Light and sound and wind filled everything, momentarily blinding me in a massive sensory overload. Gradually my eyes adjusted as they stared through a hole in the night, into the shifting world of light and motion that was the paranormals’ home. My hair whipped past my face, stinging my eyes, pulled forward with the rushing wind into this strange, eternal land.

Vivian staggered back, and I looked at her, pale and winded and without any soul other than her own again. She was already shivering violently, only the threadbare hospital gown around her. I still had some souls left from the others I had drained, and it took every ounce of them to push the edges of the gate back until it felt stable, though it still pulled with an insistent intensity I feared would only get stronger.

“Okay,” I shouted, finally feeling like myself again, except more tired and heavier, like gravity wanted me back with a vengeance and was trying to pull me down to the ground. “We did it. Oh my gosh, we actually did it!” I laughed, nearly hysterical with exhaustion and wonder, collapsing against Vivian. We wrapped our arms around each other to stay steady, my scarf ripped from around my neck and sent flying into the other world.

Lend came and put his arm around my free side, staring wide-eyed through the gate. “It’s beautiful,” he said, and fear twisted inside my stomach. What if it called him through? What if he realized that’s what he wanted?

“And,” he said, his voice changing, “kind of freaky, too, right?”

I let out a breath, relieved. “Totally freaky. It doesn’t feel right, you know?”

“Yeah.”

I couldn’t explain it, because it wasn’t that the feeling I got when I looked through was bad, it was just … foreign. So impossibly foreign it was like I didn’t have an emotion that could express it. It made me feel less and more than I was, like who I was or thought I was didn’t matter at all.

I happened to like mattering.

I turned to the crowds of paranormals. “Well, get going! Dawn waits for no paranormal!”

They didn’t need a second prompting, rushing forward and with bursts of light leaving our world for theirs. As they went through I could see their forms shifting, become less physical and more pure spirit, everything bigger than it had been here, everything brighter, everything more beautiful. Dryads became swirls of green light, dancing along the ground; Grnlllll ran past me with a wink of her beady black eyes and flashed, changing in the light to something grand and wonderful, everything good and pure about earth and stone as she disappeared into the ground.

Three unicorns trotted past me with glowing salamanders on their backs, and I held my breath against the stench. But as soon as they crossed the threshold everything small and repulsive about them burst free, and they became the unicorns of my dreams, more a vision of light and motion and power than a simple horse, pounding away free, while the salamanders turned into living flame, curling and twirling on the wind.

They were going through so fast now I couldn’t keep track, couldn’t notice everyone, although the dragon paused long enough to incline its head at me in a way that still looked disapproving, before going through and exploding into a thousand writhing, dancing dragons even larger than it had been here. I saw Donna run through with several other selkies, her face a mixture of joy and sadness. Kari would never go through with her.

The tree spirits wound their way through, and again, Nona wasn’t with them, her spirit forever lost to that realm. On the other side they sank into the ground, spreading out and away, covering Grnlllll’s rich earth with trees and flowers and growing things too perfect and strange and wild for this Earth.

And then a rush of water flowed past us, carrying the countless water elementals with it, straight through into their home. I was wet up to my calves but it didn’t matter, not now. I watched light after light as souls passed through in a torrent to the other side, but my attention was brought back to our own cold Virginia predawn when the last of the water rose up in front of us.

Cresseda, beautiful and lit from the inside by her own soul, smiled at Lend and held out her hand. “Come, my son. Join with the water and discover your true nature. Be with us always.”

Lend made a noise somewhere between a choke and a sob. “I— Mom— I can’t. This is my true nature. This is who I choose to be. I’m sorry.”

Her features contorted in confusion, then reset themselves into a peaceful smile. “When I brought you into this world, I thought I could set your path. I see now that by naming you Lend it was not to your father I was giving a temporary gift. It was to myself. Are you certain?”

