“And then she died because you took away her protection,” I said.
Shepherd made a strange sound. “She knew what she was doing, and the rest of the Eleven were the only ones who could judge her. She took no part in the power struggles until forced, and in the end, she died for her interference. But she was willing because she knew you would follow. And I agreed after meeting you.”
“Wait. What?”
“You were in a place you didn’t belong, unable to get back, and I helped you find your way home.”
I touched my forehead. “I remember. You left a bruise.”
“As I said, you didn’t belong. The Matriarch’s role needs to be filled, and when it is, everything else will be restored.”
“So you need me,” I said.
“We need Eleven,” Death said. “We need a Matriarch. The last one took the role as punishment for leading men to their deaths. This time, the world has changed. You have brought upheaval, and this will be your punishment.”
“My punishment?”
“You allowed the book to open. That’s something we can’t magic away.”
“The veil lifting wasn’t my fault,” I said. “I didn’t even know it existed, and all of those other things that happened were put into action long before I was born. But you’re right about one thing. The world has changed. It’s changed so much that we can’t sit around while bad things happen. After my landlady died, a necromancer tore down the gates between the worlds. He planned all of this, even her death, just so he could use the book. We’re repairing our country right now, and that means I can’t always maintain neutrality. I’m willing to be a part of this, but I can’t be restricted by weird rules.”
“There are ways around that,” Death said. “As long as the decisions you influence do not benefit you personally at the sacrifice of others, we can accept that.”
Judge made a frustrated sound. “We cannot accept—”
“We’ve lost one Matriarch to our inflexibility,” Warden argued. “We are not ourselves without her. And look what happened in her absence. We can’t risk another breach. If we’re overrun, we may never contain the problem again.”
“Another will come,” Judge said. “Eventually.”
The eleventh stood. Darkness, Silence, The Last… the eleventh had many names and none at all. Neither male nor female, The Last had no counterpart, but when Darkness spoke, the others listened. “I propose one hundred years of service and then a reconsideration. That should be enough time to reset the damage the unbalance has caused. It’s true we need to close the circle of Eleven now, but it may not always be the case, and the world is in a state of flux. Our actions will not always seem neutral, especially since the doors were opened. A time may come when we are forced to collectively interfere again, but not today, not if this one becomes our eyes and ears.”
The issue was discussed, over and over again. Circling arguments were made while I sat there in silence. I grew so uncomfortable that I had to interrupt.
“If I agree to this, I’ll be untouchable? My people will be protected?” I asked.
Judge answered. “You will have an… unusual status. People will know this, but they won’t remember why. Untouchable is not the right word, but you will definitely have some advantages. You will help the lost souls who come your way, and as long as they are on your properties, they will automatically have the protection of neutral ground. Of course, that won’t protect them from lawbreakers. The previous Matriarch had her own conditions, and those she helped will always have protection, but we cannot give you many more allowances.”
“You will protect the veil,” Wisdom said. “We each have our place, and your agreement will be your commitment. We are being generous with you. When your predecessor was enlisted, she was given nothing in return.”
“You forget,” Shepherd said. “She was given a chance for redemption.”
That was met with silence.
“So what if I need help or guidance or—”
“The same way you came today. There is no sense of time here, and we are all called whenever one touches the stone,” Shepherd said. He would be my counterpart. “Don’t worry,” he added. “Your life won’t greatly change, but you will be compelled to do your duty, and if needed, you will do our bidding to keep the balance.”
“Will I be able to have a normal life? A family, a job… any of it?”
“You will have hundreds of children,” Shepherd said softly, “and the life you choose, as long as you put the lost souls first. All we need from you is your blood. The protection around us must be restored, or the true demons and worse beings will destroy this world as they have done to many others.”
“You may never even see us again,” Birth said. “Sometimes centuries pass before we’re all called together. This won’t alter much in your life, not if you’re as your predecessor described. You can continue with her work, use what she left you to make a comfortable life for yourself. As long as you don’t use your status to push your personal agendas, little will change.”
“Right,” I said. “I get all of that. Kind of. But why me? Why can’t somebody else do it?”
They stayed silent for so long that I grew nervous.
“None of us truly understand why we were chosen,” Shepherd finally explained. “But we all recognise our missing piece. And we know that giving ourselves to this was the right thing. But there are demons in the world again, and we need to be stronger. You can be our conduit, our channel into something greater. You can make the rest of us more powerful.”
“So you’ll use me up,” I said bitterly. “Just like everyone else.”
“We can’t force you,” Death said. “But what if there’s another necromancer? Worse intentions? Together, we can protect everyone from the ancient lawbreakers. You can’t be a warrior, but you can be a protector. That’s an instinct you already have.”
With my blood, I signed my life away for one hundred years, giving them the protection they needed, and ensuring that my friends would have the same protection Mrs. Yaga had always provided.
