I answered that, my voice resonant with emotion.
“Because she’s my friend, and she knew I didn’t want you to die.”
For the briefest moment, Katie’s facial mask cracked in a way I’d never seen before. Her mouth slowly curved into a tentative smile.
“Your deception was brilliant,” she said in her too-formal vernacular.
Terrible Mother Moment Number Two: I couldn’t bring myself to tell Katie that I hadn’t known about Denise’s switcheroo until the last few seconds before Thonos’s sword swung. Not only would I be admitting that I’d been unable to fulfill my promise to keep her safe only minutes after making it, but Katie had smiled at me. I’d lie my ass off to get another one of those.
“Thank you,” I said, fighting another urge to hug her.
All too quickly, her smile faded. “But now that it’s dead, you should take it away before it starts to smell.”
I winced, both at the cold reasoning and the fear that she might be right. Dear God, please let Denise come back from this! What she’d done went beyond friendship—and beyond bravery. I couldn’t stand that she might be gone forever from her selfless act. Even the thought made me want to weep over her remains until there was nothing left in me.
“Not ‘it,’ ” I said huskily. “She, Katie. She.”
We had a steep uphill battle to deprogram all of Madigan’s conscienceless training. Katie was seven, and her body count might be in the dozens, but somewhere inside that prematurely aged militant shell was a little girl. I just had to peel away the layers to find her.
“And Denise isn’t dead,” I added with a swift, mental prayer that I was right. “She’s coming back from this.”
Katie expressed her doubt with a slow, solemn blink.
“She is coming back, kiddo,” Nathanial agreed, his confident tone a balm to my fears. “I had the same thing happen to me once, and here I am, all in one piece. She’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
Ian cast a sardonic glance at the cross above us.
“Better hope someone’s listening, mate, or once Charles arrives, we’re all fu—”
“Fully aware,” I interrupted, glaring at him. “Fully aware of how awful her loss would be.”
Ian snorted. “My language is the least of your concerns, Reaper.”
True, but . . . “Everyone has to start somewhere, Ian.”
“Quiet. I sense something.”
Mencheres’s voice cut through the church, drawing all eyes to him. At his grave expression, I tensed. Had one of the council members or Law Guardians followed us here?
Then a crackling noise snapped my gaze back to the pew, and I sucked in a horrified breath. Not-Katie’s decapitated head shrank, the skin and tissue evaporating with the same speed Trove’s had when I stabbed him a second time in the eye. That crown of dirty auburn hair changed too, curling up into nothingness as though being burned by invisible flames. Within seconds, only a bare skull was left. A cry escaped me when, with a pop, it imploded into itself, dissipating until all that remained was a small pile of dust.
“No,” I whispered. Oh, Denise, no!
Something rippled over the headless remains, grayish in color and so fast it reminded me of Remnants during a killing frenzy. Then it changed, becoming palest pink instead of ashen, exploding over that small, lifeless form like wave after wave of pounding surf. Instead of shrinking, not-Katie’s body swelled, increasing until clothes that had sagged from excess material now stretched and tightened.
I don’t remember moving toward her, but somehow I was standing over the pew, looking down in disbelief as mahogany-colored satin seemed to spill from the gaping hole in her neck. A pale globe followed, expanding like a balloon under a freely running faucet. Another blur of motion, and features became distinguishable amidst the canvas of new skin. Right as the top button popped off her bloodstained shirt from her body filling out to its normal, curvy proportions, dark eyelashes fluttered open, revealing hazel eyes blinking up at me.
“Cat,” Denise rasped. “Did . . . it work?”
I sank to my knees, a happy sob bursting out of me. It was the only response I was capable of.
Epilogue
The large craft bobbed up and down in the choppy waves of the Atlantic, held in place by the anchor we’d dropped an hour ago. REAPER used to be emblazoned in red across the hull, but now it said RESPITE in letters of seafoam green.