Page 23 of Better in Black
And she kissed him.
Lucie drew her pen back. This was the end, surely? It was all over. It had to be. For a long moment, in the deserted office, everything was silent, and a sort of terror seized at Lucie. What if she had given the story the wrong ending, and James and Cordelia were trapped in the tale forever?
But she hadn’tgivenit that ending, she thought. It was just that it was the only possible ending. The only one that felt real and true. It came from James and Cordelia, just as much as it came from her. It had been born out of who they were as people, as all good endings were.
There was a loudpoofsound, a sort of low explosion. Lucie gasped as James and Cordelia materialized before her, dressed as they had been before they went into the book. They were still in each other’s arms, still kissing madly.
Lucie beamed. Then, as the kiss continued…and continued…she cleared her throat. Loudly.
“You’re welcome for rescuing you!” she said, growing tired of them waiting to notice her, not to mention that they had slipped from a storybook world back into the grubby Fleet Street publishing office. Unfortunately James was no longer wearing the ridiculous lacy shirt. She would have liked to see that.
She would have liked to see all of it, in fact. It seemed more than a little unfair that she, the author ofThe Beautiful Cordelia,was the only one who would never know what it was like to live inside the story. But perhaps that was simply the plight of the author. To write the words, but never to experience them as a reader would.
James and Cordelia sprang apart, blushing. They looked around with wonder and relief.
“How lovely!” Lucie exclaimed. “Everything is fixed.”
“Not quite,” Cordelia said. “We need to resolve things for Ajatara.” She sounded almost sympathetic, which would be just like Cordelia. There was no lost soul she couldn’t find some degree of empathy for. Even a jilted demon who’d kidnapped her and tried to marry her off to a fictional bigamist. “She became a character in the story, after all. She has to have a happy ending too.”
“We can’t just set her free,” James pointed out. “Sheisa Greater Demon. It’s not really in our purview to do her a favor.”
“I think I have an idea,” Lucie said. She picked up the pen again. James looked alarmed.
“Is it aterribleidea, Lucie?” James said. “Is it a risky, reckless idea, like coming anywhere near that infernal manuscript again?”
Lucie ignored him. James had immaculate instincts when it came to fighting demons. But when it came to her ending her book, it was time to trust herself.
EPILOGUE
Lucie wrote, then drew a careful line under the word.
The demon Ajatara cried out in horror when she found herself back in her own realm…
“Nooooo!” Ajatara screamed, in rage and despair. How could all her hard work, her planning, come to this? Alone, again, in her palace of ice and misery, with no one to entertain her.
“Mistresssssss, you have returned?”
No one except that idiot Krog.
Except something was happening to Krog. His toadlike features were melting, shifting, becoming…significantly less toadlike. Ajatara blinked, unable to believe her eyes, but it was true. Where Krog had been standing—well, more like squatting, as Krog was wont to do—now stood a man. No, a demon. The most devilishly handsome demon Ajatara had ever seen.
“I am inspired by the tale of the Beautiful Cordelia,” said the dashing demon who had been Krog. “I must tell you of my true feelings and show you my true form. I never thought you would love again after Belial, but now I have hope.”
Ajatara’s eyes widened…as did her heart. She opened her arms to Krog, and they embraced. The fierce flames of their passion melted the icy land, and the two of them lived happily together in her newly green world—
Lucie paused, just a moment, considering whether this was enough. Then decided, better safe than sorry.
Forever.
The book slammed shut. Lucie drew her hand back hastily, noting that the pen she’d been holding had vanished.
She let out a long breath of relief.
“Well, now that that’s tidily sorted,” James said, “perhaps we can all go home and forget this day ever happened?”
“I don’t know about that,” Cordelia said, a mischievous gleamin her eye. “It seems unwise not to draw some valuable lessons from our latest adventure.”
“I did deliver some deep wisdom there at the end, didn’t I?” James said.
