WHEN THEODOSIUS STEPPED THROUGH THE DOOR, his heart left his body on wings.

Before him stood his North Star, the love of his life, the woman who'd captured his passions in a dimly-lit apothecary decades before and had never let them go. At her right hand was an angel, a patient and silent guide, one hand on her elbow. The angel studied Theodosius skeptically for a moment, then turned their attention to their ward, their lips pressed together with concern.

Tansy was not as she had been when Theo knew her: she glowed, the dark warmth of her skin an echo of what it had been in life. The robes she wore were pure white, so unlike the serviceable dresses she would have chosen for herself. Even though she was different, she was lovely; Theo found he could not properly breathe.

"Theo?"

Oh, that name from those sweet lips, the sound of it completely at home here in Heaven. Tansy sounded hopeful and suspicious, as if she did not trust her eyes. She frowned at Theodosius, tilting her head as she studied him.

"Tansy," he croaked. "It's me. I've come to bring you home."

"Theo?" The name shivered in her throat. "Is it really you?"

"It's me." Theo stepped forward, and—

A yowl broke through the sweet atmosphere of the tender reunion. Elliott, Theodosius's skeletal, feline familiar, had not darted out of the way fast enough to avoid being trod upon. The cat hunched its shoulders and turned to regard Theo with wounded derision. "You stepped on my tail!"

"I'm sorry!" Theo gasped. "You were—why were you right in front of my feet?"

"I wasn't right in front of your feet! Clumsy oaf!"

"But you must've—"

"I didn't—"

The argument was interrupted by a peal of feminine laughter. Theodosius turned back to Tansy to see that she had covered her mouth with one hand in an attempt to stifle her mirth. "Sorry," she said. "Is that Elliott? He's...thinner."

Elliott sniffed, primly seating himself with a persnickety flick of his tail. "Of course it's me. It's good to see you again, Tansy. You are not looking thinner."

Tansy snorted in a most unladylike way. "I don't mean to laugh. It's just that you had this same argument a hundred times, when..."

"When we were alive. At the cottage," Theo said, finishing her thought. A slow smile inched its way over his face, and he relaxed, Elliott slipping from his mind. "Tansy, I've come to take you home. I really have."

Tansy dropped her hand, regarding Theo with her shy, skeptical smile. She approached him, reaching out for him, and he allowed her to take his calloused hands in hers. Her touch was so soft it was barely there, the caress of a spirit without physical form—more a suggestion than a sensation. "But I was sick. I died. I'm dead, Theo."

"So was I." Theo was about to explain the circumstances of his own untimely demise, but the tiny part of his brain devoted to self-preservation cut him off with a series of complicated acrobatic feats. Instead, he said, "But I found a way to bring you back. Come home with me, my love. We'll finish what we started. We'll live happily ever after. We'll grow old together."

Tansy's bright eyes were wide, gleaming with points of light that Theo interpreted as the heavenly equivalent of tears. Still grasping Theodosius's hands, she turned her head, seeking her angelic warden. "Ethel—?"

Ethel nodded their head and gestured toward the door behind Theo. "It's all arranged, Tansy. This is goodbye—from us to you, at least. For now."

With a sigh of disbelief, Tansy turned back to Theo and threw herself into his arms. "I'm going home?"

"You're going home," Theo affirmed.

"We're going home!" she cried.

"We are. We're going. We're going home."