“I mean it. That wasn’t nothing. I’ve been…less than kind to you. I’m sorry for hitting you.”

“You had every right to.”

“Regardless, I shouldn’t have hit you,” Will said. “I apologize. Honestly.”

“I’ll try not to give you another reason to beat me up.”

Will paused and I peeked around the corner at them. “You’ve done so much for both of us,” he said. “You’ve proven your loyalty. It has been hard to let go of the past, but you’ve earned my respect. And my trust.”

This time, Cadan was the one who didn’t respond right away, but when he did, his words were heavy with sincerity. “Thank you, Will.”

“Brothers?” Will asked him.

“Friends?” Cadan held out his hand.

A hesitation. “Yeah.” Will shook Cadan’s hand. “Friends.”

I couldn’t help my own smile. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. I turned the corner and bounced up to the reapers, giving them both an enormous, knowing grin. “Hello-o-o-o-o,” I sang and shoved the grimoire into Cadan’s hands. “Good to see you guys are getting along.”

Cadan flashed a little, embarrassed smile. “I’ll see you two around.”

“Bye!” When he was gone, I turned to Will and gathered the hem of his shirt between my fingers, beaming up at him.

“Enough of that,” he grumbled at me, but the corner of his lips tried to pull into a laugh. “You’re such a…”

“A what?”

“A spy!”

“I wasn’t spying!”

“You were eavesdropping.” He narrowed his eyes and tried not to grin.

“Maybe I was. So what?”

He kissed me, hard at first, but he sighed against my lips and relaxed into a slow, gentle kiss. When we parted, he looked a little sad.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him, searching his eyes for answers.

“I wish we didn’t have to leave again,” he confessed. “I wish we could just stay here and be happy.”

“Well, we wouldn’t get much done if we did that,” I said. “Think of the mission as a vacation. I’ll bet Arizona is hot this time of year.”

“Heat and cold don’t really feel like much to reapers.”

“And you’re a Debbie Downer,” I told him bitterly. “We’ll be back home in no time. The sooner we get all of this done, the sooner we can relax.”

He nodded, but it seemed halfhearted. “We should get packing.”

“Can’t forget my satellite dish. The aliens might have valuable info.”

He laughed. “Maybe they can tell us where the Pentalpha is.”

My smile faded a little bit. “Before we go, I wanted to write letters to the families who lost their kids that night.”

He gave me a gentle look. “Is that something humans do for each other in times of loss?”

“It can be,” I replied. “I just want to express how sad I am in a way that doesn’t involve shedding more blood. After losing my parents, Nathaniel, Landon, and Sabina, I’m feeling so much right now and I may be one of the few people who understands what these families are experiencing.”

“If you’re mailing them, I can put them into envelopes and stamp them,” he offered.

“That would be great.”

We went into the study and I pulled out a loose-leaf notebook, envelopes, stamps, and a pencil. Will sat in the chair opposite my seat at the desk and looked curiously at my notebook and pencil.

“Don’t you need cards?” he asked.

“Cards feel so generic and insincere,” I said. “I don’t want to say the same thing to each family.”

I spent a little while writing the letters. I shared my memories of my classmates to their parents, wrote how sorry I was, and how I wished that night had ended up differently. I paused in horror when I saw Will cramming the letters clumsily into their envelopes.

“What are you doing?” I snatched the paper out of his hands.

“I’m putting them into the envelopes, just like you asked,” he said.

“Fold them hot dog style so they fit.”

“Fold them—what?”

“What’s the matter with you? You’re folding them hamburger style, the short way, and they don’t fit like that.”

“What are you talking about?”

I took a piece of paper and folded it lengthwise. “Hot dog style, see? Looks like a hot dog.” I folded it crosswise. “And hamburger style. Looks like a hamburger.”

“It looks like a piece of paper.”

“And you look like an idiot. Just fold it this way and don’t cram the paper into the envelope.”

He shook his head and grinned as he carefully folded the letters the way I wanted him to. “You are so ridiculous.”

“I’m aware,” I replied. “I just want the letters to look neat, you know?”

“I do. Sorry I messed a couple up.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “What do you say we get to packing and drop these off in the mailbox on our way to the airport?”

“Sounds good.”

I finished the last letter and gathered all of the envelopes. “Well, that’s it,” I said, and took a deep breath. “Adventure time.”

PART TWO

Requiem for a War