He squeezed my shoulder, and I wrapped my arm around his waist, anchoring him here with every ounce of love I possibly could. “I’m certain. I love you, Mom.”

“And I love you, my beautiful boy. Be well.” With a massive splash and rush of water, she disappeared down and through the gate. Lend let out a gentle sigh next to me, and I took my other arm from around Vivian and wrapped him up in a hug.

“I’m going to miss her.” His heartbreak echoed through his voice.

“I know.” I didn’t know what else to say. He’d been given an impossible choice between two worlds, both of which he belonged in. I was ecstatic he’d chosen mine, even though I couldn’t imagine how much pain it must be costing him.

With an extra burst of wind, the sylph flew past us, giving me a dirty look with its strange lightning eyes. When it went through, the wind kicked up a notch, becoming a gale. We had to lean away from the gate to stay standing.

With a jolt I realized that all the paranormals had gone through except the faeries. In a line they went by, their orderly passing a somber dance to music I couldn’t hear. Part of me was unavoidably sad to see them go. I knew that much of the magic of this world was leaving with them, and, whatever else they were, they were wonderful in the fullest sense of the word. I tried to pick out faeries that I knew—crazy, broken Fehl, Melinthros, or any of the other faeries I’d had to use, particularly the midnight or Goose Down Hair faerie, but this many together wove a pattern of light and beauty that blended from one faerie to another and made my eyes tired.

In the end it didn’t matter, really, about individual faeries anymore, about fights I’d had with them, feelings I’d harbored for them. Their time here was over. I had no good-byes for any of them. I’d given them more than they deserved.

“Evie.” I looked up to see Arianna standing in front of me.

“What?” I said, having to shout to be heard over the whipping wind. It stole my words, flinging them away from us and through the gate.

“I’m going,” she said, and even though I could barely hear her, the words hit me with a shock.

“You’re— Where? Where are you going?”

She nodded toward the gate, staring at it with eyes so weary and mournful they made me want to cry.

“You can’t! You don’t belong there!”

She stepped closer, smiling at me. “I don’t belong here, not really. I haven’t for a long time.”

“But you have no idea what going through there will do to you!”

She shrugged. “I’m willing to find out. I’m tired, Evie. I don’t want this life, not like this, not here.”

“But—” I struggled for words, trying to think of some way to talk her out of it. “But what about me? What about us? We’re your friends! We love you! And your games! What about your—”

She put her hand over my mouth. “Look at me, Evie.” Her smooth, pale-skinned glamour seemed so thin over her corpse’s face. “Tell me I belong here.”

“I … I want you here.”

She leaned in and hugged me. “I know. Thanks. I love you, too. And for the record, Cheyenne and Landon are soul mates and if they don’t end up together, I want you to find a poltergeist to haunt the Easton Heights writers.”

I sniffled, hiccupping a laugh. “Okay.”

She pulled back, smiling at me, then reaching out to ruffle Lend’s hair. “Take care of each other, you two obnoxious kids.”

Then, throwing her shoulders back and staring straight forward, she walked through the gate. I watched, dreading seeing her turn into dust or something, but gasped in relief and joy as her ruined, unnaturally preserved body blossomed into something new, something strong and proud and undeniably alive.

She turned back, just once, and although she was nearly unrecognizable, I could see our Arianna in her smile that managed to maintain its trademark ironic twist.

“I’m going to miss her,” I said.

“What?” Lend shouted.

“I said, I’m going to miss her!”

“I can’t hear you! I’m going to miss her!”

I shook my head, smiling. A few last faeries were going through when I realized that Reth was still standing nearby, his frame visibly shaking.

I gestured to the gate, but he stood there, frowning at me, then motioned me to him. Disentangling myself from Lend, I walked over, having to pull my hair out of my mouth three times.

“You should go!” I shouted. “You’re the only one left and you look terrible and it’s almost dawn!”

“I want to go through with you. I want to be there when you become what you should be.”

