CoS42

## Chapter 42

**Chapter 42** of **City of Spells** follows **Tavia**.

## **Full Version**

HE WAS GONE.

Dante Ashwood slumped on the ground, bullet through the heart Tavia was sure he didn’t have. He didn’t move or get back up in some death-defying display of magic. He just lay there, with his eyes as wide as could be, staring straight at Wesley.

Finally, it was over.

“Holy shit,” Tavia said.

Wesley put his gun back in the holster. “Eloquent as ever.”

“I know you guys had a complicated relationship and I should probably say something comforting or poignant,” Tavia said. “But holy shit.”

She couldn’t help but smile, which was probably inappropriate with someone who may have been Wesley’s father lying dead by their feet. Still, she smiled, because they had just saved the world and she was owed the feeling of happiness that rose in her chest.

They had avenged her mother and everyone else who had died from the magic sickness and who had lost themselves and their loved ones because of the Loj. They had stopped a war. They had kept their city from ruin.

*You see, ciolo. I told you that it would all be okay.*

Her mother’s voice blew through her mind like the wind and for once Tavia didn’t want to cry or shut it out. She wanted to savor it and she wanted to laugh.

*I know,*she told her mother. *And I wish you were here to see it.*

Tavia squeezed Wesley’s hand.

He turned to look at her, deep brown eyes and a half smile that she felt in her bones. He was still wearing those damn cuff links and though the bow tie was gone—strange, considering this was *definitely* an odd day—his shirt was buttoned to the collar in true Wesley style. Almost pristine, if not for the blood splatters, which she kindly chose to ignore.

Wesley reached out and placed his hand on Tavia’s cheek, like he still couldn’t quite believe she was standing in front of him, rather than bleeding out on the ground.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” he said.

“I was just keeping you on your toes,” Tavia teased. “And in my defense, it wasn’t *my* plan. You have your sister to thank for—”

“Never again,” he said.

When he kissed her, it was soft and delicate, like he was afraid she might break, or that this living Tavia was the illusion and if he kissed her too hard then she’d fade away. So Tavia brought her hands around his neck and pressed him harder against her, letting him know that he didn’t need to be careful with her.

She was real.

She was here.

And she wasn’t going anywhere.

She felt Wesley smile under her lips and the world went newly quiet. He had the power to make her heart slow, like he was pulling all the bad from the world and all the worry from her body.

And then somebody cleared their throat and they quickly broke apart.

Tavia turned to face her friends, her cheeks warm.

She’d almost forgotten they were there and that she and Wesley weren’t the only two people in the world.

Saxony was tending to Zekia, pulling her sister to her feet and trying to avoid eye contact with Tavia, but Karam didn’t have that problem as she collected her fallen knives from the ground and stared at Tavia with her patented glare.

They all looked like they’d rather not have seen Tavia and Wesley kissing.

“So we’re alive,” Tavia said to them, in case they didn’t already know.

“Yeah,” Saxony said. “And some of us are enjoying it a little too much.”

Though she was smiling, and Tavia hadn’t thought about how much she missed Saxony smiling at her until then.

“Want to celebrate with me?” she asked.

“I’ve seen the way you celebrate,” Saxony said. “I’ll pass.”

But Tavia was already running toward her and she practically tackled Saxony into a hug. Her old friend arched her neck to raise her eyebrows at how Tavia was clinging to her like some kind of weird animal.

“Many Gods,” Saxony said. “Let me breathe, will you?”

Tavia loosened her grip, just enough for Saxony to take a breath, and then she squeezed her back into a tight hug once more.

“Okay, you win,” Saxony said, laughing. “I surrender.”

Tavia broke away, grinning, and Saxony ruffled her hair. Tavia turned to Karam and her warrior friend took two steps back.

“If you hug me, I will stab you,” she said.

Tavia weighed this up in her mind for a moment, but decided it was worth it. She swung her arms around Karam and though she heard her friend let out a long groan, her hands still wrapped around Tavia’s back and squeezed. Just once, brief and strong.

“You’re the world’s worst hugger,” Tavia whispered in her ear.

Karam pushed her away with a frown. “Now I stab you. That was the deal.”

“We should check on the army,” Wesley said. “See if Arjun and Schulze are still alive.”

“You care about Arjun?” Karam asked.

“No,” Wesley said, all too quickly. “I just want to make sure he protected the Doyen. I need Schulze alive for our deal on new magic rules going forward.”

