Page 59 of Drop Dead Gorgeous
I nod.
“I bargained for you.”
She is silent for a long moment.
Then, because she is Lavinia, she asks the only question that truly matters.
“What did it cost?”
“Everything I was willing to lose.”
A tear slips free as she looks down at the thread.
“I’ve spent my whole life trying to keep flowers alive a little longer,” she says with a watery laugh. “Seems only fair someone finally tried it with me.”
“There is one condition.”
She nods before I finish.
“I know.”
“You will never be exactly as you were.”
“I know.”
“You will belong to my world.”
A slow smile spreads across her face.
“I think I’ve belonged to your world for quite a while now.”
My throat closes.
“Will it hurt?”
“Not for a moment.”
“And after?”
“Never again.”
She laughs through her tears, warm and hopeful despite everything.
“Then let’s make it count.”
Her fingers tighten around the thread.
“Let’s bloom.”
The light surges between our joined hands, bright enough to chase every shadow from the room.
For the first time since the beginning of creation, Death chooses life.
EPILOGUE: FIVE YEARS LATER
GRIM
There’s a fantasy—persistent and annoyingly well-marketed—that immortality makes you boring. I’ve lived long enough to know the opposite is true: it simply makes you a more efficient curator of absurdities. I walk through Blackthorn Bay’s main street on a morning so clean and sharp it nearly whistles, and the world parades its oddities for me on cue.
