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  “I’m right here.”

  The voice materialized before the body did. When they turned around, they saw Phaedra walking down the coastline lazily as if she were daydreaming, letting the waves trip over her bare feet, her curls floating in the breeze. She looked like she was enjoying the return of the sun, soaking in the moment, instead of having just saved two people from uncertain danger, having just done an efemera’s job.

  When she got closer, Michael was the first to notice that her features were once again hazy, soft, not as defined as they had become, not as permanent. She had made a choice with this last transformation, a choice because of him, a choice that he knew might cost her a chance at experiencing love.

  “I’m sorry,” Michael said.

  “Don’t be,” Phaedra replied, a tender smile on her lips. “I’m just like you. I am what I was born to be.”

  Understanding didn’t make it any easier, and Michael still felt guilty. He wished there was a way that Phaedra could remain an efemera and fall in love with Fritz, to have the best of both worlds, but he knew that was impossible. The universe held lots of mystery, yet very little compromise. “If it’s any consolation, I’m grateful,” Michael said. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up today.”

  Phaedra was feeling the same way. “I’m grateful to you too.”

  “Me?” Michael asked. “Why?”

  Taking hold of his hands, her touch light as a feather, Phaedra replied, “If I hadn’t shown up here, I would never have known real love.” Her cheeks started to shimmer with the most beautiful, translucent tears, almost like silver rain. “If Fritz ever asks, if he ever wonders,” she said, “please tell him that I did love him, I loved him with a full almost-human heart.”

  Saoirse’s jaw dropped. Could this day possibly get any worse? “You’re leaving?”

  Although she smiled at the young girl with deep affection, there was a hint of envy in her eyes. Saoirse very shortly would get to experience all the emotions Phaedra never would, all the joy, the love, and even the heartache. “Yes, I’m being called back home.”

  Michael felt his own tears threaten to fall. This couldn’t be happening, this shouldn’t be happening, not after everything they’d been through, not after everything Phaedra had given to him. “You can’t leave!” Michael protested. “Please, I still need you, we all do.”

  She touched his cheek and it felt like breath. “No, you don’t,” Phaedra replied. “You have each other and you have your own strength, that’s all you need.” When Phaedra wrapped her arms around Michael, he knew he was being enveloped by more than just his friend’s touch; he felt his mother’s love. “I’ve fulfilled your mother’s wishes and now I must go. I must return to the Holding Place and wait until I hear someone else’s prayers.”

  Once again, understanding didn’t make it any easier. In fact it made it even harder, and Michael didn’t want to let go of his friend. Phaedra’s place in his life, on this earth, was temporary. He only hoped she understood how grateful he was that their paths, however briefly, intertwined. “Thank you” was all Michael could say through his tears. The only reason he was able to let go of Phaedra’s embrace was because now he felt Ronan’s hand on his shoulder.

  Looking at Ronan, Phaedra knew she was leaving Michael in good hands. They would always squabble, they wouldn’t always agree, and it might take them some time to completely understand how important their coupling was, how important it was that The First and The Other be united for all eternity, but she knew their love was strong enough to overcome any obstacle and accept their destiny. Just as she had come to accept hers.

  “There’s only one thing left for me to do before I go,” Phaedra announced. “And that’s make sure you, little lady, get home safely.”

  Before Ronan let go of Saoirse’s hand, he instructed, “Leave her with Ciaran. She’ll be safe with him.”

  Phaedra nodded. “Yes, she will.”

  Another ending, another person leaving his life for good. Michael wasn’t sure he could take it. He wasn’t sure he could watch her leave without trying one last time to make her stay, but the choice wasn’t his. Phaedra had made her decision.

  “Good-bye, my friends.”

  Her final words hung in the air even as her body lost its shape and dematerialized into swirling wisps of fog that encircled Saoirse, gray ribbons that spun round and round, interconnecting and growing in size until they encased the girl completely and she disappeared from view. Together, Michael and Ronan watched as the gray mass hardened and then rose high above the beach, into the sunlight, and then toward the horizon to return to Double A. Michael found it incredible that this was the last time he would ever see Phaedra. When he looked over at Ronan, he found it even more incredible that his boyfriend had lied to him yet again.

  “I thought you said there weren’t going to be any more secrets between us?” Michael asked.

