Page 115 of The Last Wish of Bristol Keats
She bit her lip, unable to say anything else, and they understood, as they always had. Pushing forward, pulling back, trusting her when she didn’t trust herself. She kissed each of their cheeks.
“We’ll always be your other family, Bri,” Rose said, her long lashes spiked with tears.
Bristol nodded and left.
Her other family.She sobbed as she walked away. Bristol had never felt so out of control, like every decision she had made and would ever make again would be wrong. Hollis was right, the weight of her parents’ deaths was more than she could bear. She needed home. That’s all she knew. And home was Cat and Harper.
Bowskeep. Bristol was already considering the coordinates for the portal after she said goodbye to her friends. Desperate logic overtook her, her mind jumping from one shattered maybe to the next. Maybe if she chose just the right coordinates, if she said them just right, if she did a skip and a dance and wished on a star, she would make it back to her sisters. There had to be a way.There was always a way.She was already thinking of a hidden place for the portal too. A secret place where no one ever went.
When she arrived at the barn to get Zandra, Tyghan, Quin, Dalagorn, Olivia, and Reuben were waiting for her. Or barring her. They were a wall across the entrance.
“Is this the farewell committee? Or are you all here to stop me? Am I a prisoner already?”
“We’re here to talk,” Tyghan said. “If I can’t convince you, maybe one of them can.”
She looked at them, but none of them spoke, like they were afraid. Of her? Or did they hate her? Madame Chastain was dead. And so many of their comrades—knights she didn’t even know—were dead too. Did they blame her? The panic in her grew. Who was she to anyone here anymore? She didn’t even know herself.
“Look at me, Tyghan. I don’t need your backup squad to tell me what I already know. I’m bloodmarked. A prize just like my mother. And everyone knows it. You think I’m not aware that I have a target on my back now? To be used or killed the way she was? Besides that, I’m anavydra, the most hated of dragons. I heard the screams as I landed. Merriwind’s accusations. I’m illegal and reviled. I’m facing double jeopardy. How long before I’m dead too? Tomorrow? I’m all my sisters have left. Even the great king of Danu couldn’t keep my parents safe.”
Dalagorn winced. Quin looked down and shook his head.
Tyghan stared at her like she had kicked him in the gut.
Olivia eased half a step forward. “We could keep you safe—”
“I don’t want to be kept safe!” Bristol shouted. “That’s what my parents did for my whole life, running from one town to the next to keep us safe! I want to own my life and live it as I please! That’s why I came here in the first place, so I could stop looking over my shoulder! So I could finally take a deep breath! So my sisters could do that too!”
She barged past them into the barn and began saddling Zandra.
Tyghan followed her. “What do you want from me, Bristol? Just to let you go into the unknown?”
“Yes,” she answered as she smoothed a blanket over Zandra’s back, refusing to meet his gaze, her head pounding, her eyes stinging, everything inside her torn to tiny pieces. “My mind is made up. I’m empty. Can’t you see that? I have nothing left inside me for anyone, including you. I have a small chance to reclaim part of my life, and I’m taking it. I’m going home. My last wish before I leave is that I never see Elphame or anyone in it again.” She turned to face him. “Stay away from Bowskeep. Let me live my life. And make sure no one else follows me either. Do whatever you have to do so I am dead to this world. So no one knows I exist. Promise me you will do that and you’ll actually make this final promise stick.”
“There’s no undoing this, Bristol. You’re half mortal. Without a timemark, you don’t even know what you’re going back to. Everything could be gone. Don’t make the biggest mistake of your life.”
“I already made the biggest mistake of my life when I came here. I sacrificed one family to save another. Haven’t I given Elphame enough already?”
Tyghan was gutted, afraid, not knowing how to make any of this right. He was grieving for so much already and now he was grieving for what she seemed set on. How much more could one person take? Tyghan knew the answer to that now. Bristol had reached her limit. And maybe he had too.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t lose the family you have here too. Take this.” He pressed something into her hand. “It’s another timemark. This one will at least keep the two of us connected in time so you can return here. So centuries won’t keep us apart, in case there’s nothing for you in Bowskeep. I will always be here for you.”
Bristol looked at the timemark, a useless coin that couldn’t give her back what she had lost. She tossed it away, and it clattered somewhere against another stall. “I’m never coming back.”
Tyghan’s hands trembled. He wasn’t sure if it was rage or fear. “Dammit, Bristol! You want to just throw it all away? You’re not the only one hurting!”
She continued saddling Zandra, ignoring him.
“Sure! Go ahead! Forget me! Forget us! I’ll forget you too!” Tyghan stormed out of the barn before she could answer. She watched him leave, rage rolling off him.Forget us.If only she could. If only there was a potion for forgetting, maybe everything inside her wouldn’t feel like it was dying.
Reuben stepped up to her, a wistful smile on his face. “You can’t outrun your heart or your past, Miss Keats. Trust me, I know. Someday you may want to reach out.” He held out her backpack. “Don’t forget this. I truly wish you the best.”
Stay away. Do whatever you have to do so I am dead to this world.
The words floated in the air, through the walls of the ancient barn, to the vaulted ceilings of the throne room, to the trees of the sacred forest. The ancient sentinels sighed in unison, and as witnesses. When the queen of Elphame made a request, especially a last wish, it was always to be granted. So on a small dark terrace just below Sun Court, Olivia glamoured herself to look like Bristol, and she and Tyghan offered up a heated argument that drew the eyes of onlookers. A bitter lovers’ quarrel. It was convincing. Bristol wasn’t the only one who was broken. Guilt and anger ravaged Tyghan. He played his role a bit too well. Olivia, who made a compelling Bristol, drew a knife at the height of their argument, and that was when Tyghan turned her into a frog, in self-defense, of course. Though it was actually Reuben who performed the sleight of hand, including the swooping crow that carried the frog away. It was the perfect solution. No one would be hunting down or stalking Bristol. She was presumed eaten, and word spread at lightning speed among the gentry, the story taking on a delicious life of its own.
Bristol Keats no longer existed in the realm of Elphame—except to a secret few.
CHAPTER 87
