And then I’m back in the dungeon with Tomas, holding that torch above my head, thinking, This is not how light works.
Light rules dark. Light needs only to exist to banish darkness. The dark has no such power over light.
Except when it’s not really darkness, but something else altogether.
I am in the something else.
“Tomas?” I call again. Only this time, it comes out in a small, hesitant whisper.
And again, with my breath comes the light.
Am I the dragon?
I breathe harder, but it does not get brighter. No fire comes out of me, even though I am, like Tomas, made of fire. So I am not a dragon.
I am just me.
The worthless Pell.
Joke of jokes.
The entertainment.
But just as I think those words, I catch a whisper in the dark. “Pell?” the whisper asks. Just a few letters on the wind. And I am alert again.
“Pie!” I yell as loud as I can. “Pie!” I call her name over and over as I stumble forward into the blackness. Because that whisper belonged to her. “Pie!”
She does not answer me back.
She’s going to die here. She’s going to die here and I will be stuck in the cursed dark for all eternity.
No. “Think! Think! She’s here! You’re here! How do you find her?”
I don’t know.
I’m a formidable enough monster in the real world. But I’m not in the real world. I’m in the magic of Saint Mark’s. And my magic is very limited. I can slam doors. I can freeze the caretaker. I can put my claim on them with a breath. I can chop off a horn and collect the blood and make a magic dragon scale.
I’ve done all that and I’m still here.
So what more can I do?
I sigh again. And again, the breath comes out as a tiny bit of light.
Light rules dark.
I am fire.
Fire is light.
I am light.
And I know what to do.
I bend down, feeling on the ground beneath my feet for the horn I know is there. I grab it, hold it up in front of me like a torch.
At first, it does nothing. I can’t even see it. But I breathe. I make just enough wind to blow the light inside me onto the horn and the blood glows. I send another breath of encouragement and it glows again. Brighter this time. Little flecks of potential fire appear.
One more breath and the tiny embers catch and sputter into life.
I have a torch.
And I walk forward into the dark emptiness calling her name.
Because she is the moth and I am the flame.
And if she can’t come to me, I will go to her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - PIE
Somewhere, a bell is ringing. It’s calling me.
A wave of panic rushes through me as I consider who is summoning me now. Grant? Saturn? Sheriff Roth? What asshole is looking for me now?
The darkness is so absolute that even if I wanted to find that bell, there is no way I could. It’s not possible. I am immersed in a void of nonexistence.
You’re not real, Pie. That’s the new voice in my head.
Before Saint Mark’s it was always, You’re crazy, Pie. I thought that was pretty bad. But nope. This is worse.
Because I am alone, I am afraid, and no one is coming to rescue me.
I have been forsaken.
No. No. There’s a better word for that. It’s called ‘abandoned.’
But just as I think those words, there is a spark in the distance.
I lean forward and take a step, my feet suddenly underneath me. But they are not feet. They are hooves. And when I brush my hands against my hips, there is fur there. The horns are heavy on my head.
“You will say it again,” Ostanes whispers into the nothingness. “Say it again, Pie. And this time… you will really mean it.”
I don’t say it. Because I don’t need to say it.
I feel it in my half-dead monster soul—this is me.
The woods appear. Dark, still, but not empty.
The torch in the distance floats in and out through the shadows of the leaves. Bobbing up and down. This way and that.
And then there he is.
Pell.
Running towards me.
Lighting the way.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - PELL
My light grows, the darkness fades, and then, suddenly, I am in the woods. My woods. No. Our woods.
I run with my horn torch held high. Looking for her. Calling for her.
At first the crashing of my hooves in the underbrush drowns it out, but then I hear it. I hear her. The small tinkling of tiny bells around her neck, and her wrists, and braided into her hair.
She is running towards me. Leaping over long-dead trees, leaves smacking her face.
We race towards each other. But when we meet up, we change. Become small. Become kids.
I look over at Pie, no longer holding my horn torch, no longer needing it. The sun is shining above the forest canopy and little pillars of light find their way through the web of leaves, illuminating her face with golden light.