim, I grabbed his free skeletal hand, lacing my fingers through his bony ones.
“Helena,” he said again, this time with his dark voice, which emanated from within the shadows of that concealing hood. “I failed you.”
“No, of course not,” I said, pressing his knuckles to my cheek, the bones of his hand clicking, the imprint of those bones cold against the “flesh” of my ethereal form.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I came to get you,” I said, lifting my hands to the hood of his cloak, gently guiding the fabric back to reveal the face I’d only glimpsed through shadows and partially in the moonlight before now.
A grimacing skull peered down on me with empty sockets. I pressed my hand to his bony cheek even as that hand went radiant, the glow of my being intensifying.
“To stop you from falling,” I whispered wistfully, giving half a glance to the portion of the balcony that had crumbled that night when I’d tipped backward, when he’d reached for me.
“I… forgot all about him,” Grim said, his voice originating from his skull now rather than that dark hood, though his jaw never moved. “I don’t even remember getting him. And I made myself—letmyself—forget. That was the only way I could…”
“You felt guilty,” I said when he trailed off. “That’s understandable. But… you shouldn’t. You saved him.”
“Did I?”
“He lived,” I whispered.
“Without me.”
“He would have been without you in death,” I said.
Grim hung his head.
“You gave him a gift,” I pressed. “Like you did me. A gift of time. Love. Life.”
