The Final Season Read online

  “Well,” Fall said from somewhere behind me, “that’s certainly one way of visualizing the concept.” He gave the ice an approving look. “And that’s quite the gateway you’ve made there. I’d hurry through, though—that river doesn’t look like it’s naturally frozen over right now. Someone’s bound to notice.”

  I nodded and prepared to step through. “Wait, hold on—what should I do about seeing you and the other Seasons again?”

  “I have more reconnaissance to do on Hell’s Colonies. They will be our first target, once we’re certain it’s a challenge we’re up for. It will be a little while before I’ve gotten everything into place, however—we need to act fast enough to avoid drawing too much attention from the other power players as we’re advancing. Having multiple threats ganging up on us wouldn’t be good.”

  I nodded. The other Seasons had all taken the time to explain to me what our purpose was: to keep Gaia safe, mostly by removing those outside powers that would seek to control the world. It wasn’t exactly difficult to sell me on the task, after Janus University and Didas. Anyone interested in taking over by controlling the minds of others was someone I didn’t mind standing firmly against. And after what Fall had told me about Hell’s Colonies and what I’d pieced together on my own from the brief time I’d known Septimus, it wasn’t hard to see why they were an enemy. This was part of what I had to do now. I’d do my best to fight without permanently hurting anyone, but I would do what I had to do.

  Right now, though, I was so ready to take advantage of this time away from training. I glanced at Fall—what was the social status with Seasons, exactly? I thought of Fall as a friend, as weird as he was, but could you really hug what was basically a god? Was that like a faux pas or something? I decided to risk it and stepped toward a startled Fall to give him what might have been the most awkward back-pat-hug attempt of my life.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I said to the satisfyingly off-balance Season in front of me. “Seriously, Fall, thank you for everything you’ve done to help me. I couldn’t have managed this alone.”

  A smile crept over Fall’s face, and he patted me on the shoulder, a gesture made awkward by his slightly shorter height. “Happy to help, Feayr. I mean that. Now go say hi to your boyfriend, brother.”

  Brother, huh, I thought as I stepped into the ice mirror and disappeared. I’ve never had a brother before.

  Chapter Two

  STEPPING THROUGH the ice was not unlike diving headfirst into a pool, I found out. There was a brief rush and the undeniable feeling of something that wasn’t air surrounding me, and then as soon as the sensation had started, I was out on the other side, standing on top of a small chunk of ice stretching out from the riverbank. Judging by the screeching coming from the tree right next to me, my arrival had irritated some of the local wildlife, but it didn’t seem like anyone had spotted me. I stepped hastily onto the shore and dismissed the weirdly out-of-place slab of ice with a wave of my hand.

  Massachusetts was enjoying an early spring, it looked like. I didn’t see very much snow lying around, and from what I could tell from what Fall had kept me updated on, it was sometime in March right now. I’d stopped trying to keep track of dates after Fall told me we’d been hopping hemispheres a lot of the time. Tufts University was…. I looked around for some sort of marker. University towns usually had signs, right? I moved up off the riverbank to a little path running adjacent to the river and headed in the direction of a bridge and the sounds of a busy intersection. Tufts was on a giant-ass hill; I knew that much. I figured I’d follow the hill up and get there eventually.

  It was about the time I passed a store called the Danish Pastry House that I remembered something I hadn’t stopped to think about in months: I had no money. And no phone, since mysterious magic forests didn’t come with handy outlets, and fighting meant cracked screens. As best I knew, my money and phone were still in my room in Janus, and even though I still had the key on me, it seemed like in Janus’s absence the magic of the doors of Janus University had failed completely. I had no idea if that had changed since the last time I got updates, but right now my key was only useful as a memory.