I was sent back with little ceremony, and it took a few minutes to stop my head from spinning. When I left the room, Martin Breslin was asleep in a folding chair at the top of the steps.
“Um, Mr. Breslin? You okay?”
He jumped awake and sighed with relief. “Thank God. You were gone for three days.” He looked at his wrist. A silver scar burned a little brighter. “It’s done. You came to an agreement?”
“One hundred years.”
“A blip to them,” he said. “Not to you, though.”
“Not to me. So what now?”
“I’ll read the will, and that will set off the next step. There are a few deeds to sign and some contracts, but other than that, we’ll take care of everything. The rest of the homes will belong to you, and—”
“If I give them away, will they still have protection?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“Great! I want to keep the house I live in, but I’d like to sign as many as possible over to some people I know.”
He hesitated. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m positive. What about the lost souls? Do I look for them or something?”
He smiled. “Don’t worry about that. They’ll come to you. They’ll always come to you. You’ll know.”
I spent another hour with Breslin, signing paperwork while I fielded furious text messages from my friends. Mrs. Yaga owned more properties than I expected, and although I didn’t exactly want to be a landlady, I saw potential to help the stolen children in some of the buildings.
“It’s also a business,” Breslin said. “Helping people doesn’t mean you let them take advantage of you.”
“How will I know how to help them?” I asked. “What if I screw up?”
“You won’t screw up,” he assured me. “They’ll come to you with a problem, and you’ll find a way to solve that problem, whether directly or indirectly. It’s far simpler t
han it first appears. You can still have a normal life. Mrs. Yaga travelled extensively and lived a full life.”
“They said it was her punishment.”
He nodded. “For her crimes, yes. But it was also her redemption. She told me she didn’t regret a thing. This was the best thing that ever happened to her. She learned a lot, and she saw many things in her life. You can do the same, Ms. Delaney.”
“Call me Ava. Can I really leave?”
“Of course. People need help everywhere.”
“I just don’t understand how this helps the Eleven. What the point of it is.”
He shrugged. “They’re tied together. They need Eleven, and not everyone can be a part of what they do.”
“Why me then?”
“Maybe this is your real gift,” he said. “You’ll understand in time.”
I must have looked unhappy because he patted my hand. “This isn’t the end,” he said. “This is but a new beginning.”
I really liked the sound of that.
“Everything in this building is yours, too,” he said. “You can employ new staff if you wish.”
“I think you’ll do,” I said, grinning.
He returned my smile. “There are records here, information you might like to read.”
“Knowledge is power.” I had been taken off guard far too many times by my lack of knowledge. It was time for me to seek out everything I needed to know. “I think I’m going to be happy,” I said hesitantly. “This is probably the most relaxed I’ve been in my entire life.”
“You’re not scared of the commitment you’ve made?”
“No,” I said, surprised. “When you first told me, I thought it was some kind of trap. I was mad at Mrs. Yaga, but now it feels more like a gift. Of everything I’ve seen, this is probably the least scary. I won’t have to worry about my friends. I won’t have to get involved in politics anymore. The price of being ordinary is helping some strangers every now and then. What’s the catch?”
“One hundred years,” he said wryly. “But I think you’ll fit in just fine. I’ll help you as much as I can, and there’s a lot for you to think about, but you seem like the kind of person that can make it through anything.”
I thought of all the things I had experienced in my life, all of the pain and death and fear, all of the friends I had managed to make despite that, and I nodded. “Yeah, I think I can, too.”
I went home to explain without giving too much away, happier knowing the rest of my friends would always have some kind of protection on their homes. Most of the rebels had moved on, but some still remained, and I could give them gifts: homes, protection, safety. I would lie to them, of course. I would never let anyone know what I was really doing for them, and if people looked at me as a monster, I would know the truth.
Mrs. Yaga had died thinking she didn’t help me find my way, but she had given me a place in the world, something nobody could take from me. I would never have glory or power, but I knew that it wasn’t all about the darkness or light or what anybody else thought of me or expected me to be. I had finally made a choice that sat well on my shoulders, one that didn’t make me feel as though I was letting anyone down.
Leaving the politics behind to help a random person every now and then suddenly sounded like a bit of a holiday. We were safe. I wasn’t going to accidentally blow up the earth, and I had a real—albeit strange—purpose to my life. Nobody had to know what I’d agreed to, and some kind of peace accompanied that.
I was starting over, and that meant leaving all my mistakes behind. I could definitely handle that.
Epilogue
I opened my front door to see Peter standing there with a bunch of flowers.
“What the…?”
He squinted at the flowers. “Too much?”
“Too much? Are you drunk or something?”
“Emmett said—”
“Emmett? You’re taking advice from a ten-year-old who grew up in Hell?”
He grinned. “Can I come in or what?”
“Yeah, if you tell me where Emmett is.”
He strode past me and into the living room. He laid the flowers on the coffee table. “He’ll be over later. He wanted to give us some time alone first.”
