Page 140 of Demon's Beauty

Even now, watching the Veil’s light flicker from ethereal pearl to emerald green and a hundred different shades in between, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it.

The portal is open.

All I have to do is step through.

And I can’t make my feet move.

“You said you had something for me?” I ask my sister, grasping at any straw to keep me here a moment longer.

“Here,” Seren says, handing me a bundle of soft, supple leather.

It takes me a moment to realize what it is.

A new bag.

Better than my old one—which was never all that great to begin with, just standard canvas I bought when I was sixteen and didn’t have more than my weekly allowance to spend—and practically humming with the magick she used to enchant it.

“You didn’t have to—”

“C’mon, Sol,” she says, shuffling her feet, every bit as bad at expressing emotion as I am. “Yours was falling apart. I can’t believe you never replaced it after all this time.”

“I couldn’t… there wasn’t…” Damn it. When did my throat get so tight?

Seren pretends not to notice how choked up I am, tactfully waiting for me to clear my throat and continue.

“I didn’t have you to help me charm a new one,” I admit. “And I didn’t want… I didn’t want to be walking around without that piece of you.”

“Something to remember me by?” she teases.

“You have no idea.”

The words come out too rough, too raspy, drenched with the tears I’m just barely holding back.

“Help me finish the spell?”

I nod, fully too overwhelmed to speak, and we both lay our hands against the soft leather.

We work together, pull the simple, wonderful magick we dreamed up when we were just kids into the bag, and in the space of a few heartbeats, it’s done.

“You added something,” Seren says as I tuck the new bag into my old one so I can switch everything over later. “I felt it in the spell.”

“A bit of longevity into the leather. Sort of like a healing, knitting the material tighter so it’ll last longer.”

“Clever,” she says appreciatively, then glances toward the Veil. “Well… I suppose it’s about time.”

“I suppose it is,” I whisper.

But I don’t move.

Not yet.

I can’t make my feet take the few steps to carry me out of this realm.

Seren opens her arms, and I step into them without hesitation.

It’s like coming back to myself.

She has, and will always be, one half of me.