  My stomach growled loud enough to snap me out of my reverie. Tyler had mentioned a meal plan last time I’d come here, right? I couldn’t remember. At least I knew I was in the right place now—there was no way the ridiculously steep hill in front of me could lead anywhere but to Tufts. I gritted my teeth, ignored the rumblings of my stomach, and began my hellish ascent. I started on pavement and ended up climbing a weirdly winding set of rainbow steps before emerging in a parking lot behind a dorm or something, but at least I could recognize my surroundings at this point. Tyler was in the building in front of me—I swore I could actually feel him there, now that I was this close again after so long. I headed off with a spring in my step and made it about five paces before I realized that pretty much everyone in the area—all twelve students and some others in a weird white bus—was giving me their undivided attention. Maybe it was the almost shoulder-length hair, or that my hoodie and jeans were like half made of leaves at this point? I flushed and ducked my head, pulling up the shameful remnant of my hood over my hair, and picked up the pace.

  Once I was at the doorway to… to Houston Hall, apparently, I ran into my next problem. The door was locked without the proper keycard, which I didn’t have. And while I was sure Fall or Spring or maybe even Summer would have a way to subtly get past the door, my options were to break it down in the world’s most obvious magical display, or somehow freeze enough of the inside of the lobby to teleport through—which was also about as unsubtle as possible. I tried desperately to remember what other spells I’d learned at Janus that didn’t involve breaking things, and while I was trying to recall that, another guy walked straight up to the door, opened it up, and then propped it open for me to follow without even asking. I managed a startled “thanks” and stepped through, only to find that he nodded and walked down the hall. I wasn’t sure if that was the general niceness of the place, or if no one here had any concept of security. Either way, I wasn’t going to complain.

  Tyler’s room was somewhere on the basement floor, so far as I remembered. It was tricky to figure out the layout of the place since I usually appeared directly at his room, but I could feel Tyler’s presence like a blanket over me now that we were this close. I ducked down the stairs to the left and headed straight for his door, which was slightly ajar.

  I froze. What was… what was the right way to stop by your boyfriend’s room after not seeing him for months? Was it really okay for me to just show up? What if I was fucking everything up by doing this? Tyler was already having a rough time of things, and what if I was just making this worse by coming here without saying anything, and—

  The door in front of me swung open even as my hand was frozen a few inches away from knocking, and then I was staring right at Tyler, who was humming along to a soundtrack I immediately recognized from one of the Celtic playlists I’d shared with him last fall. His eyes widened, and my hand fell back to my side as I drank in the sight of him.

  Tyler looked… tired, but still like Tyler. His dirty blond hair was a little longer than I remembered, still swept back from his forehead in that carelessly pretty way it always was. His shoulders were as unfairly broad as ever, even when slumped and hidden under—wait.

  “Are you wearing my old hoodie?” I asked before I could stop myself. Tyler’s eyebrows shot up toward the ceiling, but I could see the little bit of red creeping into his cheeks, and all of a sudden, I was grinning helplessly at my mess of a romantic boyfriend.

  “That’s what you’re going to say to me?” Tyler said, even as he moved so fast to pull me into a bone-crushing hug that I didn’t even see him coming. “Holy shit, Fay. Fay.” His voice had a tremble in it, somewhere by my ear where his head rested.

  “Hi, Tyler.” Ah, shit. My voice was already wobbly. “It’s, um… it’s been a while.”

  Tyler pulled back from me a bit, just far enough to look me in the eyes. “Too long,” he said, voice painfully raw. I could see tears threatening to spill and felt something in my chest wrench at the sight of it. “God, I-I wasn’t sure you were coming back, even with the letters. I—”

  I cut him off with a kiss and pushed both of us farther into the room so I could close the door with the last bit of cogent thought I could manage. “I’m here, Ty. I’m here, I promise. I’m not going anywhere.” He was trembling. His shoulders shook under my hands, and I was willing to do whatever it took to make that stop. “I’m so fucking sorry I was gone. But I’m here now.”

  Tyler’s hands clenched painfully tight on me for a moment, before he let out a long, shuddering gasp and loosened his grip. “Well, uh….” He gave me a watery smile. “Yeah, this is your hoodie. Turns out we’re about the same size, you know?”

