Page 111 of Truly Madly Magically

Elizabeth coughs again, clearly in shock. She doesn’t finish her thought. She doesn’t move from Zachariah’s side. She murmurs something, pressing her hand to his head—or trying, because even her ghostly hand goes through him.

I know what’s happening. I see it clearly, as if I’ve seen it many times before. His soul will be lost if he doesn’t get some of his energy back.

Even in death, no one is fully safe. He needs to recharge, or he’ll go dark for good. There will be no raising him again, no talking to him in visions, nothing. It reminds me of Zelda, working so hard to find enough energy to be herself on this side of the afterlife.

He needs to go to his side. Now.

“You have to get him back,” I say to Elizabeth.

She looks from Zachariah’s nearly disappeared form, sparkling tears falling down her face, but she doesn’t argue. “You still need me,” she whispers back.

Except that’s not true, not the way she means it. I will always need her, the way I need Zelda, the way Rebekah and Emerson need their grandmother. But life isn’t about getting everything you need when you need it.

It’s about love.

Sometimes love is losing the people you need the most, and then honoring them by living on without them. Because love never really goes anywhere. It’s inside us. It’s the sunrise on a still morning. It’s the stars in the sky. It’s the scent of lavender on the breeze when no lavender is growing. It’s the way a bright blue bird appears on a windowsill in a cold winter, reminding you.

Love is everywhere, but inside us most of all. “You’ve given me everything, Elizabeth,” I tell her fiercely. “Everything. Take him back. Before you lose him. Before we lose him. Take him back and make him well, and when you’re right again, you’ll both come back. You’ll meet our daughter.”

Her tears flow, and her voice trembles when she speaks. “I fear we’re stuck here. Or surely we would have faded long since.”

I won’t allow this. Not for these ghosts who have helped us, loved us, and sacrificed for us.

Not for family.

Because that’s who Elizabeth and Zachariah are to me. To us. To Zander and our baby and our whole coven too.

I look down at myself. I have these protections all over my body, and this power that I can draw on no matter the state of my own tonight. And I have more than that.

I reach into the past, to the Goods who were Revelares before Elizabeth, stretching through generations of witches who led to Elizabeth.

My head tips back, and thanks to the centuries that worked to make me, I find the words.

“Spirits below, energy around. Time and space, work as one. Protect as they have protected. Save as they have saved. Souls beyond the thinning veil, bring your brother and sister home.”

Something bright and hot glows around them, holding them. Elizabeth reaches out and clasps the faded hand of the man she loved and lost once already. She’s openly sobbing now.

So am I. I can hear the chanting of spirits, voices I recognize and voices I don’t.

“Goodbye, my children,” Elizabeth says through her tears. “Be well.”

A crow caws somewhere in the distance, and then they’re gone in another bright flash. Almost in the same way they came.

I sit there in the aftermath of that, feeling hollowed out.

It’s not forever, I try to tell myself, so maybe I can stop weeping like I’ve just endured a funeral. They’ll regain their strength. They’ll visit. They’ll send us signs from beyond. Happy signs.

Birds on sills. Rainbows. A butterfly landing on my arm. Clocks that read things like 11:11 or 4:44 every time you look at them.

I have to believe that.

“I’m sorry,” Zander rasps out into the dark of the cemetery.

“You don’t need to apologize for a thing,” I reply, a tear dripping down my chin and splashing onto his face. I wipe it away. “You walked through fire, Zander. They’ll be back. No one we love is ever fully gone. Never.”

He won’t be gone either, because they saved him. I hold on to his undamaged hand while the Healers work on him. Burns turning to blisters. So much energy. So much pain.

Pain is the price, I told Emerson once.

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