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She stops walking. Right there in the middle of the driveway, with the mist beading in her pink curls.

“Gabriel.”

“I meant it then. I mean it now.” I lift our joined hands and press a kiss to her knuckles. “Every one of those hundred and forty-three years. I would do them all again.”

Her lips part. And I’m pretty sure that for once in her life, April Stevens has nothing to say. I find I quite enjoy it.

The iron gates stand open before us. Beyond them lies the road. A perfectly ordinary road. I’ve spent more than a century staring toward it from the roof of my house. Imagining what it might feel like to walk down it. To choose a direction. To keep walking.

April squeezes my hand. “Ready?”

“Yes.” I step forward. And keep going, one foot, and then the other. Nothing stops me. There’s no invisible wall. No creeping cold or gray spreading at my fingertips.

I am standing on the road.

For a moment, I simply stand there. Breathing. Looking at the trees. The sky. The world.

“Gabriel.” April’s voice is strange. She isn’t looking at me. She’s looking back up the driveway. “Look.”

I turn.

Winchester House rises above the trees, gray stone and dark windows, morning mist curling around its turrets. And on the east roofline, where I have crouched for one hundred and forty-three years, there is nothing. Only an empty ledge. And far below it, in the rain-soaked flowerbed, a heap of broken granite.

“The thunder,” April whispers. “Last night. Right after you said—” She presses a hand to her mouth. “That wasn’t thunder.”

I stare at the empty ledge.

“That old woman told you that you would remain here until you understood what truly made a home worth keeping.”

“It took me one hundred and forty-three years. And one woman with pink hair, a terrible singing voice and the absolute best thing that’s ever happened to me.” I squeeze her hand. “It’s broken,” I say. The words feel far too small. “The curse is truly broken.”

April makes a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob, and then she does something I don’t expect. She releases my hand and takes a few steps backward. Toward the house. As though she’s giving me room to leave. As though she thinks I might want to.

I look at the road stretching away from Winchester House. At the freedom I’ve dreamed of for more than a century. Then I turn back toward her.

Because there’s only one place I want to be. I walk through the gates. Straight to April. I cup her face.

“Did you think I was going somewhere without you?”

She laughs shakily. “I don’t know. You’ve been trapped here for a really long time.”

“Yes.”

“And now you can go anywhere.”

“I can.”

Her eyes search mine. “So where do you want to go?”

I smile. “Wherever you are.”

Her face crumples. “Oh, damn it.”

I laugh. “What?”

“You can’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”