➵ E P I L O G U E

Darren Polk might have been dead, and the rage might have lessened, but the nightmares remained. They came less often, but I would still wake, shrieking, sometimes even inconsolable by Jace. But he kept his promise. When the bad nights came, he was there. Every single time. Even when we were apart, I'd call him in the middle of the night and his voice would be on the other side almost immediately, calming me down without question. Being with me was no easy task - I knew that. When something bad happened, the urge to push him away would return. When I woke in the middle of the night and left to be on my own until the sun came up, I didn't want to talk. When I was frightened and reverted to my cruel defensive state, I didn't know how to come back. But he remained patient. He remained gentle. He remained kind. He remained. Home, by definition, was someplace one felt safe. Happy. But I never felt like that anywhere. There was no constant location that made me feel secure. That made me feel at ease or content or happy. But I searched for that anyway. Home, I learned, was not the Cooper mansion. It was not Jace's little apartment. It was not the hotel I'd lived in for six months before moving into a penthouse with him. That said, it wasn't the penthouse either. It was him. Not in the sense that he would defend my honor out of some misogynistic sense of duty or chase away all the bad things that had happened. But in the sense that he reminded me that there was nothing wrong with me. That I could take comfort knowing that I could protect myself. That whatever happened, I would come out of it intact and he would be waiting, walking along with me all the way to the other side. In the months following Polk's death, I finally pulled the plug on Lilith so she could be buried beside Isaac, and had busied myself with a project - converting the Cooper mansion into a group home for wayward girls that had nowhere else to go. Tonia had gladly accepted her promotion from housemaid to the woman looking after the girls. The event had been Jace's idea - that all the proceeds would go toward the girls. Hosting parties had never been my thing - it had been Lilith's. I was out of my element, but none of the guests seemed to realize it that night, so I suppose that they either didn't care, or they were enjoying themselves too much to notice. Deciding where it would be held had been among the easiest of decisions - the lawn behind the mansion was massive, enough to hold at least a hundred people. And that night, it was filled with much more. The dark night was lit up with hundreds of lanterns that had been launched up in the sky, and strings of light were draped above us like canopies. Most of the girls who lived in the mansion were sitting together at one of the many, laughing loud, trying and failing to convince the servers to give them champagne. Children ran about, darting around the rest of us, shrieking, but not overpowering the sound the of conversations among the guests. I stayed back toward the entrance, simply watching. "I told you that you'd be able to do some good in the world," a voice said from behind me, and I turned around to look at him. "Dare I say, I think your parents would be proud." "Which ones?" I asked, without venom, and he smiled. "I didn't think you'd bother coming, Detective Parker." "It's for a good cause," he said, gaze drifting toward the girls before he looked back at me. "How many live here now?" "Twelve." "Tonia must have her hands full." "She says she can handle anything after having to deal with me." "I think," he said, "I'm going to try some of that champagne." "Better than what they serve at that cop bar. Trust me." "Doubtful," he said, touching a hand to my shoulder before gravitating toward a server. Jace caught my eye from across the yard, winking at me before turning back to speak with his father. His family sat close to the gazebo where a band played music, the lot of them laughing louder than most. Sam sat with her legs crossed, eyeing the lead singer. In the months since everything had happened, Jace's career had suddenly launched. He'd gone from the brilliant Cynthia Ross' intern to her competition, and he'd finally, after my relentless insistence, begun repairing things with his family. His father would never admit he was wrong about cutting Jace off, but he'd thawed upon realizing he was happy. Jace said he was only warming up to him because he'd become successful in his endeavor, but we all knew otherwise. A redheaded child came crawling up to me, one little hand locked tight around a toy monkey. Giggling, he stopped right in front of me, craning his neck back to look up at me. Hannah grinned at Toby. Her hair was dyed a bright shade of blue now. "He misses his godmother." I reached down, and he spread his arms, ready for me to pick him up and kiss the top of his head. "Where are the twins?" I asked. "Work." She made a face. "Feds want to buy some more of Eric's tech. Lee's with him, working up a contract in DC." Her gaze searched the faces around us, fixing on Jace who was headed toward us. She took Toby back, and he blubbered in protest. "I'm going to talk to Sam." "Have fun." She went off, smiling politely at Jace as she passed, and taking his seat at the Acardi's table. "Let's disappear for a bit," he whispered once he reached me. "I want to go for a drive." ➵ Jace had insisted on driving, and somehow, we found ourselves at the old farm. It had been long abandoned, but the fields were still lovely. With his cane in one hand and my hand in the other, Jace and I strode around in peaceful silence, unwinding from the stress and constant smiling and laughing and polite conversation of the party. Surely, somebody had to have noticed that we'd been gone for so long, but it didn't bother me. Being alone with him was always wonderful, even when we weren't doing anything in particular. "Lia," he said suddenly, pulling me toward the lake once we were near it. As we got closer, still holding hands, I saw that the stars were gleaming in the otherwise dark waters, the rippling reflection nearly as stunning as the sky above it. "I've got a story I want to tell you." We were standing at the bank then, and I tilted my head. "A story? I'm intrigued." "Once upon a time, a brilliant girl with a terrible sense of humor comforted a lad with a broken heart. She promised him that he would fall in love again, with a girl that was kind and beautiful. And he, that stupid boy, did start falling in love again, but it was with her. And she was undoubtedly beautiful. So much so, that every time he was close to her, his heart would beat a little faster. His breathing got a little quicker. And she was brave too. The type of girl who could bend the world to her will. The type of girl who made him braver. And she was kind too. Even though she pretended not to be. She tried very hard to be cruel, and sometimes she was, but she was always shining with light that no amount of false cruelty could disguise." I smiled at him, blinking hard to fight the tears that threatened to spill. "The boy learned that even when she was cold, her intentions were selfless. She wasn't perfect though. She was a workaholic who told terrible jokes and was a morning person on top of all that. But he loved it. He loved every part of her. Every little thing. The girl had once said she only ever stole secrets. But she stole his heart, and he became hers." Jace dropped his cane, lowering himself carefully down on one knee. All the air left my lungs, and I could have sworn that the stars were suddenly shining even brighter. "One night, that stupid, lovesick boy brought her back to the place he first began falling in love with her without either of them realizing it." With his other hand, he pulled a ring from his pocket. "And he told her that he was hers. That he was going to be for the rest of their lives. And then, he asked her to make him the happiest man in the world, with the promise that he would do everything in his power to make her even happier than himself. He asked her to marry him." I wiped my eyes. "But she had a condition." Jace looked startled by the sudden addition to his story. "Did she?" "Oh, yes, she did. He had to admit that she had a wonderful sense of humor and was the funniest person he ever met." He smiled, though he was trying very hard not to. "And so he said, grudgingly, 'Liana Isobel Mason, you have a wonderful sense of humor and are the funniest person I have ever met.'" "And so she said, 'Yes, Jacian Acardi, I will marry you.'" And just like that, there was a ring on my finger and his lips were on mine, and neither of us was pulling away. Without his cane, Jace's leg slipped, and we hit the ground, laughing hard, sticky with mud and shivering from the cool water that splashed us from the lake. He pulled me back by the waist, kissing me once more as he moved us away from the bank and onto the grass. Tired and still overcome with giggles, we broke apart, laying on the grass, hands entwined. "Did they live happily ever after?" I whispered, looking up at the sky. Jace thought for a moment, and I turned my head to look at him, seeing the stars in his eyes as he lowered his voice to whisper back, "No, they didn't." "Why not?" Jace looked at me with one of his lopsided smiles. "That would imply that their story was over."