Page 59 of Her Unending Horizon

I was thinking about something outside myself. About circuits and cash and shady men who knew too much. About threats I couldn’t see yet but could feel moving around the edges of my life.

It wasn’t exactly healthy.

But it was…different.

I wrapped my hands around the mug, letting the heat soak into my fingers, and stared at the swirling surface of the coffee.

What the hell was I getting myself into?

Whatever it was, it had teeth.

And for the first time in months, I felt something that wasn’t just grief.

I felt awake.

Chapter Thirteen

Even though it was Saturday, my phone lit up with EDITH – DO NOT IGNORE at nine thirty in the morning.

I stared at it on the table, next to my coffee and a half-finished sketch of Seris standing in the ruins of her city, and considered letting it go to voicemail. Edith was my editor, my publicist, and also, occasionally, my benevolent tyrant. Ignoring her would only buy me maybe ten minutes of peace before the follow-up email.

With a sigh, I hit accept and put her on speaker.

“Hey,” I said. “You know civilians are still in pajamas on Saturdays, right?”

“Don’t care,” Edith chirped, way too awake. “Because I, my dear, am looking at the new pages you sent last night and I am officially losing my mind.”

I blinked. “In a good way?”

“In the best way.” I could practically hear her pacing. “Chloe, these spreads? The rubble sequence? The panel where Seris is standing in the broken doorway and the light is behind her? I might have actually gasped out loud. My cat judged me.”

A little warmth slid into my chest despite myself. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said. “This is career-best work. I want to start teasing it now. We can do a cover reveal, then a few interior panels, build some buzz. People are already rabid for the next volume, and if I don’t give them something soon, they’re going to storm my inbox.”

I winced and looked down at Seris. She stared back at me, inked hair wild, city in ruins, eyes full of all the things she couldn’t say.

“Edith…” I ran my thumb along the edge of the page. “Hold on, okay? It’s not done. I still haven’t figured out the ending.”

“That’s what revisions are for,” she said, breezy. “We tease, we build anticipation, we—wait, what do you mean you haven’t figured out the ending?”

“I mean,” I said slowly, “that I don’t…know how it ends.”

Silence. For about three seconds.

“Okay, no,” she said. “Absolutely not. I am putting my foot down. It has to end with a happy ending.”

I closed my eyes.

Of course she’d say that.

“How happy are we talking?” I asked. “Like, confetti and baby dragons? Or, like, they’re both alive and making eye contact?”

“Chloe.” Her voice softened. “Come on. It’s been a rough series. They’ve earned it. You’ve earned it. You cannot put these two through all this trauma and then just…leave them in separate corners staring at the wall.”

My fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

Seris and Kael were ink and paper. Lines and shading. Fiction.