by Jae Vogel
Like Ian, Ramona was sucked dry of her life. The pieces fell together as Aurora held her mother and cried, as Kemandry bolted into action, unnoticed. Ramona had tried to stop Aurora from killing Ian. Perhaps she had really wanted them all to live together. Maybe she had believed Ian’s promises. That mattered little; she’d still gripped on to Aurora at the wrong time, and her life, too, had been drained.
There was a snarling growl, and many of Kemandry’s terrible sounds, rushing and crashing together behind her.
“Stop it, Kemandry!” Aurora sobbed. “Stop!”
Miraculously, she did. Aurora looked over her shoulder; Kem was just behind her, tilted her oblong head, snuffling.
She was horrible thing. Just to look at her was frightening. The way she moved, the way she sounded. What she was capable of. But Aurora was her master now, and she didn’t the heart to yell at the creature, not for simply being what she was.
“Go away, for now, Kem,” Aurora said hoarsely. “Just go for a while.”
And Kemandry was gone, just like that. Like a shadow when the lights are turned on.
Still Aurora held her mother, thin and frail and dead, sobbing.
A low growl echoed behind her. This time, Aurora turned her whole body so she could look, bringing Ramona with her. It was a wolf, a large black one. It was closer to the size of a bear; Aurora doubted any wolf in this millennium had ever grown so big. Blood dripped from its fur, and its eyes were wide and dark as they looked at her.
“L-Lucien?” Aurora hiccupped.
The wolf shambled closer and sniffed her face, as Kemandry had done. In this form, Lucien looked bigger than a car, and yet he was still there, behind those wolf eyes. Aurora couldn’t even be afraid, not after what she’d done. She looked down at Ramona.
“I killed her, too,” Aurora whispered. “She was holding on to me, and I didn’t even feel it… She’s gone…”
Aurora leaned over her mother’s body and wept. A part of her had known all along, Ramona was only missing, not dead. But now that part was dark and silent, like her mother’s lifeless eyes. Sorrow and loss were twisting Aurora’s insides, wringing her out like a rag.
A hand—a human hand—rested on her shoulder. “Just go ahead and cry,” Lucien told her softly. “I know it hurts, don’t try to fight it. Just let it go.”
Aurora looked up at him. He knelt beside her, naked, of course, but at the moment nothing could have seemed less important to Aurora. His face was bruised and bleeding. In fact, most of him was bruised and bleeding. But his eyes were kind, and he left his hand resting on her shoulder. In the wrecked wall behind him, Milo stood, watching from a distance.
“Thank you, Aurora.”
Aurora froze and spun toward the other door. When Ian died, his spells had snapped, and now Ylessa stood in the doorway, rubbing her eyes like a sleepy child.
Her wings furled and unfurled gently, as if she was testing their strength, but the fairy picked her way across the floor on foot until she stood over Ramona. Hope fluttered in Aurora’s chest.
“Can you…?” Aurora couldn’t even bear to finish the question. Ylessa was already shaking her head.
“Call her back to this form? No. Your mother has already moved on to new life, to a better life. One where she isn’t waiting, endlessly, for the likes of Ian to return to her.”
It was all Aurora had expected, but still, disappointment was almost worse than the loss itself. She looked around, and there was Lucien, there was Milo, there was Mr. Cheng and Lester through the broken wall, all watching her. This was going to be her new life, her new family.
She looked down at Ramona Potier in her arms, lifeless, but finally at peace. No more waiting, no more worrying. No more long nights at the kitchen table, staring out the same window.
Aurora settled her mother gently on the floor and cried.
Her voice echoed against the walls of the townhouse; Aurora had never been in such an expensive house.
“Madame Moreau lived here all alone?” she asked, incredulous.
Lester nodded. “Yeah. She deeded everything to me when she passed away, but my family doesn’t know about… well, all this. The magic and stuff.”
It had been a week since Ian and Ramona had died. Mr. Cheng and Milo were taking care of that entire mess; there were police to deal with (“Right up my alley,” Milo announced cheerfully), and the funerals to plan. And Moreau’s will to settle, which, as it turns out, was not such a big problem.
“Who’s going to run her company?” Aurora asked anxiously. “Did she have a plan for that?”
“Don’t worry about that,” Lester waved her off as they strolled through yet another huge and empty room, furnished expensively for no one. “She had an army of people taking care of the business side of things. We all thought she wasn’t preparing, but, well…” Lester trailed off with a sigh and a sniffle.
Aurora wrapped her arm around his shoulder protectively. “I know.”
“Anyway, she has a few properties, all paid off, and they’re mine now,” Lester pushed on. “And I think you should live here. Someone should.”
Aurora looked around at the hollow space. “All by myself? What about your family?”
“How am I going to explain why a rich white lady from France left all her money to me without admitting to the magic?”
He had a point.
Aurora already knew what her answer was going to be. She couldn’t refuse; there was nowhere else for her to go, anyway. Lucien had told her three days ago that her old apartment was settled, and everything from there that could be salvaged was in storage, waiting for her to find a new home. Only, Aurora didn’t have anywhere else. She had family in Louisiana, but she’d never met them. She doubted her grandparents wanted to see her, anyway. They’d disowned Ramona for leaving with Ian.
“I guess,” Aurora sighed. “It is a nice house. I don’t know how I’m going to pay the property taxes.”
“I told you not to worry about that sort of thing.” From the hallway, Lucien strode across the wood floors to join her and Lester. “We’ll take care of it.”
“So you said,” Aurora rolled her eyes.
Lucien leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “You should learn to trust people a little.”
Aurora smiled, but didn’t answer. A new life was opening up at her feet. The price had been everything she loved most about her old one, but there was no going back. The only direction was forward, with her new friends, into a future that was uncertain and unfamiliar.
And if Lucien thought that was going to make her more trusting, he had another thing coming.
