Page 101 of Find My Way Down to You

How much in their short life tips the scales one way or the other?

After a beat, I ask, “Could you have saved her?”

It’s crossed my mind more than once. The power he musthold as a Deathless. But the resigned look on his face says it’s not enough.

“What about Death?”

He exhales a long breath. “Unfortunately, it does not work that way. No one can change what Fate decides.”

My jaw stiffens. I stop myself from screaming. From begging him to find a way. All that power in him—in all the Deathless—and nothing can bring the dead back to life.

I put Yuri’s duck down. “How do you do it?”

“August,” he says, voice scratchy, “I do not have a choice. This is who I am.”

“She was achild, Cary.”

“I know. But it is not always like that.”

A rough laugh shakes me. “Oh, I’m sure it’s all sunshine and rainbows.”

“Sometimes,” Cary tries with a sad smile. “Not often.”

“So, you never fight back? You just do this because you have to?”

“At first,” he confesses. His thumb brushes along the goose bumps on my forearm. “But not anymore.”

“Then why?”

Something unreadable flickers in his eyes. “Let me show you.”

For a solid minute, I retch into someone’s rosebushes. Thankfully, no one’s home. Nothing but hot, sour saliva comes up anyway. Cary’s hand runs along my back. His strong fingerspress the tension from between my shoulder blades.

I drag the back of my hand across my mouth. “Is it always that bad?”

“Only for mortals.”

He leads me over a bluestone walkway to a single-story house. The brick exterior is painted white with peeling black accents.

Sucking in a clean breath, I say, “And how many mortals have you done this with?”

“Why? Are you jealous?”

I scowl at him.

He grins. “Only you.” With a hint of shyness, he adds, “You are my first for many things.”

A soft smile blooms unexpectedly across my face. “Where are we now?”

“Macon. In Georgia.”

The porch steps creak under our feet. Dense humidity forms a coat of sweat on my skin. My T-shirt sticks to my back.

Cary doesn’t bother knocking on the peacock blue door. He walks right in.

Music fills the small foyer. Something old and bluesy.

We move through a living room. Splayed on the coffee table is an unfinished knit sweater. A framed painting of a Black man playing the trumpet hangs above the fireplace. Age leaches the color from all the furniture. Walking canes lean against one wall near the kitchen, where a teacup sits next to a bowl of waxy decorative peaches.