Epilogue

The Ninety-Ninth Birthday

With a punch of sharp sulfur, the little match snapped to life, flame biting at its wooden stump, hungry for a wick to feed on.

"Another year, another year, another year has come," sang my husband, as hopelessly off-key as ever. He made his way to my rocking chair with careful creaking steps, balancing a plate in his gnarled hands. One lit candle poked from the square of dark spiced cake, a little ball of light pushing back the morning gloom.

"Please don't finish that song," I protested. "I may be many things, but ‘done' is not one of them."

He smiled. "Thank the gods for that."

"Another year older," I mused.

The hands that took the plate from him were wrinkled and riddled with age spots. They trembled, far too much to be considered the tools of a skilled surgeon any longer, but they were still able to cradle great-grandchildren, could still pull weeds from the little herb garden I kept out back, and would hold on to the fingers of my beloved as tightly as I could muster.

"Ninety-nine," he said with wonder, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

His lips—much like his hair—had thinned over the years, over our decades together, losing the lush fullness of youth, but I found I did not mind. I loved them more now than I had when we'd met. They were the lips that had drawn wild kisses from mine during dark nights of passion and had murmured soft words of comfort in dark nights of grief. They were the lips that smiled at me each morning over breakfast and the ones so quick to scowl when we disagreed. I'd spent the majority of my life with those lips and considered them more mine than his.

The lips of my lover.

The lips of my best friend.

The lips of my Leo.

"You didn't sleep last night," he accused, falling into the chair beside me with a hiss of discomfort. There was a rainstorm making its way to Alletois, and we both felt it along every bone in our bodies.

He was right. I had not. Again.

I'd been feeling changes within me over the past few days, strange stirrings I could not put word to. My body had realized it before my heart or mind wanted to acknowledge the grim truth: there was not much time left for me in this world.

I did not want to spend any of my last precious moments asleep.

I'd spent them watching Leopold dream instead, remembering the moments of our life together. There were the big points—when we'd returned from the Between, my candle holding his life's light as Euphemia's burned clear and strong on his; when he'd abdicated the throne, favoring a life of humble service over dynastic rule. Bellatrice's coronation, our wedding day, the nights we'd welcomed our children to the world. The nights I'd ushered in others' children, set on dedicating my skills to the shepherding of new life, never again using them to bring death.

Sifting through my years, I was amused to realize that the best memories I had, the ones I longed to play over in my mind again and again, were the days of seemingly no importance, the ones full of laughter prompted by jokes I no longer remembered, rainfalls and sunsets, picking clover with my daughter, the soup Leo made one winter that still caused my mouth to water. Little snippets that looked like nothing but were everything, comprising the brightest threads in the tapestry of my extraordinarily long and altogether too-short life.

Ninety-nine years sounded so vast and yet was nothing: a wisp of breath, a flutter of moments, the hiss of a candle's flame.

I could feel my candle now, the little fire dancing upon a wick grown too short. I worried endlessly about when that light would extinguish forever.

What then?

Where would my memories go? Would there be a place to store them or would that be it—the whole of who I was, who I'd grown into, gone in the wrong second of a wayward draft?

I wanted to know if I'd see Merrick once more. I'd not laid eyes upon him since my nineteenth birthday, and it hurt knowing how much of my life he'd missed. I hoped he'd watched some of it, even from afar. The good parts, the bad parts, the parts that were neither but somehow both. Those beautiful, messy, wonderfully ordinarymoments.

"Aren't you going to make a wish?" Leopold asked from his chair. It was hard to see him through the light of the approaching dawn. "The candle is nearly out."

"It is," I agreed, watching the little taper's wax melt all over the top of Leopold's spiced cake. I studied the struggling flame, feeling a profound kinship with it, and made no motion to dash it away.

I glanced back to Leo, a smile of chagrin ready at my lips, then blinked. I knew morning was nearly upon us, knew the sun was beginning to rise over the eastern field, spreading its rays wide and warm, but the room seemed darker now, the shapes around me dimming and growing soft and indistinct.

"Leo?" I asked, unsure if he was still there. I couldn't see him, couldn't feel the warmth of his presence.

But there was someone else with me in the dark. I could feel the air move over the shape of his gaunt frame, drift over the heft of his fine robe.

"There once was a very foolish god who lived at the heart of the Between," he began, and I felt tears prick at my eyes. His voice sounded just as I remembered, rumbly and deep, like the smoke of an autumnal bonfire, like the rich loam of blackened earth.

Like Merrick.

Like my godfather.

"Happy birthday, Hazel."

I reached out, fumbling to find his hands in the surrounding darkness. I couldn't see the bright shine of his red-and-silver eyes, couldn't see his inky silhouette, and I needed to feel him, needed to know he was finally here.

"I didn't bring a cake," he apologized. "I knew nothing I created would best dear Leopold's efforts." He let out a small laugh. "I never would have guessed spiced cake was your favorite."

My heart swelled. He had been with me, checking in, whether I'd sensed his presence or not.

"Where are we now?" I asked, wrapping my arthritic fingers around his even bonier ones. It was a terrible thing to be in such an all-consuming darkness. My eyes flittered through the void, restlessly searching for something to focus on. But there was nothing. "Does Leo know you're here?"

I heard him shake his head. "He thinks you've dozed off. He's taken the plate from your hands. Such a pity too; it looks like a terribly good cake."

The threatening tears spilled over my cheeks as I nodded.

"Hazel, I…" Merrick paused. "There are so many things I want to say to you, so many apologies I need to give."

"You don't," I promised.

"I'm so proud of you, so proud of the life you've made, the things you've done." His grip tightened. "Despite everything I did, all the trials I saddled you with, you became exactly who you were meant to be. It has been a privilege to watch you grow." His voice quavered, sounding wet. "Oh, my brilliant, bright, darling little Hazel."

"There's not much candle left, is there?" I asked.

"No," he admitted, tears choking the word. "And there's so much I need to—"

I squeezed his hand, silencing him. "There's nothing you need to do, nothing that needs to be said. I had the life I did not in spite of but because of you, because you thought me special enough to fight for, because you loved me."

"Love," he corrected. "Never past tense. Always present."

My throat felt full with wishes that wanted to be let loose and free. I wished I had more time, I wished Leo could be with us, Iwished…

I swallowed them down.

A wish was nothing but a hopeful regret, and here, at the end of my life, I had none.

"There is one thing I'd like to ask of you," I started. "One small favor."

"Anything." He said it immediately, unconditionally.

"Will you stay with me till the end comes? Will you sit with me in the dark?"

I felt his tears fall on my hands, wetting them. "I will," he swore.

We sat together, quietly at first. I leaned my head against his shoulder and he gathered his robe around us both and it was the most peaceful, companionable silence I had ever known. My godfather, me, and the dark.

"Will it be like this always?" I dared to ask, then took in a quick breath as my eyes began to adjust, sharpening the shadows around us, drawn to the lines of highlights and limns. "Oh, Merrick," I whispered, awed. "Look at that wondrous light."