“I should have believed you sooner. When you were still alive to cheer me on.”
A tear slipped down my cheek. I rubbed my palm against the side of my face.
“You would be proud of me.”
My premonitions had always been about the future, but in that moment, when dread filled my stomach, when nausea made the world spin, my mind flicked back to the past.
I’d always held onto the stinging words he’d spoken to me in our final conversation, his urge that I was made for more. It’d always felt like shoes too large for my feet, something I would spend my life trying to grow into.
It was only now, my mind whirling back in time for once, that I remembered Papa’s weary face staring into mine with nothing but tenderness. I remembered his trembling hands as sickness stole what little autonomy was left in his body. I remembered tears hidden in the depths of his gaze, a man who never cried seemingly aware he was losing his chance to.
And I heard his words, the words he’d meant for me toremember, the ones I’d mistaken for criticism, the words that he’d meant from his heart:I know you’ll always make me proud.
He was proud of me as a maid. As David’s wife or a spinster. As a mother or a childless aunt. As a powerful mage or a simple textile worker.
He was proud.
He’d trained me as best as he could. Taught me what he knew. And he certainly hadn’t been perfect.
But he’d loved me and wanted what was best for me.
Once, Prince Thomas said children inherited threads from their parents.Maybe Kelara and I had inherited Papa’s—not his magic, but his love. Love for our family, for Amouridia, and for what he believed was right. And now we carried that thread forward, from the books sold at Kelara’s shop to the changes in magic laws I hoped to one day enact as a future member of the Mage Council.
He might have passed away, but he hadn’t truly left. And he never would, not with the legacy he left behind, the one we were expanding even wider. Not when traces of him lived on in Asha’s hopeful disposition, in the journal I’d donate to the university’s archives one day. He lived on in Kelara and me and every decision we made in the rest of this beautiful life we’d been given.
My face was wet and sticky, and I dragged my hands down my cheeks, embarrassed. I stood up, brushing the dust off my gown, looking down at the grave Mama had kept clean for these past four years, the fresh flowers laid atop his burial mound.
I closed my eyes and focused. A sapling rose from the earth, blooming into a large, golden lily. “For you, Papa,” I told him. “To be with you while I’m gone.”
I left the graveyard and my father behind, returning home to pack for a life of adventure I knew awaited me.
Knowing that even though his body was in the ground, his words, his spirit lingered with me always.
And no matter the choices I made, I would always make him proud.
EPILOGUE
Thom held my hand above us, his fingers threading through mine as we lay beneath a world of stars in the Pa’abo desert.
And it was as perfect as I dreamed.
Two semesters at university had flown by in a series of lectures, experiments, and discovering just how far my powers could stretch. Somehow, my first internship still felt unreal. Thomas had taken my words to heart, advocating for Amouridia to provide university scholarships to lower-income mages in the Capitol. He’d even volunteered to lead the scholarship students on their first internship himself.
The sands shifted beneath me, and I rolled even closer to Thom’s warmth.
Looking up into the night sky, the moonlight kissing our faces, the Pa’abo desert was just as Thomas described in the letters he’d written me so long ago.
The letters I still kept with me at all times, although I’d never tell Thom that. The man already had quite the ego, although it was much smaller than I’d thought when we first met at the pond all those years ago.
During our first week of term, he’d brought me to his lab andshowed me how to make the cure. Even after knowing his blood contributed to the potion, I’d stared at the vials and his scarred arms in disbelief, regretting yet again how much pressure I’d put on him during that fateful summer together.
Apparently, it wasn’t just Thomas’s blood—a serum made partially with the blood of any powerful mage could weaken the plague’s hold in a non-magical or weak-magicked human. His work had taken years because it relied solely on him. His own blood had helped cure Asha, and was now curing commoners all over Amouridia.
I’d told him about the research I did while he was away. Awe had filled his eyes as I explained how much I uncovered without the royal resources he’d relied on his whole life.
We still weren’t exactly sure where the plague had originated, although we had tracked down Lee, surprisingly, with the help of Drea. I’d long forgotten about her irritating presence until she sent guards to the palace with Lee’s unconscious body, ending the kingdom’s manhunt. The rest of the Blackwoods were long gone, abandoning Lee to a life of interrogations in the dungeon. The only other person who seemed to face any consequences was Mrs. Calloway, who was put on probation as a result of concerning reports from both Ella and me. She decided to resign and return to a home in the countryside she used to serve.
Since then, we’d continued to research, study, and work toward making Amouridia better. Thom’s cure became mass-produced in Junira’s labs using donated blood from its students, sent all over the continent in hopes of turning the tide on the Quiet Passing once and for all.