  Staring at the sand, Ronan blew out a long breath and replied, “Isn’t that what you’re doing to me?”

  What’s he talking about? What’s he trying to do, turn this around, make it like it’s my fault? “I don’t have any secrets from you, Ronan, and you know that.”

  Smiling wistfully, Ronan looked at Michael and asked, “What about the face in The Well?”

  A grotesque image filled Michael’s mind, distorted, disturbed, the image that he saw in his dream and when they fed. “I told you I don’t know what that face is,” Michael explained. “I . . . I think it has something to do with David. He’s up to no good, you know that. I don’t know, maybe part of his plan is to separate us.” Ronan didn’t say anything, but Michael could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t agree with him. “Then maybe it’s my father. He’s proven that he’s evil, or Jean-Paul! Maybe he didn’t hurt us, but he’s still one of Them, he’s still against us!”

  Ronan fought the urge to reach out and grab Michael’s hand, feel his tender skin. “Haven’t you figured out yet that the face in The Well is yours?”

  Horrified, Michael stepped back. “You think that disgusting face is mine?!”

  “It’s a part of you,” Ronan replied. “A part that you’re keeping hidden from me and from yourself.”

  Waving his arms wildly, pacing this way, then that, Michael couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His boyfriend thought he was repulsive; he thought he was revolting! This is what Phaedra left him with, a boyfriend who thought the absolute worst of him! Ronan was also a boyfriend who wouldn’t be pushed away.

  “Do you trust me?” Ronan asked.

  Frowning, Michael didn’t trust himself, how in the world could he trust anyone else?

  Holding out his hand, Ronan asked another question. “Will you let me show you the truth?”

  Tentatively, Michael touched his hand and it felt the way it always did, like cool water over rock-hard stone. Ronan hadn’t changed, so maybe Michael had. “Yes.”

  Seconds later they were kneeling before The Well. Michael peered over the ledge into the still water and held Ronan’s hand tighter for reassurance. He didn’t have to, Ronan was never going to let go. Suddenly darkness flooded the cave. Michael couldn’t see Ronan, but he could still feel his hand securely holding his own. The water shimmered until an image appeared on the surface, the same image Michael saw here before, the same image he saw in his bedroom window so many months ago, in his visions and in his dreams, the same one Phaedra saw in the fun-house mirror, the image of a distorted face, the physical personification of some emotional struggle. Softly, a wave rose and fell within The Well and when the water’s surface was once again smooth, Michael saw that that image was his own reflection.

  Terrified, he stepped away from The Well and the light returned. There was nothing left for him to see. “That’s me!” Michael cried. “That disgusting thing is me!”

  “No, love,” Ronan corrected, grabbing Michael’s other hand. “It’s only a part of you, a part you need to face so you can set it free.”

&nbs
p; Michael wanted to run; he wanted to get the hell away from the cave and The Well and even Ronan, but Ronan wasn’t letting go, he wasn’t giving up. When Michael saw the determination in Ronan’s eyes, he knew he couldn’t give up either, not on them or himself. He simply had to tell the truth, confess what had been on his mind for months. “I love you, Ronan, I do. I love what I’ve become, but . . . but it all happened so quickly, so much has happened so quickly!” Gasping for breath, Michael squeezed Ronan’s hands tighter. “My mother dying, my grandmother, my grandfather wishing that I was the one who died, learning what my father did to my mother!” There were no tears now, only strength, conviction, honesty. “Moving halfway around the world, becoming a vampire, falling in love with you!”

  Their hands slipped away from each other and even though there was very little space between them, it felt huge. “Do you still love me, Michael?”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Michael answered, “Yes.”

  “Do you have any regrets?”

  Again, Michael answered instantly, his mind finally understanding what had always been in his heart and his mind. “No, none. But like I said, it all happened so fast, I gave myself over to you before I gave myself a chance to get to know the new me.”

  Turning away, Ronan murmured the last line of the short story that reminded him so much of Michael. “But no man dared look upon his face, for it was like the face of an angel.”

  When Michael turned Ronan’s face back to him, he saw the fear in his eyes. “The problem is, Ronan, I’m not an angel.”

  Ronan no longer cared if he made a fool of himself. He had to make Michael understand, he had to make him feel what was in his heart. Holding the sides of Michael’s face, his words drenched with emotion. “You’re an angel to me, love; you are forever beautiful and forever mine.” Ronan had to stop to swallow hard before he could continue. “That is, if you still want to be.”

