Page 119 of Big Little Spells

AS IF HE HEARS ME, Nicholas takes a shuddering, painful breath, but it is breath.

Breath means life, and I try not to sob out in relief. I try so hard to maintain my focus.

Jacob kneels down on the other side of him and helps Nicholas sit up. I never take my hand off his heart, as if I’ve turned myself into his talisman.

Nicholas takes another few shuddering breaths. He holds up his hand and looks at it.

“I do not understand,” he rasps.

He looks around him. At my friends in a ring around him, prepared to pour their love into him though they barely trust him, because he’s ours. Because he’s mine.

Then he looks at me.

“You’re not dead,” I assure him.

He shakes his head, as if he doesn’t believe me or doesn’t understand. “I am not... It’s different. It’s...”

Life.

There is blood on his hand, and he looks at it as if it is new.

“I have not bled for many years,” he says, his voice exhausted. But not weak. “This is different.”

Jacob lifts his hands from him. “You’re mortal,” he says with all his Healer authority.

Nicholas blinks. Then again.

“You didn’t sacrifice your life,” I whisper. “You sacrificed your immortality.”

He looks as if this never occurred to him.

“The end of your immortal life is just the beginning of your actual one,” I tell him, though I’m still gripping the stone at his chest. I thump him a little, in emphasis. “You’re welcome.”

“Congrats,” Zander mutters, but mercifully, does not choose this moment to discuss who gets to live and who doesn’t. “But am I the only one...seeing ghosts?”

We all twist around, and it occurs to me that I should be wondering why the Joywood aren’t all over us. But the chaos from before has subsided. The whole Joywood coven are standing together as if they’re prepared to fight.

Better yet, they finally look angry. Not a smug smile to be seen or a titter to be heard.

Because our families are holding them off.

My mother is standing shoulder to shoulder with Ellowyn’s mother when I don’t think they’ve had a nice word to say to each other in their lives. Georgie’s father is standing right next to Uncle Zack, who’s flanked by Zander’s grandmother. Much of Jacob’s extended family is helping the affected children, who all seem to be white-faced but upright, and his mother and father stand there too, blocking the Joywood.

My father and Georgie’s mother are missing in action, but that’s all right. We have a whole line of parents, standing up for us. Finally.

And all around them are our beloved dead. Our ancestresses and ancestors, filling in the gaps. A gleaming wall of ghosts and birds, signs of the other side, gathered here for us.

Aunt Zelda turns to look at us. Her eyes find Zander’s, and she smiles.

Her I love you seems to echo in all of us.

And then, for me alone, My sweet girl, you have been so loved, all along.

Because in the end, love is what matters.

It might be all that matters.

“Look at what you’ve done,” the Joywood say in unison. To us. But they can’t get to us.

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