I didn’t look back at Vivian’s crying. I walked straight to the helicopter and didn’t slow down. There were too many people I actually cared about, too many things still left to do, and I had no more room in for the Morrigans.
If Elena had still been alive the real one, the original she might have felt the pull of obligation. Children are raised by their parents, after all, and the world expects a certain kind of gratitude in return. But after everything. After the soup made from my ashes. I figured whatever debt existed between us had been more than settled. The ledger was closed.
Whitney was the only one I couldn’t simply walk away from. She was nearly twenty-six now not the frightened girl she’d once been. She didn’t need to make her choices for her. What she needed was a sister who would be there when she reached out, who would respect whatever path she chose, and who would keep the door open no matter what. As long as she was safe and healthy, that was all I could ask for. The rest belonged to her.
As the helicopter lifted and the coastline shrank below us, I felt the weight of the island physically lift from my shoulders. But my mind had already moved ahead. More than the Morrigans, I was thinking about Riley and Harlan. They had been pulled into this without asking for it, simply because of their connection to , and that sat badly in my chest.
We went straight to the hospital.
I heard Riley before I saw her her voice carrying clear and sharp through the corridor. "You are so impossibly picky about food. Perfect timing, though, your precious sweetheart just walked in. Maybe she can get you to eat. You haven’t changed one bit!"
I stepped around the corner and found Harlan sitting in a wheelchair looking deeply, profoundly sorry for himself. His hand was in a cast, and the bandaging covering most of him suggested Lewis had significantly downplayed the extent of his injuries. He looked less like a person and more like a very unhappy mummy.
Riley was behind his wheelchair, pushing it with the particular focus of soone entertaining a dark thought. "There’s no surveillance in this hallway," she said pleasantly. "I could just let go right now. Send you straight down the stairs. You’d have Nina nurse you back wipe everything, feed everything she loves you that much, right? She’d be happy to love all of you."
She made a face that could only be described as sinister.
"Janice " I cut in quickly, stepping forward.
She spun around, her face lighting up instantly. "Elena!"
She let go of the wheelchair.
The mont her hands left the handles, it started rolling picking up speed, heading directly for the staircase at the end of the corridor. I lunged forward, heart in my throat but a hand shot out from beside , catching the chair cleanly and stopping it cold.
Harlan twisted around to see who’d saved him and nearly went limp with relief. "Lewis. Lewis, you are my absolute lifesaver."
Lewis, expression completely neutral, redirected the wheelchair down the corridor without a word. Harlan imdiately turned his head back and yelled, "Janice! Are you trying to kill ?!"
"Isn’t that what you said?" Riley called back, not remotely sorry. "No divorce, just widowhood? I was being efficient!"
I had sohow expected that nearly dying together might have smoothed things between them. I had been very wrong.
Riley threw her arms around before I could say anything, squeezing hard. "You scared half to death. I didn’t sleep properly for two days. I kept thinking sothing awful had happened to you."
"You call that not sleeping?" Harlan’s voice drifted back from down the corridor. "You were snoring loud enough to rattle the windows. And last night she had barbecue and beer delivered got scread at by the night nurse!"
Riley pulled back, cheeks going pink. "I am a fairy. Fairies do not snore."
"I didn’t see a fairy. I saw a tiger. If you keep it up, the zoo is going to send soone to collect you."
I genuinely could not work out how they had managed to argue even more after surviving all of that together. I took Riley’s hand and quietly steered her around the corner to sowhere less likely to escalate.
"Riley. Are you actually okay?"
"I’m completely fine," she said, with the air of soone who had answered this question too many tis already. "I fainted, that’s all. Do I look like sothing’s wrong? Don’t let Harlan’s complaining get to you I was just stressed and couldn’t reach you, and by nightti I was starving, so yes, I ordered barbecue. That’s a normal human response."
I smiled despite myself. "I’m so glad you’re alright. Even if sothing had happened to I would have wanted to know you were still out here, living well. Not falling apart."
"Don’t say things like that," she said imdiately, her expression darkening. "Don’t." She glanced around. "Where’s Whitney? Why didn’t she co?"
"That’s a long story. First tell about Nina."
Riley’s expression shifted into sothing deeply offended. "I tried feeding Harlan things with character durian, Limburger cheese, proper barbecue and he refused everything. Today I stepped out for twenty minutes to get a milkshake, and when I ca back, I found Nina sitting at his bedside, feeding him cereal with a little spoon."
Across the room, Harlan was telling Lewis his side of it in the aggrieved tone of a man who had been deeply wronged. "Would your mate feed you sothing that slls like it ca from a sewer when you’re injured? That cheese I thought she’d gone to the bathroom and cooked sothing unspeakable. I hate durian under normal circumstances. When I’m injured and barely holding myself together, it’s practically an act of aggression. And then she woke up at midnight for roasted chicken. I still shudder thinking about it." He paused. "Nina cried for half the morning, then quietly opened a thermos and gave one spoonful of plain cereal. I was genuinely starving, Lewis. I took one bite. That’s when Janice walked in."
Riley, who had clearly been listening from across the room, crossed her arms. "Don’t you give that look. They said there was nothing going on between them. But she’s feeding him cereal behind my back today what’s next? I survived once already. I swore I wasn’t going to spend whatever ti I have left being a pushover. I dumped the cereal on Nina, and I slapped him. I have zero regrets."
I stayed quiet for a mont, letting it settle.
Harlan looked genuinely close to tears. "Lewis. I have not eaten in almost a full day. One bite of cereal, and she hit . In all my life, no one has ever "
Lewis had absolutely nothing to offer him.
I watched them both Riley on one side, Harlan on the other, both looking to us like we were supposed to solve this and realized that we had arrived not as visitors but as diators in soone else’s disaster. I waited for Riley to wind down before I stepped in gently.
"Is it possible," I said carefully, "that he’s just genuinely hungry? He left your food and ate soone else’s, which sounds less like betrayal and more like starvation. And Riley I don’t like Limburger cheese or durian either. He’s been a certain way his whole life. You can’t overhaul soone’s entire palate while they’re recovering from broken ribs."
Riley made a sound of indignation. "I co from money too. Can’t he try what I eat? I just wanted him to experience sothing new."
And there it was. I understood suddenly clearly. Riley had let go of the life she used to know. She was throwing herself into everything new and different and alive, the way soone does when they’ve looked closely enough at death to understand how short the window really is. It was a beautiful instinct. It was just a lot to absorb all at once for soone like Harlan, who had been comfortable and unchallenged his entire life.
I patted her head softly. "Take it slow. You don’t have to do everything at once."
Riley’s energy dimd slightly, and sothing quieter moved across her face. "Elena, I’m scared. After what happened I don’t know how much ti I actually have left. So I made a list. A hundred things I want to do. A hundred experiences before I go. Because our window might be smaller than we think."
Her voice had dropped, and the vulnerability in it was so unlike her usual brightness that it landed sowhere tender in my chest. I pulled her in and held her properly. "Does this list of yours include anything about Harlan?"
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