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In many ways, I wasn’t surprised the angel had two new gravestone neighbors. Although new wasn’t quite true. Lichen, moss, and grass had been at work for several months, trying to obscure the names.
The first gravestone was Elisabeth’s. I knelt and touched the stone. She did not deserve her fate, but life and reality were cruel in ways that had no reason.
The stone beside Elisabeth’s drew my eye, and as I read its engraving, Hush scurried out from behind it. “Ah, I wondered when you’d show up.” I offered her my hand, and she hopped onto my finger. “I suppose it was time,” I told her, and read the name on the second gravestone.
Here lies Valentine Anzio.
Aged 30.
I’d thought it would hurt more seeing my name there. But strangely, the moment I saw it, I realized I’d always known.
Died of a broken heart.
The truth wasn’t always true, but few could argue with death, except perhaps Devere.
His shop hadn’t miraculously come back to life the morning after I’d killed Adair, and neither had Devere. In reality, he’d always been the doll lying broken on the floor, and I’d always been the man sleepwalking through life, dreaming dreams to keep from going mad. I’d been about to wed Elisabeth, but that day, Adair had killed her, and I’d killed Adair.
I’d taken the pistol home with me, and what happened after was evidenced on the gravestone.
Died of a broken heart.
This world, this life, this moment, they weren’t real, but what was reality, really? A horrible place where I’d suffered in childhood, gotten an innocent woman killed, and lost my mind and my true love. That world had never been right for me.Hush, Valentine. It will all be over soon.
But this world?
This one, with its flouncing butterflies, midsummer heat, and the love of a man who made my heart sing?
This one was perfect.
“Val, I’m so sorry,” Devere said from behind me. I turned to find him stricken. He hadn’t known. “Please, believe me, I did not do this—” He stepped in, reaching for me as though fearing I’d think him guilty and he’d lose me all over again. “I wasn’t aware. I suspected. Some things felt off, but I feared the truth, feared losing you to it all over again.”
I took his hands and drew him close. “It’s all right. I know it wasn’t you.”
He flung his arms around me, and I hugged him hard, absorbing the very real feel of him wrapped in my arms.
“I think, perhaps, it was me.”
“How?”
“When I shot Adair, it ended his manipulation. Then when I… ended things”—I glanced at my own gravestone—“I got my wish. I dreamed of you one final time. You are everything I’ve ever wanted. I’m content here, wherever here is. It feels right.”
His dark eyes softened. “Even though it might not be real?”
In the “real” world, he and I no longer existed. I was dead, and he’d never been alive. But the fae had taught me the real world was not the only world. Some dreams came true, and in those dreams, love got its happy ending.
“Reality is what we make it,” I told him.
Devere was my reality. He was the life I’d chosen. And this life was wonderful.