“Can we also get me a healer?” Zekia asked. Then, her voice a little smaller as they all turned to look at her: “If anyone still wants me healed. My magic did most of it, but I feel a little odd. I could try myself if nobody wants to.”

Tavia felt a pang of sympathy for her would-be murderer.

Zekia was the youngest of them and she had sacrificed the most in a lot of ways, and now she looked as though she didn’t know if she had anything left.

With Ashwood gone, she seemed unsure whether the family she still had would take her back.

Wesley sighed and limped over to Zekia so that he could place a hand on her head. The trick dust Tavia had sprinkled on his leg was good at easing the pain temporarily and even stopping the bleeding, but it hadn’t healed him.

Just like his sister, Wesley would need true magic for that.

“You’re kind of an idiot, kid,” Wesley said to Zekia.

Tavia knew that was Wesley’s way of saying that he cared and there was no way he was going to accept anyone not jumping at the chance to help his sister.

Saxony took Zekia’s hand in hers. “Come on, little sister,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

Heading down from the bridge and onto the shores that separated Creije from the rest of the Uskhanyan cities, Tavia wasn’t sure what to expect.

But it sure wasn’t Arjun and Doyen Fenna Schulz, followed by dozens of their soldiers, climbing out of a small train, similar to the one the Kingpin had slithered out of.

“Aren’t you all supposed to be in Yejlath?” Wesley asked.

The Doyen’s back straightened. “Yes, well. We defeated Ashwood’s people there. With the help of your Crafters and buskers we . . . Well, it was a fair fight,” she said, as though she hated to admit it. “We came back with a few of our people to see what had become of Ashwood and if you had been able to uphold your end of the bargain.”

“Consider it upheld,” Wesley said.

“Great, now you will brag about it until the end of days,” Arjun said.

Tavia couldn’t hold back her smile at the sound of his stubborn voice.

“It’s good that you’re not dead,” she told him.

Arjun scoffed, in that haughty and unsmiling way that only he could make endearing. “Grankans do not give up easily,” he said. “We are warriors. We are champions and we—”

“You bored them all to death, didn’t you?” Wesley asked. “Be straight with us. That’s how you won, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be so mean,” Tavia said. “I’m sure that he bored some of them into surrender. Give the guy credit where credit’s due.”

Arjun’s eyes narrowed. “I cannot wait to go back to Wrenyal and never have to deal with you two again.”

Tavia touched a hand to her chest.”You’re saying you won’t miss us? After all the training sessions and late-night bonding?”

“Late night,” Wesley repeated, his eyebrows raised. “How late exactly?”

Tavia wrinkled her nose, just as Karam stepped forward and held out her hand for her childhood friend.

Arjun sheathed his sword and threaded his fingers through hers.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

She nodded. “Asees is avenged,” she said. “We have gotten justice for them all.”

Everyone in Arjun’s Kin who had been killed or manipulated by the Kingpin.

Everyone in the realms who had died so Ashwood could have more power.

They couldn’t undo it, but maybe they could make the pain a little easier to swallow.

“She would be proud,” Arjun said.

He gripped his hands tighter around Karam’s and then pulled her into a hug. Tavia couldn’t help but notice that Karam was hugging Arjun far more nicely than she’d hugged her. She saw Karam’s back lift in a sigh of relief as she clung to her friend and let go of all the worry about possibly having lost anyone else.

They were all safe.

“So now what?” Tavia asked.

“We discuss what happens next,” Wesley said, looking at the Doyen.

He was already adjusting his suit sleeves and was attempting to make himself look more imposing than his disheveled presence allowed. He took in a breath, like he was preparing himself to either throw a punch or take one.

“Our deal is still on, I assume?”

“There is a lot to discuss,” Schulze said.

Tavia shoved her hands into her pockets.

She knew that meant they would have to go to Yejlath, and she hated Yejlath. It was so *uppity* and the last thing she wanted after fighting a war was to go to the Halls of Government and talk politics with a Doyen. She wanted a damn bath and a good meal and an undisturbed night’s sleep.

It was the least they were all owed.

But she knew that Ashwood still had Crafters and buskers spread across the realms and it was their job to come to an agreement on next steps. Those who were enthralled by the Loj would now be free to get their minds back, and those who followed him willingly would now be aimless without a true leader.

They would surrender to the army Tavia and the others had built.

They would surrender to the armies that the other Realm Doyens would undoubtedly bring into Uskhanya to help ferry peace.

And if they didn’t, Tavia and her friends would be right there, waiting.