Walker took the news of the baby quite well. Actually, he’d been jubilant. She’d never seen him so happy, then terrified, all at once. But then he’d sobered. “You…you are asking me to help you raise the baby, aren’t you? You’re not going to…give it up?” His Adam’s apple bobbed. His sight had mostly returned with the disappearance of magic—it seemed it was more curse than ailment—and his eyes pinned her now.

She shook her head. “You’re the father, Walker.”

Her reassurance didn’t wipe the doubt from his eyes—doubt she’d instilled in him. Guilt was like a bullet festering inside her. She’d done so many people wrong, and all for nothing in the end. She had to make things right. “Marry me,” she said.

He blinked. “Are you telling me, or asking?”

Her cheeks heated, and she scoffed. “You gonna make me say it again?”

He laughed and kissed her gently so as not to disturb her injuries. Then, more purposefully, infusing her with a promise, branding her with his devotion…filling her with hope, even.

They had a small, private ceremony in the Favreau mansion, and because Hettie was still recovering, they spent their honeymoon there, too.

As she got stronger, Hettie learned about the fates of the rest of her allies. No charges had been laid against members of the League of Sorcerers for Free Magic who’d purportedly attacked Division agents, but Sophie and the others were still working on exonerating members who had been convicted of crimes against the state.

When Hettie’s recovery was well underway, Ling joined Starling in helping the drained sorcerers who’d formerly been zombies. Scattered across the country, they were in need of medical care and a way home. In addition, about a hundred young people were found crowded together at the base of the Wall at the border, as if they’d emerged from the rubble of the collapsing monolith that had once divided nations. Among them were many of the missing children from the Division’s Academy. Apparently they’d been taken and used in magical experiments—Hettie mentioned the zombies she’d found in the pocket realm to Starling, and the League’s leader wrote a letter positing that theory to the new liaison with the formerly gifted before rounding up her team and heading south. With as much medical attention and succor as they could provide, the children would eventually be reunited with their families. And so, with the government’s blessing, the new Coalition of the Gifted was born.

Horace went with them.

“They’ll be needing supplies, contacts, carts, horses…and I can get them at a good rate,” he said, one eye on the wagons being loaded. “Miss Sophie says she’ll handle all the financials and make sure we get what we need.”

“What about your shop?”

“Business can always wait. People who need help can’t.” He tipped his chin up and chuckled. “Never thought I’d go from businessman to outlaw to philanthropist in a single lifetime.”

“Ain’t what you call yourself that’s important. It’s what you do.”

They hugged, and he vowed to see her again soon. Daisy called to him, “You hurry yourself up, Mr. Washington! I’m not fixin’ to wait in this godforsaken swampland for some jacked-up horse trader!”

Hettie waved at Daisy, who rolled her eyes and turned away. “Is she okay?”

“Grieving her brother, no doubt. Don’t worry. I’ll watch over her.” He flashed his teeth, but there was genuine feeling there, too. Hettie had no doubt Daisy would be in good company.

When most everyone had cleared out, Sophie made sure to write reference letters for every last one of the mansion’s displaced servants and then put her grandmother’s home up for sale. Patrice had left everything to her granddaughter in her will, which had incensed her estranged father. Instead of keeping it all, though, Sophie and Jemma liquidated Sophie’s beloved grandmother’s possessions and put the funds into helping Starling with magical recovery efforts. “Grandmère always said we had more than anyone would need for ten lifetimes.” Sophie stared up at the family portraits hanging in the gallery. Patrice smiled serenely down at her, a twinkle in her all-knowing eyes.

“What will you and Jemma do?”

Sophie chuckled. “We might do some traveling—to the Caribbean, perhaps. Somewhere we can just enjoy the sunshine.” Light filled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter where we end up, though. All I really need is her.”

Jemma had different ideas. “Paris. I’ll fatten you up on croissants, and we’ll go hat shopping. I want you to have so many hats, we can’t go anywhere without you feeling bad about leaving your collection behind.”

Sophie took her hand and kissed it. “Yes, ma’am.”

They had Marcus’s body brought to New Orleans for burial in the family plot in St. Louis Cemetery, one of his two mage guns—Luna? Claire?—buried with him. Hettie wondered if Lena and Duke would find the other in Berkeley Manor; she’d sent them a detailed letter about the grandmaster’s opulent home, and with magic gone, she imagined the place was exposed and ripe for robbing. Of course, the Rogues had suffered enough losses, and would be licking their wounds for a while. If Hettie had her druthers, she’d go to Kansas herself and raze that palace of false memories to the ground.

Perhaps she would one day. She felt it was her duty to return what belonged to Marcus. She owed him this, at least. He’d been the only person to understand her curse, her burden.

When all was settled, Sophie handed an embarrassing amount of cash to Hettie in recognition of her services to the Favreau family. “A little money is hardly enough to thank you for saving the world,” she said when Hettie tried to refuse, “especially one that wants you dead.”

“Thanks for that reminder,” Hettie said.

Sophie chuckled. “If I’ve learned anything in my time knowing you, Hettie Alabama, it’s that you could stare death down and win.”

And then Sophie and Jemma packed up and left.

Hettie was just starting to show when she and Walker drove a cart out of New Orleans and took a train north. Fortunately, no one looked too closely at them. Everyone was still dazed by the disappearance of magic and distracted as they tried to navigate a new world where protection talismans were replaced by guns, and personal safety and security became a question of whether you knew how to use one.

Mundanes who’d never had ready access to magic were smug at first; this was the reckoning the Mundane Movement had said was a long time coming, and the people reveled in watching the mighty fall. But professionals whose skills were magic-based found themselves without employment. The government cut the Division’s funds severely, and thousands of agents and enforcers had to find other work. The country went into a recession. And then everyone realized they were surrounded by fearful, jobless former sorcerers looking for reassurance in a world where they no longer had power, and now kept it in the form of irons at their sides.

By the time Hettie and Walker crossed the border into Manitoba, Canada, the leaves were just starting to change color. They bought a cabin in the woods just far enough from town that they wouldn’t be disturbed, on a parcel of land rich with game. Hettie picked up a Winchester for the first time in nearly five years. She bull’s-eyed five squirrels on her first hunting trip out.

Winter came fast and hard. Hettie grew big and irritable. And then, one clear, cold night when the moon stared down unblinking upon the snow-laden land, she gave birth to a little girl.

Hannah Abigail Woodroffe had her mother’s looks and her father’s temperament. As she nursed, hungry for life and her mother’s milk, Hettie remembered holding Abby for the first time, tiny and purple and eerily subdued. A changeling, some had whispered, but her ma had refused to listen when they suggested she end the baby’s life before it became a tragic one filled with pain and suffering.

Now, Hettie had brought a changeling into the world in order to save it.

Winter turned to spring. Hettie’s injuries never fully healed. She developed a tremor in her left leg, and random bouts of dizziness incapacitated her. Her magically advanced years had taken their toll, too: she was always tired now, and having a young daughter didn’t help with her fatigue. Despite all that, she slowly grew to relish this new peaceful life. Her days as an outlaw seemed like a distant nightmare. Still, the ghosts of the past haunted her, and there were days when she’d glance over her shoulder, afraid the authorities would find her and break up their little family.

I understand now, Pa, she thought one night as she cleaned the Winchester, one eye on the dark woods. She thought she’d seen wolves out there.