Page 99 of Last Rites

Sounds were growing distant, too, but Penny was near, keeping me close as he whispered, “I’ll wait for you.”

And somewhere, far in the back of my mind, a voice called my name.

36

Kit

There was cool stone beneath my knees, but warmth on my face that felt out of place in the chill of the caves. I opened my eyes and blinked against the brightness of the fire in the hearth before me, disoriented until my gaze swept over the familiar bookcase to my right.

I was home.

The realization hit me a moment before I registered the quiet humming coming from the kitchen. It was a tune I couldn’t quite place, something I knew I’d heard before, but didn’t know where. A song that often drifted through my mind as I slept and soothed me out of nightmares. And the voice that then put words to the tune over the clattering of a pan on the stovetop stole my breath.

I turned and was halfway to my feet when the sight of the figure standing to my left drew me up short. Warm autumn sunlight poured in from the window beside the fireplace and painted him in golden hues to match the glow of his eyes. If not for that, I might have thought I was looking at my own reflection.

I looked past him, to the kitchen where Penny appeared very much alive while he stirred something on the stove. Penny didn’t seem to notice me, or the god wearing my face. I wanted to call out to him, to pretend for a moment that this was real, that we’d made it home after all, but then Eeus spoke with a voice that wasn’t quite my own.

“Thank you,” he said, dipping his head. “You are a man of great faith.”

A harsh laugh barked out of me as I gave up my attempted pursuit of my intended and settled back to my knees. “That’s the first time anyone’s accused me of that.”

Eeus smiled gently, and the expression was unnerving. I wondered if this was how Penny saw me when I smiled at him. Then I wondered if this was what Penny meant when he said he would wait for me. Maybe this was the afterlife, and we’d get to spend our last conscious moments together before it all ended.

“Am I dead?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Simple. Matter of fact. There was no arguing that.

“Then it’s over?”

Eeus tilted his head and pressed his lips into a thin line. “It will be. There’s a bit more work for us to do.”

I bristled. “Haven’t I done enough?” I snapped. I gestured to the kitchen, to Penny. “Haven’t we all done enough? I’ve given everything, and still, you want more?”

The god across from me didn’t so much as flinch. His gaze followed my prompting, and for quiet moment, I watched him watching Penny, his expression unreadable.

“You say I’m a man of great faith,” I continued, “but I’m not. Penny believed all the things the Symbiarch said you were, that you don’t actually bring suffering and famine and death, that you bring people together during those times to help them through it.”

My breath stuttered in my lungs, and I briefly wondered why a dead man should breathe at all.

And I was dead. So was Penny. Our story was over, but there were still people I loved out there in that cavern, and I needed theirs to go on. Somehow, some way.

“All I’ve known is loss,” I said, the edge of anger in my voice replaced with pain. “My mother, my innocence, my father…”

Too many people to count.

Every home I had ever known.

The only man I ever loved.

I shook myself. I had too many questions to be lost to despair in the only moments I had left to ask them.

“If you’re supposed to be the balance, why didn’t you stop anything? You sat by and watched all of it happen and did nothing. How could anyone have faith in a god like that?”

What balance did it bring to take us both and leave Penny’s family—our family—in Merrick’s hands? To leave their livelihood to someone who wanted nothing more than to strip it from them? Even if he left the farm alone, with Penny and me both lost, there was only Warren to run it, and this was a burden we’d never wanted to leave him. It wasn’t fair that they would all have to go on without us, without ever knowing what happened or what we died for. And the Olivers would be right to curse my name because I’d promised to protect Penny, and I failed.

Eeus stood, impassive as ever, expression infuriatingly neutral as he watched me fight to control my emotions.