Page 140 of Fire to the Stars

“I can translate too!” another shouts.

“I’ll give you a discount!” a third offers.

The room erupts with offers for services. It drowns out the angry scrape of Étienne’s chair as he rises and gestures to me.

“This is the Estellio boy we’re talking to! He’s full of it!” he shouts. But they don’t listen. He turns to me with a sneer. “I knew you were trouble. You’ve doomed us all.”

“Dragons are gone. There’s no changing that,” I tell him. “We’re done. Throw away your slayer’s handbook. Florent doesn’t need us anymore.”

In reality, this is just the start. It will take time to fully unravel the consequences of the Immortals’ entrenchment in Florentian society. The wealth they hoarded. The power they wielded. The records they falsified. Their familiars too—those silverwolves. Now that they’ve lost their masters, who knows what they’ll do to survive?

For now, it is enough to know that I wasn’t alone in my willingness to change.

All it took was one young boy to ask the right question—to stand up in the face of scrutiny—to start a tidal wave.

All that’s left is to write one last journal entry and leave the evidence behind.

Claire roams the archives with Lucy while I sit and open my journal to an empty page. I pen my final discoveries—an addendum to be transcribed with the rest of my journal, duplicated, and scattered across Florent. I include everything: The signs I missed with Micah. The clues I found with Claire. The compassion and teamwork it took to recognize the truth. An updated version of the dragon-hunting rules, too—if only for the benefit of the last few targets.

It takes some time to find the proper words, but when I finish, I close my journal for the last time.

Now that the Gendarmerie have taken possession of the archives, I know it’s safe to leave my records behind. A gendarme clears a glass cabinet for me to store the evidence, one that will be brass plated with my name and the date of Noctu’s Ascension. I place everything we presented to the Guild, including my journal, inside.

I hesitate with the last item—Micah’s skull. It stares back at me, its ridges as familiar to me as my own hands. He’s been my companion on every leg of my journey. In a way, looking through his maw felt like I was giving him life. But I took that life. These are his bones. I was his older brother, and I was supposed to protect him.

All this time, he protectedme.

“Let him go, Abel,” Claire says softly beside me.

I clutch the skull tighter.

“It’s time,” she says. “You need to take back your life, too.”

I place Micah’s skull on the shelf.

It’s then that I notice my hands are shaking. Tears drip frommy chin. I’m a child again as I fall to my knees and grip the edge of the case that will forever separate me from my last physical connection to my brother.

“I chained him up like an animal,” I choke out.

“I know,” she replies.

“I lost his trust.”

“I know.”

“I gave up on a cure too soon.”

She wraps her arms around my shoulders. “We all did.”

As devastating as that truth is, something larger wells inside me. I twist the fabric of my tunic over my chest, as if I can somehow reach inside myself and give shape to this emotion—this overwhelminggratitude.

I don’t have the first clue as to who deserves the most credit for leading me to the end of the dragon curse, but Micah is the one who started it all, so I give my thanks to him. His death was the stepping stone that allowed me to save Claire’s life. Once I let everything out, she places a hand on Micah’s skull and whispers her appreciation too.

“Ready to go?” Claire asks, her hand offered to me. I take it without hesitation.

This new life of ours demands to be lived.

I know this letter isn’t necessary, but I want it on the record that unlike my father, I am happy to see the Slayers Guild expire. Please accept my resignation from training.