I nodded again and placed my hand in his. His touch felt cool now. Comforting. He pulled us forward until the world blurred around me, turning everything gray and dull. I blinked when I saw the gates. They loomed before us like pewter-colored shadows, surrounded by mist. I squeezed the boy’s hand, needing that contact more than anything in that moment. To my surprise, he squeezed back.
“Don’t you want to know my name?” I asked.
He stopped when we reached the gates and gave a two-finger wave to a man in a gray robe. He slid me a sideways glance that looked perplexed. “Do you want me to know your name?”
“I wouldn’t have asked you if I didn’t.”
He grinned and looked down at his shoes. “Well, now I think you better tell me, or I’ll have to nickname you Smart Ass.”
I smiled. “It’s Allison.”
He nodded and greeted the man unlocking the gates. The big silver bars eased open and we slipped inside.
“Aren’t you going to tell me yours?” I asked.
“Why do you want to know?”
“I don’t know anyone else here.”
The boy looked at me, sadness creasing the corners of his eyes. “Trust me, Allison. After today, you won’t want to know me.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Are you going to tell me your name or not?”
He waited for the guard to back away and finally said, “Finn. My name’s Finn.”
I slipped my hand into Finn’s and forced him to shake on it. Daddy always said it was polite to shake someone’s hand when they gave you their name. Finn stared at our entwined fingers, brows drawn together like he didn’t know what to think. Our flesh glimmered and glowed. It took my breath away.
“You’re an angel, aren’t you?” I marveled.
Finn pulled his hand out of mine and shook his head. “Not even close.”
He nodded to the guard who was watching us warily and backed out of the gates. I wrapped my fingers around the bars after they closed. “Are you coming back?”
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and looked around like someone might be listening.
“I’m here every day. It’s my job.”
My chest fluttered where my heart used to be. “So, if I wait here tomorrow, I’ll see you again?”
Finn wrapped his fingers around the bars above mine. “Why would you want to see me again after I brought you here?”
“I could use a friend up here,” I whispered, though really, I didn’t know why I needed to see him again. Something inside me just…knew. And the emptiness in those haunting green eyes said that he needed it, too.
Finn rested his forehead against the bars. “I’m not supposed to. It’s against the rules for me to even be talking to you like this.”
I opened my mouth, not entirely sure what was about to come out, when a voice parted the shadows.
Finn stepped away from the gate. From me. He raked his fingers through his hair and nodded at a pretty girl in a white dress who looked like she was waiting for him. Of course there was someone else.
I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it. The fluttering feeling sank, and I slipped back from the gate and into the mist. Into death. “Good-bye, Finn.”
“Hey, wait.” He clutched the blade at his hip and glanced around, then let his eyes fall on me. “I…
I’ll see you tomorrow. If you still want to after today. All right?”
I nodded, feeling something I thought I’d left behind with my flesh. Hope.
…
My eyes opened and I gasped, choking for air, clawing at my mask. The bed I was on rolled through a doorway. There were so many doctors talking that their voices blurred into one. Anaya leaned over me, perched on the side of my bed. The fluorescent hospital lights seemed dim compared with her.
She clasped her glowing palm over my forehead.
“Just a little more, Emma.” She smiled and ran her thumb over my cheek. “Just remember a little more.”
I didn’t have a choice. My eyes followed her orders and closed against the light.
…
Finn’s breath was warm on my neck. His chest firm against my back. His lips brushed the once- tender spot just behind my jaw.
“Finn,” I breathed. My insides buzzed with fear and desire. “Someone will see.”
His arms looped around my waist and his lips touched my hair. “It doesn’t matter. Not now.”
It did matter. This might be the end for me, but it wasn’t for Finn. He couldn’t risk that. I couldn’t let him.
“They’ll banish you.” Warily, I watched the souls fill the meeting square. This was it. This was my last chance. No amount of Finn’s kisses was going to make that any different.
“I’m not trying to get banished,” he said. “I’m trying to get a kiss.”
“You know we can’t do that out here in the open. If Balthazar sees—” I yelped when Finn yanked me into the shadow of a hemlock and pressed me into an invisible wall. I gasped when he kissed me.
“Now they can’t see,” he said softly, and kissed me again.
“You’re just trying to distract me.”
“Is it working?”
I realized that this might be the last time I kissed him. If I was chosen to go back, Finn couldn’t follow. If I was tossed to the Shadow Land, I wouldn’t want him to. No matter what the outcome was today, it meant saying good-bye to Finn. A desperate feeling gripped my chest and I clutched him closer, but I couldn’t get close enough. Finn must have felt the same way because he crushed his mouth against mine.
I lost myself in the moment. Lips tangling, our breaths mixing and melting on my tongue. His kisses felt so good, his lips so gloriously solid against mine, it took my breath away.
The trumpets sounded, and he pulled away slowly. His green eyes were vibrant against the shadow of his face, reminding me of the day we’d met. The day he’d collected me. “Come on, they’re starting.”
Finn took my hand and pulled me into the hazy gray twilight that always hung over this place. He stopped just shy of the crowd, leaving us cloaked by souls. Reapers created a wall on each side of the lectern, standing firm against the group of desperate souls pressing forward. They looked fierce and ready for the danger the souls not chosen for reincarnation or Heaven might pose. A ring of guardians formed a protective circle around the porthole glowing behind them.
Finn should have been up there with the reapers, fighting for order. Instead, he was with me.
“Shouldn’t you be up there?”
Finn shook his head, watching a guardian knock a soul back from the porthole. “No. I’m exactly where I need to be.”
I stood on my tiptoes and found Maeve. She smiled and gave me a little wave. I didn’t know how to be that confident. This was my last year. For souls like me—souls that had done something irreparably