  I eyed the way the fabric stretched ominously around the frame of his shoulders. “Yeah, except for the fitness bit. I swear it looks better on you than it ever did on me.”

  “That,” Tyler said, finally giving me a proper smile, “is the biggest lie you’ve ever told. You were wearing this hoodie the first time I saw you at school.”

  “Really? I didn’t think a formless green hoodie could really make me stand out.”

  “That’s because you don’t need nice clothes for me to notice you.” He stepped closer. “You only need to be here.”

  I shivered as his hands wrapped around my waist, pulling me in closer. “Is… is your roommate in class today?”

  “I’ll lock the door.” Tyler’s mouth was perilously close to my neck. “Now please let me see you properly.”

  Who was I to turn down such an earnest request?

  ONCE ENOUGH time had passed for me to finally convinc
e Tyler that I wouldn’t disappear if he let me go from his arms, it was time for us to fill each other in on what had passed. The door was still locked, and it was possible that at some point Tyler’s roommate had tried to come in and left immediately upon putting an ear up against the door. If it meant I could still be this close to Tyler without feeling embarrassed, I didn’t much care. I went first, at Tyler’s insistence, which I couldn’t blame him for. I was the one who had vanished, even if I’d done my best to keep him updated.

  “I haven’t actually been doing much,” I said, leaning into him. “Spring and Summer disappeared almost immediately, and I said goodbye to Lailah and sort of to Septimus when the Seasons separated from them. Fall’s been taking me all over the place for training.”

  Tyler seemed much more relaxed now and was currently tracing lazy circles in my hair with his free hand. “Do you have any idea where you were?”

  “Not really, no. All I know is that we never spent more than a couple days at a time in any one place. That, and leaf-pile beds aren’t comfortable, no matter how much magic you use to make them less scratchy. I think he kept moving us around so we wouldn’t get discovered, but he also kept meeting up with people, and things that definitely didn’t look like people, so maybe it was also so he could keep in contact with, um, friends? Or informants?” I shrugged. “For a Season who’s only existed again for the past few months, Fall’s definitely got a social circle.”

  Tyler shifted on the bed, pressing his thigh against mine in the process. “Well, so long as you weren’t hurt, it sounds like things went about as well as they could. Your powers are—” He paused. I could tell he was trying to find a good way to ask if I was prone to another possessed murder rampage or not, and decided to spare him the struggle.

  “I have my powers a lot more under control now. No guarantees if I end up in another fight for my life, but right now it doesn’t seem like anything short of that will cause a… relapse.”

  “And that means you don’t have to disappear again, right?” Tyler asked. His voice was calm, but the sudden pause in head scratches spoke volumes. My heart broke, and I fell in love with him all over again.

  “It means I’m back, Ty.” I tilted my head up slightly to look at him. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Good.” Tyler wrapped his arms around me again. In retrospect, no part of this conversation was a good idea if I’d really wanted to break free of his embrace. Thankfully, I didn’t want to. Ever.

  A few minutes later, I decided to try and move us back to being verbal again. “What about you? I got a bit of what you’ve been up to in your letters, but….”

  Tyler sighed. “It hasn’t been fun, yeah. Mom has stopped speaking with Dad altogether at this point, and that means I have to carry both of their messages to each other in the worst kind of way possible. I’m supposed to be doing homework and baseball practice, and instead I’m watching my parents act like children.”

  “That sounds like a nightmare.” My parents never did anything worse than irritated bickering, and even then, they made up in roughly ten minutes flat.

  “It’s the timing that’s bad now,” Tyler said, rubbing his face with his hand. “This isn’t the first time they’ve pulled this shit, but they’re roping me into it when I have my own stuff to do, and it’s just….”

  “Too much?” I offered.

  “Yeah,” Tyler said and bopped my nose with a finger. We were lying on the bed facing each other, so I could see his simple pleasure in making me scrunch up my face in response. “And your little disappearing act—not that I blame you in any way for it—was another problem on top of that.”

