Page 43 of A Fate Everlasting

The air collapsed inward, a gust spiraling against my skin as the space where he had stood vanished into nothing. The weight of him was gone, and the silence that followed was deafening. I stumbled forward, my fingers still curled around air. A strangled noise wrenched from my throat.No.

There had to be something left. A trace of him. A way to undo this. I dropped to my knees at the clock tower’s edge, but there was nothing. Just the shifting dark, just the gaping void where he had been.

My body wouldn’t stop shaking. Not from cold, but from adrenaline, as if Hugo had taken some last thread of certainty with him. I didn’t understand it. We weren’t close. I barely knew him. And yet he’d jumpedoff the clocktowerfor me. Voluntarily. Was this what Evermore did to people?

I pressed my palm to my chest, feeling the thunder of my pulse, feeling the space where he had stood, feeling…nothing, but everything.

Teetering, the wind whipped past my ears, and the dark void below called out to me. The question screamed in my skull.Why would a boy I barely knew throw himself into the void for me? But grief smothered it before it could flower.

I suppose I had always known the journey would end here. The moment I got that phone call, the one that changed everything, it had already begun. The slow, inexorable march towardthis ledge, toward this moment. It had felt like dying then, and it felt like dying now.

I flicked a glance at Dorian. Empathy did not grace his features, just irritation. “What afuckinginconvenience this will be.”

“An inconvenience?” The words came out shrill. Dorian’s felt like they had smacked me across the face. The entitlement. Thearrogance.

Dorian didn’t meet my eyes. He just muttered, “One resurrection card. One.” His voice was flat, like didn’t consider Hugo’s death tragic, just annoying.

My foot hovered over the edge. I swayed, uncertain. I looked back at him. Could I really do this? What if I didn’t come back? What if I couldn’t?

“You first, Davenant.” Dorian muttered, quiet and bitter. His gaze held mine. “I’ll be right behind you.”

I glanced at him, wind whipping past my ears. My stomach curdled, palms slicked with sweat. The Thread slithered around my throat, its voice curling in my ear. “Don’t do this.”

I felt a tug as it tried to pull me back from the edge, but the swell of my adrenaline was drowning it out. This mess was my fault. I couldn’t leave Hugo and Dorian to fix it for me.

I peered down, the ground swallowed by darkness, and despite every instinct that told me not to—I jumped.

19

Falling from the tower felt different this time. Time stretched thin, the moment unraveling like frayed silk, thread by thread. The only sound was the wind as it shrieked past my ears.

Then, for a moment, there was perfect silence.

The impact was not a single moment of pain but an eruption, a symphony of agony, shattering through every nerve, every bone. Pain cleaved through me, white-hot, a force so absolute that for one brief, excruciating second, I didn’t want to feelanythinganymore.

A moment later it was gone. All of it. I wasn’t sore, not even a little. When I pressed a hand to my chest, my heart was still beating. That wasn’t right.

I had just died. I had felt it, the brutal tearing of flesh, the breaking of bone, the world pulling away into an abyss of nothingness. And yet, I felt good. Normal.

I fumbled through the grass. Where was my body? There should have been something. Maybe a corpse, a shadow, a trace of what had been. But the ground where I landed wasundisturbed. If there was any blood, or a body, the grass had swallowed it.

“Death suits you,” Hugo murmured, extending a hand. He looked paler than usual, nearly translucent, though somehow no less striking.

“Thanks.” His touch was cool as he pulled me to my feet. I wrapped my arms around his neck, the guilt leaden in my stomach. He didn’t let go right away, just pulled me close.

“Right,” Dorian strode toward us, his gaze lingering over me for just a moment too long. “We’re all on borrowed time. Resurrections can only be conducted within forty-eight hours from the time of death.”

“What?” Hugo stepped forward, working his jaw. “You didn’t mention there was a time limit, Cavendish.”

“Well we’re both feet in the grave now, Fox,” Dorian replied, turning on his heel as he started toward the chapel. Hugo and I quickened our pace to catch up as he said, “Bit late to change your mind.”

I felt my heart squeeze, then drop somewhere lower. As if this task wasn’t already impossible. The mist called out something that sounded like my name. Maybe they already knew we were as good as dead.

Dorian unlocked the chapel. My head felt full, heavy, and light all at once. The fragrant incense wasn’t helping.

“Do you see them?” Hugo’s breath was frost against my neck as we stepped inside. “The rhunes along the walls?”

They stretched tall, covering every wall, glowing faintly. Shadows sat in pews, slumped over. Death was like seeing the chapel through new eyes.

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