"Good. There's a vacancy at my apartment." He lifted a hand before I could speak. "In my apartment building, I mean. I know you're not ready for cohabitation. You need to live on your own. At least for a while." He put his arm around my shoulder and led me from the room. "Now, you mentioned buying me a drink?"
"I don't think I said--"
"Yep, pretty sure you did. We might want to make it a double. Have you checked the office e-mail lately? Apparently, the world didn't stop while we were busy saving it. Lots of work waiting."
"Lots of adventures waiting."
He grinned over at me. "Always lots of adventures waiting."
And so there would be. Things had happened in the last few weeks. Big things. Maybe even things that would ultimately alter our world. But one thing wouldn't change. There would always be work to do, threats to defeat, adventures to be had.
I wouldn't want it any other way.
A FINAL NOTE FROM KELLEY. . .
Thus ends the Otherworld, with Savannah looking forward to a lifetime of adventures. It may seem an odd note to finish on, but this is how I've always envisioned the ending. I'm not sending the characters into their rocking chairs, to doze away their retirement years. I haven't created a world where that is even possible. There is no final victor
y that could let them all live peacefully ever after. But as Savannah says, they wouldn't have it any other way. Theirs is a life of threats and challenges and, yes, adventures. This is, for me, their happily-ever-after.
Will readers ever share in those future adventures?
Yes. I do have more stories to tell. And I will tell some of them in three anthologies of short fiction, the first to be published in 2014. I may even, someday, return to share a bigger story, when the time is right.