Scarlette knelt at my elbow, fingers tapping my neck like she was checking a pulse. Her face was drawn white, jaw set so tight I could almost hear the strain, but her hand stayed steady. Behind us, Mama Celeste hovered—her dark eyes fixed on a point just above my head, lips moving in slow, foreign syllables. Her palms traced lazy circles in the air, gathering something I couldn’t see.
I flexed my fingers. No pain knifed through my ribs. My arm was whole. I pressed my hand to my side—nothing but smooth skin. My dress was torn at the shoulder, stained a shade deeper than blood, but beneath it, as if the cuts had never happened, I was unmarked.
Moab’s voice drifted across the grass. “You okay?”
I swallowed twice, nodded—though my throat felt raw—and lifted myself onto trembling knees.
Sully crawled closer, eyes full of questions, relief, something raw and hungry. He reached out, cupped my face in both hands, and for a moment the world snapped into a single point of warmth—my cheek pressed to his palm, his thumbs brushing the line of my old scar. He kissed my forehead, then pressed his lips to mine, slow and certain, like he was reminding me that we were alive.
Scarlette let out a quiet groan. “You two are disgusting,” she teased, but there was no malice in her tone. I felt Sully chuckle against my mouth, and all at once the tremor in my legs stilled.
Behind us, Moab helped Maeve upright. Nora clung to her sister like a lifeline. Maeve’s eyes were the same hard green I remembered—clear as broken glass. “Did we make it?” she asked, voice steady.
Moab shrugged. “Looks like it.”
Nora’s shoulders shook with sobs. Maeve paused, tensed as if she might strike her sister, then swept her into a one-armed hug, rocking her like Mama used to when the storms rattled the roof.
A wash of dirty-gold sunlight crept over the stones, and I glanced down at my own hands—mud-caked, streaked with someone else’s dried blood. The shamrock tattoo on my wrist was faded but unbroken.
Scarlette stood, brushing grass from her jeans. “If we’re doing this, we need to move—someone’ll call the cops if they spot us.”
Sully slid an arm around me, helping me to my feet. My legs wobbled, but I leaned into him, steady. I looked back at the row of graves, the names I couldn’t pronounce, at the plastic flowers frozen in place, the smiling faces of people who’d lived centuries after my death. I swallowed. “Is this…your world?”
He gave me a small, rueful smile. “It’s not much, but—yeah.”
I turned toward the distant skyline—glass towers catching the newborn sun, machines streaming along a road that cut the cemetery wall. I saw Scarlette, Moab, Mama Celeste trailing behind, and for the first time I felt a flicker of something I’d thought lost: possibility.
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, and believed it.
Maeve and Nora fell in step beside Scarlette. Maeve shot me a look that asked, “Is it safe?”
Moab answered before I could. “Safer than where we came from.”
Nora peeked around Maeve’s arm. “Are we dead?”
Mama Celeste’s voice rang out, larger than her slender form. “Not dead, honey—just displaced.”
Scarlette rolled her eyes. “She means time-travelled, genius.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Toolie rested his forehead against mine. “You all right?” I asked, though I knew.
He nodded, eyes bright. “I’ve got you.”
A chill wind skated over us. He shrugged off his ruined jacket and draped it around my shoulders. It smelled like him—earth and sweat and the faint sweetness of bread. I buried my face in the collar and let the dawn fill me.
Scarlette pulled out her phone, swiping fast. “There’s a café up the road. Let’s regroup, figure out what’s next.”
We filed out of the cemetery gate—Scarlette leading, Mama guiding Maeve and Nora, Moab scanning the street, and Toolie holding me close. I glanced back once at the flattened ring of grass marking our landing. No one would ever know. Maybe a hundred years from now, someone would dig here and find a scrap of blue cloth or a circle of white salt clinging to the soil.
I squeezed Toolie’s hand. “We did it.”
He brushed a stray lock of mossy hair from my face. “We did.”
We stepped into the golden morning together—and then the miracle began to fray.
I could have stared at that sunrise forever, his hand warm around mine, the other cupping my cheek. But even in a new world, wonder unravels. I felt it first as a tightening behind my eyes, a prickle at the edges of sight like old candles flickering in a breeze. Maeve and Nora trailed behind, stunned by city chaos—honks, engines, sirens—a brightness that bit. Moab guided them gently, like they might bolt into traffic. Scarlette stayed between us and the road, eyes sharp for danger.
Mama Celeste moved differently. She drifted back toward the circle in the grass, arms raised, lips whispering a chant I couldn’t catch. The air around her shimmered; a blue gleam pulsed where our landing spot still glowed.