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“Sire,” I said softly. I held out the mirror, which glittered in the golden light. “We could continue to communicate, just as Ofelia and I did.”

Ofelia gasped and rooted around in the pocket of her gown until she procured her own small hand mirror. She curled Soleil’s fingers around it. “Take it,” she said, “and we shall speak often.”

He beamed down at Ofelia.

Her mother approached, wrapping her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “And there’s no reason we couldn’t come visit you again, my friend.”

Soleil pressed the mirror to his chest. “Would you really? Would you speak to me, would you remember me, would you think of me?”

Ofelia stood on her toes and kissed the warm human face of the god. “I promise,” she said. “And why should we be the only ones to know about you? We will tell others about you, about the great and kind god of stories, Soleil.”

The man, once the king of Shadows, grinned as he bowed deeply to Ofelia. “Until we meet again. I am grateful to have been a part of your story, dearest Ofelia.”

She squeezed his hand, her nose wrinkled. “The story’s not done yet.”

He neared the two of us, lifting Ofelia’s hand and placingit in my own. His eyes crinkled in the corners. “Indeed it is not,” he said.

We bade farewell to the god and his new world.

The countess ascended the staircase, and Ofelia’s fingers curled against my arm, a perfect fit.

Standing there at the foot of the stairs, she looked into my eyes, her smile pressing dimples into her rosy cheeks. “How sweet it is,” she said, “to be with my home once more.”

Pressing a kiss to her brow, I whispered, “Come with me into the light, my heart.”

And I led her above into the dazzling daylight.