Arthie was on her knees, the floor’s cold seeping through the thin silk of her sari. Around her, the carnage continued. Penn’s head was in her lap. There was a bullet hole right above his left breast pocket, for Calibore was no ordinary pistol. Still, Penn did not bleed, he did not shake, he did not gasp out a breath.
She had brought death to his doorstep, and he was looking up at her as if she’d saved him. His eyes were full of love, and Arthie, after all she had done, loathed herself a little more because of it.
“Do not mourn. I lived an eternity and more on this earth.”
“We can fix this,” she said, like a child, like a fool. “We can be a family together. Like you promised.”
For years after running away from his home, she wondered what it would have been like if she had stayed. Would she have met Jin? Would she have made good on her anger and opened Spindrift?
She would have had a father. A family.
“Family isn’t who we live with but those we would die for.”
Penn lifted his hand to her hair, and Arthie couldn’t understand how someone so big, so powerful, so ancient could do this. Die. Then he curled her trembling hand into a fist and tucked it against his cold, unbeating heart.
“Stay brave, little lion.”
She didn’t want to be brave. She didn’t want to keep fighting. The damask curtains fluttered in Laith’s wake, a purple hyacinth bright in the fray.
I’m sorry, the flower meant.
Arthie threw herself to her feet just as Flick screamed.