  I bopped his nose right back and pressed our foreheads together. “Was being the operative word. I’m here now, and I’ll—well, I’ll listen to you at the very least, and do anything I can to make this less awful.”

  Tyler smiled at me. “This works pretty well, I think. I just need to find a way to tell them that if they’re going to act like this, I can’t be a part of it. But I’m… not good at telling people things they don’t want to hear.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, that’s more Sam’s job. Did you ever ask her for help?”

  “No,” Tyler said slowly. “I mean… could I have? Sam and I don’t really hang out unless you’re there, and now Sam’s off doing whatever it is she does when you’re not there to mellow her out.”

  “You definitely could have. Sam told me you’re her friend now, and she doesn’t say that lightly. But fair point on her maybe being too busy right now. Even I don’t know what she’s up to at the moment.”

  Tyler’s eyes widened. “Are you telling me you came to see me before checking in on Sam?”

  “Look,” I said dryly. “Sam is my best friend, and I will always love her. But I just came back from months of isolation, and your letters always tell me that you’re missing me, and Sam’s letters promise that she’s going to whack me that much harder if I’m gone any longer. Of course I’d come to you first.”

  Tyler beamed at me. “I think that’s the closest to a confession of love I’ve ever heard from you, Fay.”

  “Really? Because I’m pretty sure I’ve said the words I love you to you directly before, and I thought that’d count.”

  “Mmm… can’t remember,” Tyler said and promptly rolled me on top of him. “Better refresh my memory.”

  “You,” I said before leaning down to kiss him, “are ridiculous.” I got myself comfortable and kissed him again. “And I love you, Tyler. In case you needed the reminder.” I glanced at his face and grinned. “You’ve gotten a lot blushier, you know.”

  Tyler mock-scowled up at me. “That’s not a word, and also I haven’t seen you in ages. This is justified.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Never thought ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ would ever be so visible.”

  Tyler flushed even more. “It doesn’t help that you look so….”

  “I look so… what?”

  He looked away from me for a second. “The hair looks good, okay? And you seem… settled. More than you were when I first met you, and more than when you were at Janus. It’s a really good look on you.”

  “That is probably the best thing you could’ve said to me.” I grinned down at him. “More kisses for the best boyfrie—” My stomach growled even louder, and I shut up abruptly in mortification.

  Tyler looked like he was about an inch away from bursting into laughter. “Somebody’s hungry, huh?”

  “Real food,” I moaned, flopping back off him. “Real, greasy, terrible-for-me food, Tyler. It’s been so long since I’ve had pizza.”

  “That’s so tragic,” Tyler said, fighting to keep a straight face. “What a terrible existence you’ve led.”

  I threw his pillow at him and cut off his resulting laughter with a satisfying thud. “Feed me, you jerk.”

  “Oh yes,” Tyler said, wheezing. “Only the best greasy pizza for my boyfriend. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “I can’t believe I missed you,” I said, sulking.

  “But you did.”

  “So fucking much. Please, Tyler? Pizza please?”

  “Oh my God, you’re the biggest nerd. I missed you so much.”

  “Less talk. More pizza.”

  “Fine, but we’re going to Carm so I can steal a corner spot and keep laughing at you.”

  “SO,” TYLER said once I’d finished scarfing down close to my bodyweight in pizza. “What’s next for you?”

  I wiped my face with a napkin. “I think I have to go see what kind of trouble Sam’s been getting herself into. Fall told me she’s been spending time with Aria, which isn’t really a surprise, but apparently she’s been spending time with Aiden too.”

  “Aria, huh?” Tyler hummed. “I wonder how Sofia feels about that.”

  I blinked. “Wow, I almost forgot that happened. I bet it’s fine—Sam’s pretty up-front about casual sex with people. Exhibit A: I’m so used to her talking about it that it’s not weird for me to bring it up.”

  Tyler grimaced. “Still weird for me, though, so next topic. What’s she doing with our favorite frenemy?”

  I grinned. “Frenemy? Really?”