Every memory.
Please come back to me.
Even the ones we had of her…
Please…
Darkness descends.
Chapter 39: Ezekial
Irip myself from Prospero’s mind, gasping.
They’ve all seen it, all of them, I shared Prospero’s memory without thought, and now they know.
They all know what I did.
“Kacey, ask what you need to.” Jasmine’s voice, just like in that memory, is so soft.
I feel her moving closer, lowering herself beside me. How can she bear to be near me?
“Ezekial…” Her voice is so gentle.
I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve her kindness. Her presence.
I don’t deserve any of it. I don’t deserve her.
I submit to the dark, plunging into the realm, swallowed by pitch-black nothing as I drop to my knees. No shapes. No echoes. Nothing.
Until she follows.
I close my eyes. I don’t deserve to look at her.
“How did I not know?” My voice trembles. “How could I risk your life like that?” My throat burns. “I marked you with an ancient rune. I could havekilledyou.”
Jasmine’s fingers brush my shoulder.
I should pull away. A better man would, but I am not a good man.
“We were already b—” I can’t finish it. Can’t faceit.
“Bonded.” The moment she says it, something shifts, and the others descend into the dark with us.
“I… I was going to put you in the Pit.” Sai drops to his knees, shame and disgust dripping from his words. “I’ll never… I’ll never forgive myself.”
“I was going to kill you.” Julien’s voice is so hollow. “I remember thinking I could snap your neck—” A broken sound slips from his lips. He mutters something low, and sombre, a foreign murmur.
One even I don’t recognise.
“How...” Kane murmurs. Just that one word, but we all know what he’s asking.
“Bonding doesn’t just happen,” Julien says, voice hoarse. “It takes a moment. A choice. Intimacy.” He swallows. “But for us…”
Jasmine’s fingers find mine on the cold, hard ground. “For us, it was The Divide.” Her words drop like rubble into dark, bottomless water—and the ripples shatter us.
Julien bows his head, defeated. “It’s been there all along. That pull. I thought it was just my beast…”
Sai lets out a sharp breath, bordering a laugh, but there’s no humour, only self-loathing. “That fucking ache—” His jaw clenches.
