There is a tickling at my ankles, and when I look down, I’m surprised to see my body draped in a silky black and white dress. The fabric sinks into my curves, and I drag a hand down it, nearly sighing at its softness.
“This is new,” I say, gesturing to my body.
She hums in response. “Would you like to see him now?”
My eyes close at her question, and I abandon my interest in the stardust and dress. “No.”
Honey-thick quiet—one filled with only despair—settles in, seeping into invisible corners as it threatens to drown me.
“Were you ever real?” I rasp, lying on my back as I stare up at the infinite sky and changing the subject not so subtly. Flynn’s joke about how terrible I am at that scratches at my heart, the sensation painful, so I banish him from my mind.
“I assume you mean: have I ever lived on Olymazi?”
“Yes. Where did you live? Which kingdom?”
She seems to silently weigh the question before answering, “I can’t tell you.”
I huff out a breath.Of course.I am so tired of hearing how I can’t be told things—how others make decisionsforme instead of trusting me to handle whatever truths need to be spoken.
“There are other things I can help you with—other things Icantell you about. You just have to ask the right questions.”
I scoff, shaking my head. “The right questions? How very convenient for you.”
Despite my frustration, therearethings I wish to know, but I’m afraid to seek out the answers. Afraid to peek behind the curtain and find out if what is there will be something that helps or hurts. It has been so much of the latter that I’m starting to wonder if I was made simply to suffer.
“Your purpose, Rhea, is so much grander than—” Her words are cut off by the sound of choking. I sit up with a start, looking around me despite knowing that I won’t see her. Only the stars and faraway worlds stare back at me. “The magic didn’t like what I was about to say,” she gasps, clearing her throat multiple times.
“How long are you cursed to stay here?”
“It is not a curse. I chose to forgo my final resting place so that I could be here. And I’ll be here for as long as I am needed.”
That definitely sounded like a curse.
The woman exhales roughly. “If you are going to continue staying in this place, you will have to make a choice. Being here has a cost, both to you and your magic.”
My brows knit together. “A cost?”
“You have very little understanding of all that you are capable of.” Her pause is unsettling, curious in a way that feels like a secret kept. “Your magic is what is holding you here. And though it is nothing but a trickle in the well of power that you might eventually call your own, you haven’t trained at all with it in order to handle visiting hereandstaying present in your physical body.”
“You said I had expelled some of myothermagic before. What did you mean?”
“The magic you possess is two halves of a whole. You have consciously used one and unconsciously used the other. That is what happened in the moments before you came here.”
My palms glide down my dress anxiously. “So, that ancient darkness I sometimes feel,thatis a part of me? A part of this magic I hold?”
“It is.”
I freeze as dread trickles into my veins. That magic doesn’t have the same comfort as my healing magic does. That one feels more chaotic, more unpredictable.
“Where did my magic come from? How did I end up with it in the Mortal Kingdom?”
“Unfortunately, those are questions I cannot answer for you.”
I let out a noise of frustration. I expected secrets from the king but never from Alexi. Never from Flynn—Nox—and certainly not from an omnipotent, otherworldly woman who knew all but was unwilling to share. How ironic to sit here in another plane of existence with millions of worlds and stars surrounding me, and yet I can be told nothing of value.
“You are at a crossroads, Rhea. You must decide if you will continue to be trapped within yourself or if you are willing to break the chains that bind you to find reprieve on the other side. This existence—these experiences—are not unique to only you.”
Her last words sting as they settle over me. “You think I’m being selfish.”