“Time alone for what? Peter, this is my day with Emmett. Stop fucking around.”
“Stop being so angry at me then.” He turned to face me, his eyes earnest. “I know I’ve made a million mistakes, but so did you, and it’s all over now.”
“You’re a gigantic prick,” I said. “That’s not over.”
“It is. I swear, it is.”
“You hurt Emmett. Do you not understand that Yvonne was important to him? You took him away from me and used her as a replacement, and then you ripped her from him again. Can you not see how that might be damaging?”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds before answering. “I didn’t kill her, Ava.”
“You put my knife in her hands. You might as well have slit her throat with it.”
“She was like me,” he said in a low voice. “But I found something else to focus on. All she had was her bitterness. It ate her up. She didn’t know how to feel anything except hate. I think some part of her wanted to die just so she could be with her family again. She cared about Emmett. I’ll never take that away from her, but she wasn’t satisfied with him coming back. She wanted more, and she couldn’t have it. She made her choice, and I couldn’t take that from her.”
“There’s not much difference between you and her,” I said in as scathing a tone as I could manage. Truthfully, my anger had gone, but I hadn’t figured out what was left behind.
“I’m better now,” he insisted. “Most of the time I’m completely different. I’m… I don’t need to be that way anymore.”
“So you miraculously changed overnight? You irresponsible little—”
“Okay! I’m a terrible person. I get it already. But we all do what we have to do, Ava. Knowing Fionnuala died, knowing Reuben and Gideon and all of the people I hated most are dead, I can just… be. And now that Emmett’s protected, I don’t have to worry.”
“Until someone pisses you off or you get bored. I spent all of that time wanting to help you get over everything that happened to you, but I need to work on me first. I need to put myself first.” Wesley’s face flashed before my eyes. The way I felt when Peter left with Emmett without so much as looking back ran through me. “I’m not ready to put my heart in somebody else’s hands.”
He smiled. “You still care about me, though.”
“I care about Emmett.”
“You gave us a house.”
“I gave everybody a house! And technically, Mrs. Yaga gave everyone a house.”
He closed the space between us, and I panicked. It would have been easy to step into his arms and forget everything that had happened between us, but it still existed. We had come together for the wrong reasons, and I knew we couldn’t ever build a real relationship on top of that. My fresh start wasn’t about finding a man. It was about finding peace in my own head, strength, and clarity on what I really wanted in my future. I needed more space and time to get over the people I had lost and left behind. My heart just wasn’t ready for anything else, especially not Peter, who had only ever been honest about the fact he would lie to me to get what he wanted.
“Ava, we met at a bad time, but everything’s changed. We’re all in different headspaces now.”
“I’m in the exact same headspace. I’m angry with you for being such a fucking arsehole.”
He laughed. “The things that happened before won’t happen a second time. Look around you. We can see the sun again. The elections went better than anyone could have predicted, and people are working together to make this work. We proved the doubters wrong, and it couldn’t have turned out better.”
“Less people could have died,” I snapped.
He held on to my arms. “I know you’re upset about Gabe and Mrs. Yaga and all the rest, but they chose to—” br />
“Gabe didn’t have much of a choice. We made a deal, remember? He had to help Carl.”
“Ava, no. He was going over there anyway. Carl said so.”
I shook my head. “He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t have to.”
“Neither of you had to,” he said softly. “You still did it. People do what’s right, and sometimes we lose them. That doesn’t take away from what they did. I won’t pretend to have been a fan of Gabe. I know that deep down you cared about him, that you’re a little angry with him for giving up his life, but he did a great thing in the end. And look at you now, taking over Mrs. Yaga’s properties just to keep her old magic in place. Nobody made you do that.”
I remembered Gabe’s last words. Somebody had to do it, and maybe I would find my own replacement and free myself from the contract someday. Maybe I wouldn’t want to.
I hadn’t told my friends the truth of what I was really doing to protect them, but it didn’t matter. I could never push my own agenda again. Mostly, I looked forward to a peaceful life.
Peter held out his hand and shook mine. “Hi, I’m Peter. I’m a single dad, and I’m in the process of starting up my own business with this half-hellhound I know.”
“Seriously, new Peter is freaking me out. What are you even doing here?”
“Starting over. We’re not the same people we were when we first met, Ava. We didn’t get a chance to figure anything out. We have time now.”
Everyone was busy rebuilding their lives. Carl was going back to college because he wanted to be able to make a difference in the school Phoenix had made the new government promise to build. Phoenix was reorganising his mother’s land for the werewolves to live on unmolested, as long as the pups were sent to the school to integrate with other species for a time.
The bookshop was being converted into a kind of library aimed at helping people understand the new world. Esther was in recovery, but she was doing better than anyone expected. Aiden wasn’t alpha anymore, but his replacement seemed tough and able. The twins were still getting to know their father, while Anka and Margie had become semi-famous amongst the humans for their safe and natural herbal remedies.