Page 168 of Devoured

I know enough already. Calix is leaving. Evie will have to return home. Portia too. Everyone is moving on, and I will be stuck here. I will be alone until I can find my own way in this world.

“No,” Lyra says. “I didn’t think you would. Which is, perhaps, why they permitted us to have this conversation at all.” Her voice lowers to a lilting whisper. “You see, stars exist inside and outside of our own time. We see them as they were millions of years ago, and they see every

iteration of us. From our births to our deaths to the great after. The universe knows all.”

“And Evander the Spider—”

“Just one star from the Chamaeleon constellation. From one constellation out of dozens. Although, you should know, he isn’t always a spider. He just prefers the form as it allows him to crawl around the earth, frightening children and poisoning his enemies.”

“Right. Sounds like Evander.”

“Faeries aren’t perfect. You might want to warn Calix Severi about that,” she says, suddenly serious. “In a few days, while the young man is packing in the dark, Evander is going to skitter across his ceiling, and Calix is going to become very violently enraged.”

I smile in spite of myself. Maybe because Sin would laugh at that. Sin would have helped Evander, made the prank an entire performance, and Calix would curse them both. He would rue the whole experience until he couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

My chest aches at the thought. “I think Calix will be fine.”

“Yes, but what of Evander?” She knocks into me with a giggle. “This is quite fun. What else can I tell you? Oh! The Mind Reader girl—she is safe. You were worried about her during the rite, but she is waking in the infirmary as we speak. Prince Sinclair trapped her in her own mind to protect her from Cora, and now, Arielle Jerez is free. If you can believe it, she and Evie will find each other in a few years, and—”

I wrap a hand around a skeletal branch and force Lyra to stop walking. To stop talking. “Did you say that Sin was protecting Arielle?”

“Yes.” Lyra blinks at me, crooking her head like a cat. “Are you startled by that? I rather thought you more than anyone would have seen Sinclair Severi’s true intentions. Arielle learned that Cora’s powers had been stolen from her. It wasn’t safe for her to exist in the castle while Cora was still alive. So Sinclair did what he could for her. He kept her in her mind, and he set forth to kill Cora.”

I swallow hard. No. I’m not startled by that at all. I just wish we’d known. I wish he had told us what he was doing. But then, we never told him what we were doing either.

“I’m sick of secrets, Lyra.” I rub my chest as if I can work the knots of grief and regret from my muscles. “This has been so hard.”

“You have said goodbye to many,” Lyra agrees with a gentle nod. “You are in pain, but it won’t last forever.”

I turn to her then, unable to contain the wave of sadness that crashes through me. “Isn’t that worse? If I don’t feel the pain, it will be like I forgot them.”

She plucks a fresh bloom from the trunk of a purple wisteria tree and tucks it behind my ear. “You can’t forget the dead, Vanessa. Everyone who has ever passed lives on.”

“Portia told me that’s what werewolves believe. That we become the wind, the flowers, the earth—”

“Yes, but also no.” She inclines her chin. “Do you know, when I was a little girl—before I became the Oracle—my grandmother used to watch me in the summertime. My mother and father worked, and my brother, sister, and I stayed with Abuela at her apartment. Whenever we got into spats, or yelled too loudly when she had a migraine, or broke one of her revered porcelain dolls, she would look at us with stern eyes and say, ‘I love you very much, but I do not like you right now.’ ” Lyra smiles, as if this is the happiest memory in the world. And maybe, for her, it is. “My mother started saying this to us too. And somewhere in upper Manhattan, my brother says it to his children, and soon, they will say it to their children.”

I startle at that. Lyra looks barely older than me, but she must be. Being an oracle must have made her ageless.

“You see,” she continues, “even though Abuela passed away, her words did not. She will live on forever. Just as her abuela lived on through her. Just as all our ancestors live on through all of us. We do not exist without those who came before us, and we do not exist without those who come after us. Time is not linear, Vanessa Serafina Hart; it is a beautiful, imperfect circle. The future affects the past. The past affects the future. And this moment we have, this moment right now? It will become a memory as soon as it’s over, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone.

“Your father may not be a physical part of your future anymore, but he will always be your father. Sinclair Severi may have died, but the marks he left on your heart will remain. And Celeste—” Her smile softens as she wipes a tear from my cheek. “Celeste Ward is with you forever, Vanessa. Love cannot die. It lives on in our every breath.”

“And what about the dead?” I breathe, voice breaking. “Are they happy?”

“So many religions across so many worlds have guessed what comes next for us, but there is no way of truly understanding the afterlife until you experience it for yourself.” Lyra lifts my chin with her finger, forcing my gaze to meet hers. “It is euphoria. Bliss. Nirvana. Everything humanity has dreamed of and so much more. Yes, they are happy. None of our loved ones are suffering. Not our parents or our pets or our friends. They’re happy—and you should be too. You shouldn’t waste your life waiting for what comes next. You must live, Vanessa. It will be the hardest thing you’ve yet to do, but you must wake up every morning, and you must brave every dawn with hope in your heart.”

I collapse onto a toadstool mushroom, the world blurring around me as I sigh through my tears. All while Lyra sits on the earth in front of me and picks lichen from a heavy rock. She hums as she works. She seems completely and totally content.

Even after everything she’s been through. Even after all she’s suffered. She seems at peace.

It gives me hope for my future. It makes me think that maybe this isn’t the end at all. It’s just another beginning. It’s all just growing pains.

Lyra clears the rock of lichen and hurls it into the nearest pond. It splashes through the surface, causing ripples before flying upward. Toward the sky. And from those ripples, a frog emerges. It narrows bulbous red eyes at us and croaks its discontent.

Lyra giggles to herself, waving her fingers at the creature. It turns away from us and plops down in the mud. It begins to snore.

“Froglets,” she says to me conspiratorially. “Grumpy bastards with amazing throwing arms. You should see what happens when you prod one with a stick.” She moves to stand. “Actually, I can show you now—”