Percy rips his arm away from Vex’s hand, his heart caught in ice-cold claws while liquid fire runs burning through his veins. His hands lock like vises around the List, fingers aching from how tight he clings. He cannot let go. He will not be allowed to let go. He refuses to let go of the only real thing outside of the burning-freezing inside his chest.
Beyond the roaring of blood in his ears and the rushing, whispering of smoke, Vox Machina—his party members—his friends—Cassandra—cry out, their voices distant through the din, but they’re real, just as real, if not more so, than the stock in his hands. They may not be heavy in his hands the way the List is. His vision may be blurry through tears as he seeks their faces.
He cannot, will not, refuses to turn the List toward another one of his friends.
In one quick motion, he jams the muzzle into the soft underside of his chin and, before he can be stopped, pulls the trigger.
Some sound rips itself out of Vex’s throat, covered up by the crack of a firing gun. She throws herself forward, hand outstretched, but it’s already too late.
Percy falls.
She hits the ground moments after his body does. The List clatters on the stone beside him, his white fingers still curled around it.
He grips it in death as he did in life.
She kneels beside him as black smoke begins pouring from the hole in his head. It stings her nose. Acrid, like burning flesh. It gathers above her, then disperses in a blast of wind, but she pays it little attention.
Instead, she caresses Percy’s cheek. With a touch like a butterfly’s, she brings her hand to rest just below his glasses. His skin is still warm, still wet from tears, his expression still twisted with the ghost of his last moments’ anguish.
Her heart echoes it, twisting and tearing itself right out of her chest.
Footsteps approach from behind her. Vex turns, half-expecting Cassandra, but no—two sets: her brother and Keyleth. Still pale from her own close brush with death, Keyleth’s expression shatters as she approaches.
“No. No, no, no,” she mutters, shaking her head. Her knees buckle and she falls forward, letting go of Vax, who stands and stares with twisted brow and parted lips.
Keyleth lands next to Vex, her hands hovering halfway between helpful and hesitant.
“No, Percy, I—”
Vex’s chest clenches as Keyleth’s voice chokes off. Keyleth’s eyes shine with tears, and with some small reluctance, Vex pulls her hand away from Percy’s cooling cheek and pulls Keyleth to her side.
She and Vax survived their mother’s death because they had each other. They had each other then, and they still have each other now, but Keyleth—
Keyleth has no siblings that Vex knows of. Even so, she will not be left alone.
Vax crouches down on Keyleth’s other side. He looks down and grimaces and, after a moment, wraps his arm around Keyleth’s shoulders, fitting just above Vex’s hold.
Opposite them, Cassandra crouches down at Percy’s side, her lips twisted and her eyebrows drawn together.
She looks like her brother, torment so similar on their faces.
“Cassandra ….” Vex begins and trails off, unsure how to continue as she reaches toward the girl, who gives no indication she even heard Vex say her name.
Instead, she reaches down, and pries Percy’s fingers off the List.
Something shifts in Vex, the warmth of Keyleth beside her suddenly searing hot. “Cassandra, what are you doing?”
Keyleth doesn’t look up, her shoulders shaking as she cries, but Vax does, his expression sharpening. Grog’s heavy footsteps and the light tap of Scanlan’s shoes signal their joining the rest of them.
Eyes narrowed, Cassandra pulls the List from Percy’s hand and holds it in both of hers, hands wrapped around it in a clumsy imitation of Percy’s grip.
“I’m finishing—” –she stands, her voice frozen over, “—what he started.”
She takes several deliberate steps forward then takes off running. Delilah had moved, in the distraction, dragged herself toward the stairs out, and that’s where Cassandra runs toward. Vex dives for where she dropped her bow (she doesn’t remember letting go), Grog turns on his heel to give chase—
“Hey, hey, hey, no, no, are you kidding?” Scanlan runs after her, half-frantic, the quickest to move. “Did you just see what happened? You’re seriously going to pick up the possibly-cursed gun and—”
“Yes,” Cassandra snaps, plants her feet, and raises the gun, whisps of black smoke rising from her hands. “I am.”
She fires.