A girl in a brilliant purple gown stepped from the cave to join the twins. Esme smiled and caressed the hollow of her neck where an iridescent black pearl sparkled on a silver chain. Smoke rose from the pearl, and Eureka grasped the darkness trapped inside. Delphine and Atlas had been returned to a new Woe, crystallized inside the gem. The Tearline prophecy was complete and would decorate no heart but Esme’s ever again.

A little ways away from Esme and the twins, Ander stood alone. He gazed upon what Eureka had done and wiped away tears. She wished their love could have followed an alternate history, one where Eureka was still at his side, but sometimes pain was the aftershock of love. When Ander’s foundation stilled, she hoped there would be space for joy in his memories of her.

Soon she saw the rings of Atlantis. Huge wooden arks fanned across a bright blue bay beyond the island. Eureka saw Cat at the helm of one, flirting with a sailor. And far beyond those boats, new worlds were rising, flowering into being, coastlines budding with souls Eureka didn’t recognize and never would. Dad would be down there, though she couldn’t see him, along with the rest of the souls once trapped by her tears. She wondered if Dad remembered all that had happened, how his dying message to Eureka made the difference in the world’s salvation. She tried to let him go with love, just as he’d done with her.

Then Eureka was in the rainbow. She was a memory of something poignant reaching across the sky, crossing a flock of doves. She knew she was stretching toward Diana, and that they’d soon be reunited, excavating Heaven’s pearly clouds.

Are you still with me? Brooks found her on the bars of color Eureka thought she’d been climbing alone. She thought about his first name, which she rarely did.

Until the end and the ride home after, Noah.