She laughs. We both laugh. And I take her hand so we can run together.
We run through our forest of white-trunked trees and bright-yellow leaves.
And we still pause when we get to the boundary of the flower meadow.
We still consider our options.
But this time, when she calls her moths and sends them forward, I do not let her go without me.
I take her hand and we step into the clearing together.
Grown up now, we look at each other one more time, just to make sure.
“Yes?” I ask.
“The curse won’t be broken,” Pie says. “But the boundaries will shift.”
We stop walking in the middle of the meadow and I pull her towards me. “That could mean anything, Pie.”
“I’m ready for all of it,” she says.
I kiss her.
She kisses me.
I gaze into her wood-nymph blue eyes and she searches my satyr-yellow ones. And then, finally, we really are ready for what comes next.
There are more monsters caught in this curse than us. And when we turn back to the woods, they are there. Waiting. Monsters of every shape and size. Horns, and hooves, and wings, and tails peek out from behind the burnt-orange leaves of the temple woods.
We stop at the edge of the trees. And one by one they come forward, some angry, some sad, some just beaten down and tired.
But they come and they follow us across the meadow. They run with us through the woods.
We take them back through the darkness, my horns—whole again—lighting the way.
And when we step out of the darkness and back into the light, we walk back into the sanctuary.
And we bring all the monsters of Saint Mark’s with us.
EPILOGUE - PIE
TWO WEEKS LATER
So many things have changed around Saint Mark’s Sanctuary.
First and foremost for me, it was the new look. But getting used to being a full-time monster didn’t take as long as I thought it would. In fact, I pretty much settled right in. And the best part? I’m not the caretaker anymore. The entire Book of Debt has disappeared. We looked everywhere for it and it is just gone.
At first, I figured maybe Tomas burned it up with half the walls and ceilings. But the walls and ceilings have repaired themselves. You can’t even tell that a blood dragon did his best to turn this place to ashes a few weeks ago. And still that dumb book never came back. Besides, Pell’s little pleasure cave wasn’t affected by the burn at all. None of the magical rooms were. So the book should still be in there, and it isn’t.
Pell was a little worried about this for a few days. He muttered some concerns regarding the balance sheet of the universe, but even he had to admit that it’s not our fault the book disappeared, and let it go.
Tomas is another huge change at Saint Mark’s. First and foremost for him, there is no dragon version of himself in the dungeon. That smelly beast is gone. In fact, the smell is gone too. Everything that was down there is all gone.
And not only does Tomas get to be the hot dragon chimera he was always meant to be, one hundred percent of the time, but when he and Pell leave the sanctuary to go get provisions, he gets his hot-guy human body back too.
It’s crazy good luck.
First and foremost for Pell, he’s not the only monster. This place is crawling with them now. And he’s got me, his dreamy wood-nymph better half. And when he leaves the sanctuary with Tomas, he turns human! So does Tomas! Though Pell isn’t as excited about it as Tomas is. And they still have their curfew or whatever. Can’t stay gone longer than a few hours. So there are no nightclub trips to Pittsburgh in Tomas’s future, but there are still plenty of things out here in the sticks for him to explore.
Pia is back. She’s not the same as she was. She doesn’t talk to me anymore. I think this is because I’m her now. Or she is me. But she stays near me the same way she used to, so maybe it’s more natural this way? None of the other monsters can see her—not even Pell or Tomas—so she’s still my fluffy little personal hallucination.
One day, perhaps, I will find a spell to make a bird talk and we will have another conversation. But it’s just as likely that she stays this way forever. She sings a lot, something she never did before. So I think she’s happy with the new arrangement.
I haven’t seen the moths again. But that makes sense. I never really learned to control them, they just appeared when things got stressful and magic was my last resort. I actually hope they stay gone forever. I am satisfied with who I am at the moment so if they never come back, I’ll get over it.