Page 125 of Find My Way Down to You

My glare shifts over each of them. “Tell mewhat?”

Predictably, Cary doesn’t answer. Neither does Henri.

Milos drops my hand. “How do you think you can come and go from Aides? Or see the souls? Did you not wonder why my brother’s pathetic beast does not harm you?”

I thought it was because Cary told him not to. Because Cerby liked me.

There’s a spark in Milos’s eyes. Gold, twinkling. “You saw my brother in the mortal realm even when his power should have hidden him.How, August?”

I look past him. To Cary’s hardened face. The face that told me so much—his sadness and regret and wants—in my mom’s greenhouse but gives nothing away now.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly.

“Because you are not one of them,” Milos announces. His fingers tip my chin toward him. “Not entirely.”

I blink.Not one of them.How could I not be? My dad is a nurse. My mom works in gardens and sells flowers at farmers markets.

I’m just a boy from Santa Barbara.

Not entirely, he said. Frigid fear wraps around my lungs.

“What am I?”

Somewhere, slightly out of focus, I see Cary step farther into the room, his mouth opened in protest. Henri rests a hand on Milos’s shoulder, speaking first. “He’s not ready—”

Milos jerks free, still holding my chin.

Gleefully, he says, “One of us.”

18

My reality is shattered.

In the broken shards, I see so many versions of myself:

The August who loved following his mom around her greenhouse. Another August, who wrote songs about a boy who left the world too soon. The August who no longer knew how to get out of bed. And the August who met the ferrier of souls. Another August, who accidentally fell into the underworld and discovered powerful immortals.

Finally, the August who is one of them.

Breathless, I whisper, “It can’t be true.”

I search the room. Three faces tell me everything: Henri’s twisted and guilty. Milos’s arrogant and elated. Cary’s defeated and apologetic.

Resentment burns wild and merciless underneath my skin. It leaves my blood scalding. Steals the oxygen from my lungs.

“How is this possible?” I hiss at Cary.

His mouth pinches. “I told you. Deathless have existed forever. Generations and generations. Our power is given. And then passed on to another when we are done.”

Milos makes a disapproving noise.

I ignore him. “What does any of that have to do withme?”

Cary lets out a soft breath. “Most times, we step into our role because a previous Deathless is ready for their next journey.” His eyes roam over me. “But there was once a Deathless who chose something else.”

“What did they choose…?”

His dark gaze slides away from me. He looks at the floor. That one curl droops farther down his brow.