“It would not, I think, be right for you to meet your father and sister. A brief moment would be cruel—unless of course you chose to stay. But there is another.”
Senna turned at the sound of footsteps. Cord smiled at her, more beautiful than she’d ever seen him. With a cry of joy she ran to him and hugged him hard. In wonder, she felt the wholeness where his wound had been.
He reached out and lightly touched her healed hip. “Such things don’t come with us.”
Senna turned to Lilette. “What about Joshen? And Reden? Where are they?”
Lilette’s brows dropped down. “They aren’t here.”
Confusion and uncertainty welled inside Senna’s breast. “But surely they didn’t survive. That wave was taller than any mountain I’ve ever seen. ”
“They have not passed from the mortal world.”
Senna didn’t know whether she felt relieved or horrified. “Why did Grendi let me think she had killed them?”
Lilette’s face hardened. “What better way to wound your Guardians than to force them to watch you suffer? What better way to hurt you than to let you think them dead?” Senna tried to imagine Joshen watching her at the mizzen mast for nearly three days, while she thought he was dead. And him unable to tell her differently.
She took a measure of comfort from Cord’s solid presence beside her.
“Grendi does not have a place waiting for her here.” Lilette fingered a bright blue flower. Yellow pollen stuck to her finger. “I knew love during mortality, and I watched him die. So my decision was not hard to make.” She sighed. “You could wait for Joshen. We do not feel time the way mankind does. It will seem a matter of days, not decades. If he is worthy, he will join the Guardians after his death, safeguarding the souls of those who have earned a life in our everlasting gardens.”
Cord took her hand. “Stay with me?”
Tears filled her eyes. Cord brushed them off her cheeks and stared at the gold on his fingertips. “Even your tears are filled with songs.”
She saw her future unfold with Cord. No pain or sorrow. Joshen would eventually move on. He would be happy again—he wasn’t the kind of person to stay sad for long. “Isn’t there still a chance I could save them?”
“If you return, it will be to your battered body. The power of a Creator will fade quickly, leaving you with little more than your own song.” Lilette pursed her lips. “We whispered warnings to the Keepers through you. And for it, they banished you. They are not worthy of more chances.”
Senna remembered all the hurt and pain the Keepers had caused her. But there were kindnesses, too. Gentle nudges and laughter.
Lilette walked to a climbing vine and picked a white flower growing along its base. “You would give up all this beauty and peace to go back to them who hate you?”
Senna hesitated.
Cord tucked her hair behind her ear. “Is it Joshen?” He didn’t seem angry, just sad.
Senna looked up at him, her eyes imploring. “Not just him. There’s my mother, too, and the others.
“You needn’t fear for the world’s coming death, Brusenna. It is merely a change for the better. The Witches will not end. Those who have earned their place will come here. Those who do not will go somewhere else.”
Senna’s sorrow was like a slow burning coal in her chest. “But it would mean decades of slow decay. What kind of life will they live until then?”
Lilette didn’t answer.
Senna took a deep breath. “I have to go back.”
Lilette sighed as she tucked the flowers she’d gathered behind Senna’s ear. “You have made your decision. Very well.”
Cord studied her, his brow furrowed. Bending down, he pressed a kiss to her forehead—just as she’d done for him as he lay dying. “I will tell your father and sister stories of you.” He cradled her cheek and smiled as if he understood and it didn’t pain him. Then he turned and left, walking with a light step until he disappeared through the garden.
Lilette reached out and placed something solid in Senna’s palm. “I believe this is yours.”
Senna stared at her complete moon pendant. The cord was gone, but other than that, it was perfect. The last time she’d seen it, Grendi has used it to find her. A wave of relief tumbled over her. “You made this a long time ago, didn’t you?”
Lilette nodded. “So that my Guardian and I would always be able to find each other. Until he went where the pendant could not follow, but I could.” She sang softly.
Senna watched in awe as a chain of gold grew through the loop.
Smiling, Lilette reached forward and snapped out the waning gibbous. “Joshen can still use the other half.” Pushing the gibbous back in place, she gently clasped the chain around Senna’s throat. It felt warm and familiar.