“Reth.” I shook my head. “I’m not going through!”

His eyebrows rose in confusion. “You’re not going through.”

“No! I’m not going through!”

“Of course you are going through. This is what everything has been about, escaping this wretched planet. Together.”

“You can go!”

He reached out and cupped the side of my face with his palm that, once again, felt warm to my now extra-soul-free body. Feverish, actually, and I could feel his pulse racing through it. “You are the only thing I have ever cared for besides myself. I cannot leave you here.”

I—oh, bleep, I actually felt sorry for him. And a part of me wished that I could give him what he wanted, because even now, even dying he was so beautiful that the remnants of the girl I was when I loved him wanted to do nothing but make him happy.

But I wasn’t that girl anymore. And I didn’t want to become a different girl so I could be with him. I wanted to be with the boy who loved Evie, not the faerie who loved the potential for Neamh.

I put my hand over his and smiled, then shook my head. “I’m sorry, Reth. I’m not coming. This is my home.”

His eyebrows came together and formed a line that had never been there before on his smooth, perfect forehead. “You are really choosing to stay.”

“I am.”

His frown deepened. “I do not understand.”

I grinned, shrugging. “Isn’t that what you hate about me? Flighty, unpredictable, squirmy human emotions? Even though you’re a total jerk, and I hate you more than I like you, I can accept that you always thought you were doing the right things for me. You can’t make these choices for me though, because you don’t really know me and you never could.”

“But I love you.”

I pulled his hand away from my face and patted it. I’d seen the pregnant girls in the meadow. I knew what it meant to give everything in yourself to a faerie. “Faerie love is something I can live without. And I think you’ll find that I’m something you can live without, too.”

Reth narrowed his eyes and looked from me to the gate and back again.

“Don’t even think about it,” I said, suddenly scared. “If you so much as take a step to drag me through, I will drain your soul and send it through the gate in the stars you’re so scared of. And you know you can’t fight me right now.”

His lip jutted out petulantly, then he sighed. “I really will miss you, my love. If nothing else you were always entertaining.”

I smiled. “I think I might miss you, too. So few things left in this world to terrorize me and look pretty while doing it. Now get out of here and enjoy your eternity.” He glanced calculatingly at the gate once again, and I raised my hand in warning. “I can drain faster than you can run.”

He looked torn, then leaned forward and pressed his smooth lips against mine in a whisper of a kiss. I staggered back, putting my fingers to my lips and still feeling his heat there.

“Perhaps if I had done that earlier you would be coming with me now.” He smiled at me, that enigmatic faerie smile that I realized with a pang I really would miss, then turned and walked, stooped and unsteady, through the gate.

“Good-bye, Reth,” I whispered, letting the wind carry my words through the gate and wondering if he heard them on the other side. Something tight around my heart released as he grew taller and brighter, healed, his features smoothing until they were so much less human than they had ever been. He turned his head ever so briefly in my direction, smiled, and then ran on dancing feet to join the rest of his brothers and sisters.

I smiled back, happy and relieved that at least this time I’d managed to save someone I cared about, even if it meant losing him forever. I was strangely glad I had known him. And non-strangely glad he was gone forever. High time to have an easy life. I turned and ran back into Lend’s arms, burying my face in his shoulder with a smile as I breathed him in.

“We did it!” I shouted, looking up at Vivian and smiling. “That’s everyone! We’re done! We can do anything we want now!”

Her teeth chattering, she smiled back, but hers looked oddly more like a grimace. “Umm, Evie?”

“Yeah?”

“Shouldn’t the gate be closing now?” she screamed, her voice already hoarse from competing with the wind.

I looked at it, edges as strong as ever, but the gale picking up speed. Leaves and small branches spun past us and through the gate, one smacking my cheek and leaving a stinging welt in its wake. And still the gate stood, permanent and strong and greedy, pulling for more life to come through, just as it had done when everyone in that world had been forced through into ours.

Well, bleep.