God—if you really exist—help her. But she was going to try to do both.
* * *
Gideon stood atop the building,looking across the street into the Holy City. He sighed and leaned against the stone chimney. Eurydice was perched high overhead, ripping apart a pigeon and sending bits of feather and gore down to the ground.
He’d long given up scolding the bird for making a needless mess by attempting to eat when she had no stomach left to contain the carnage, but he would only get a stern rebuke in the form of fluffed feathers and a chill glare, and the undead vulture would go back to her “meal.”
Folding his arms across his chest, he stared off into the city. In there, somewhere, his fate was being decided. And he was powerless. He had no say in the matter. It was all up to Marguerite and what path she chose to walk.
He hatedfeeling powerless. In fact, it was his most loathed sensation. He had fought hard his entire life, and extended unlife, to ensure that such a state never came over him again. But here he was. And there she was, just out of his reach. Just out of his influence. He had done his best to protect her…but her decisions were her own to make.
A long time ago, he had vowed never to force another choice upon her ever again. And he would stick by that vow even if it meant the death of him. And it very well might. It very, very well might.
One wrong step—one wrong move—and it was all over. If she stepped in front of a tourist bus without looking, or angered the wrong man in an alleyway, their lives were done. It felt so odd, contemplating the fragility of life, after so many years.
Not so much his—he’d never died—but hers. How many times had he held her in his arms as she breathed her last? How many times had he dug up her corpse where it had been hastily hidden? How many times had he been the one to tuck her away into a crypt to pass the time before it was safe for her to return?
He let out a long, wavering sigh. He knew he was brooding. He knew he was standing atop a building in the midday sun in a black suit and sulking like a child. Worse yet, he knew it was utterly pointless. But what else was he to do?
There would be no unearthing her this time. No laying her out in clean clothes on a bed and pressing his lips to hers, cold as they were, and calling her back from the rest she enjoyed between the deaths she endured.
All because he had made a choice on her behalf.
And the real sin of it all was that he knew he would make the same exact decision if placed back in that moment, knowing all that he knew now. He shut his eyes. Eurydice let out a disapproving noise from overhead—he wondered if she had any other kinds to make—and he smirked. He was being chided by his familiar. Again.
But what was he to do?
He was worried.
Moreover, he was…scared.
Not for himself. Sure, he had no desire to die. He had every intention of living much, much longer than he already had.
He wasn’t even truly scared for her. He knew what was waiting for her, lurking in the vaults of the Vatican.
No, he was scared for what she would think of him once she found it. It was her turn to pick the path of their lives. The stars knew she had earned the opportunity, even if it was too little too late.
As always, he clung to the childish hope that burned in his heart. The one that brought her back each time, expediting the burning of her candle, wondering if this time might be the time. And it never was.
And now here they were. At the end.
One way or another.
The bloody carcass of a pigeon landed at his feet with a wet and somewhat crunchy slap. He flicked his foot to the side, trying to get the bit of bird intestine off his expensive black loafer.
“Yes, yes. I know I’m a fool. No need to remind me. Don’t you have a job to be doing, by the by? Didn’t I tell you to keep watch on her?”
Eurydice let out a loud cry and spread her wings, diving off the chimney and toward the Holy City without a pause. The sanctified grounds wouldn’t harm his familiar. It didn’t harm anyone, to be truthful.
Gideon sneered. He knew that from experience.
* * *
Maggie was dreaming.She had been exhausted after lunch—something about sitting down and eating a sandwich showed her just how wrung out she really was. She gladly accepted the offer of a few hours of sleep before facing down whatever they had brought her here to see.
Her head had barely hit the pillow before she dropped off.
She was swinging from a branch. The rope around her neck creaked against the wood over her. The distinctive sound of the jute fibers under the weight of her body as she swayed back and forth.