  Never had Michael felt so loved, never had he felt so conflicted. “Yes, yes, Ronan, I do want to be forever yours, but I also want you to be forever mine.” Ronan was nodding in agreement, but Michael wasn’t sure he understood. “I want to live an eternity not in your shadow, not looking up at you. I want to live alongside you, right next to you as your equal.”

  This time when Ronan nodded, he did understand. “You are my equal, Michael. I’m sorry if I made you doubt that or if I acted as if you weren’t.” Wrapping Michael up in his arms, Ronan confessed, “For all my experience, I guess this is new to me too.”

  Their kiss was passionate, filled with apology, expectation, desire, and continued long after they were sitting, side by side, on the beach. Michael and Ronan weren’t the only ones to emerge from the darkness with a different, clearer perspective. All across Double A and even throughout Eden, people were looking into the sunlight and saw change.

  In St. Sebastian’s, Fritz somehow knew he had lost his first love. He felt the pain and the confusion of his loss, but as he put his arm around Ciaran’s shoulders, a crowd of students laughing and singing around them, they each knew that they had made a new friend.

  In the crypt near The Forest, strands of sunlight filtered into the space, commingling with the dying embers of Nurse Radcliff’s flames. Brania put her arm around Imogene and they both knew they had found purpose, two members of the undead had found a reason to go on living.

  In a sun-drenched bedroom in a hotel in Eden, Vaughan put his arm around Edwige’s bare shoulder, and they knew they hadn’t found love, hardly, but they had at least found companionship.

  And in the apartment over their secret meeting room, Jean-Paul put his arms around Nakano, and they both knew their relationship was over, but until they chose to face the truth, until they each found something better, they still had a connection.

  When the first raindrops started to fall, Michael stopped only to look out at the ocean, watch water meet water like soul had met soul, and took it as a sign of confirmation. He and Ronan first met in the rain, it was only fitting that their love should be renewed during a rain shower. “You know, Jean-Paul once told me that I was a better man than my father,” Michael said. “He was wrong. I’m only half a man without you.”

  Grinning mischievously, Ronan added, “That’s ’cause Frenchie’s a right daft bloke.”

  “Oh really,” Michael replied, twisting his voice into a bad British accent. “Can Frenchmen be blokes?”

  “If I say so, love,” Ronan said with a laugh that quickly turned serious. “I have to ask again, did anything ever happen between you and . . .”

  “Never, nothing,” Michael assured him. “Yeah, I found him pretty hot, but even at my lowest, I would never betray you or The Well. I’m aware of the consequences.” Ronan responded by kissing the palm of Michael’s hand and held it to his cheek. “Plus, have you looked at your own reflection lately, Mister? You are smokin’, Ronan. And I’ve finally found you a nickname! Smokin’ Ronan, ’cause you know you’re hot.”

  Laughing and kissing Michael at the same time, Ronan said, “And you’re daft, but I love you.”

  Michael watched the rain caress Ronan’s face, making him look exactly like he did the night he first fell in love with him. “I love you too.”

  “I didn’t want to admit it to myself,” Ronan whispered, “but I was afraid this might be the end for us.”

  It was Michael’s turn to kiss Ronan. “There’ll never be an end for us,” he answered, his voice unmarred by doubt. “This is just a new beginning.”

  They looked up when they heard the meadowlark’s song, da-da-DAH-da, da-da-da, and smiled, agreeing that the familiar melody was a benediction, approval that they were both exactly where they were supposed to be. They had no idea the lark was trying to warn them that they were being watched by a man with an archangel’s wings who was flying through the clouds high above them. But even though they couldn’t see David, they were no longer children. They knew that danger lurked just on the other side of the rain.

  As it continued to shower, quietly, tenderly, Ronan held on to Michael’s hand that was draped over his shoulder. “You know, there will be other attacks, probably more dangerous ones,” he advised. “Now that David’s made his wishes known, he won’t stop just because he failed the first time out.”

  “With you by my side, love,” Michael said, pulling Ronan closer into him, “I welcome the challenge.”

  K TEEN BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2011 by Michael Griffo

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  K Teen is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  ISBN: 978-0-7582-7437-3

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