n that instant, Elisa knows the frenzy that makes a man cover a grenade for his fellow soldiers, that makes mothers sacrifice their lives for their children, that makes anyone in love impatient to lose everything so that their loved one can carry on. But there is no opportunity. She raises an arm, as if she could ward off the bullet by gesture alone. It is as far as she gets. Everything happens at once.

Strickland’s body wrenches to the left at the moment of firing. The thin, sharp end of a paintbrush has been impaled through his left foot. Just behind him is Giles, resurfaced and clinging to the edge of the jetty. It is the person who dragged Giles free of the current who has taken the paintbrush from his pocket and stabbed. It is Zelda, incredibly Zelda, materialized here at world’s end, sprawled across the walkway, drenched and muddy, her fist still clenched around the brush, her hand gone green from the drizzling paint.

Strickland reaches for his foot, stumbling to a kneel. Hope punches Elisa in the chest. Then, she realizes, it isn’t hope at all. She falls to her own knees, mirroring Strickland. Her thighs quake and she clenches them with both hands, not wishing to fall any farther. It’s no good. She pitches forward, bracing herself in a push-up pose. River water splashes across her face, over her fingers. The water is black, it is blue, it is purple, it is red. She looks sharply down at her chest. There is a neat bullet hole directly between her breasts. Blood spurts out, onto the planks, and is instantly washed away.

Her elbows are paper. She wilts. Her vision rolls over. She sees an upside-down world: charcoal clouds with lightning-bolt capillaries, a shower of racing rain, police lights flashing against nearby boats, Strickland scrabbling for his gun, Zelda pounding her fists on his back, Giles back on the dock and reaching for Strickland’s ankle. Elisa sees green, and blue, and yellow; then faster, violet, and crimson, and umber; then faster, peach, and olive, and canary; and faster, every color known and unknown, outshining the storm. It is the creature, the magnificent grooves of his body phosphorescent, and he has caught her in his arms, his blood pouring into hers, hers spattering into his, both of them connected by the liquid of life even as both of them are dying.