The last thing he remembers is honey, so much honey filling his lungs and pulling him down to the bottom of the Starless Sea.
But he is not at the bottom of the Starless Sea.
He’s alive. He’s here.
Wherever here is.
Here seems to be moving. The surface he is on is hard but everything around him is oscillating. There are pieces of paper and bits of ribbon and something sticky that isn’t honey beneath his fingers.
The light is dim but there are candles, maybe. He doesn’t know where he is.
He tries to stand and instead he falls but someone catches him.
Zachary and Dorian stare at each other in bewildered disbelief.
Neither of them has the words for this moment in this story, not in any language.
Zachary starts to laugh and Dorian leans in and takes the laugh from his lips with his own and there is nothing left between them now: no distance, no words, not even fate or time to complicate matters.
This is where we leave them, in a long-awaited kiss upon the Starless Sea, tangled in salvation and desire and obsolete cartography.
But this is not where their story ends.
Their story is only just beginning.
And no story ever truly ends as long as it is told.
Outside what was once a library there is a recently abandoned blue car.
A ginger cat sleeps on the still-warm hood.
A man in a tweed suit leans against the car, leafing through a teal notebook though there is only moonlight to read by.
By the side of the brick building a young woman in an outgrown school uniform stands on tiptoes, peering in a window.
Neither of them notices the woman walking toward them through the trees but the stars do, their light shining brightly on her crown.
She has always known this night would come.
Through centuries and lifetimes, she has always known.
The only question was how to get here.
The woman in the crown pauses in the quiet darkness, watching the man as he reads.
Then she turns her attention skyward.
She reaches her hand up toward the stars. Resting on her palm is a single card. She holds it out at the night sky, displaying it to the moon and the stars with a considerable amount of showmanship.
Upon the card there is an empty void. The Ending.
She flips the card over. A bright expanse. The Beginning.
She flips it again and it turns to golden dust in her fingers.
She takes a bow. The crown does not fall from her head but it slips and she straightens it and turns her attention back to the ground, back to her own story.
When she reaches the car she is shivering in her sleeveless gown.