Because we’re at the base of the Scorched Circles. Again.
I’m alive and well. Again.
And that damned column of fire is erupting on the Crown.
Again.
JADE
I turn to face Logan,taking in the details of his face. The exhaustion carved into every line of his features. The way his hands shake slightly before he clenches them into fists. The sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool night air.
“We were falling.” My voice sounds hollow, like it’s coming from someone else. “We should be dead. Splattered on the rocks.”
The guilt written across his face makes my heart twist.
“What are you doing to me?” My words come out desperate, pleading, and slightly hysterical. “What the hell is happening to us?”
“I’m saving your life,” he says simply, as if it should be obvious, as if I shouldn’t be confused at all.
“I’ve died three times.” I grab his arms, needing him to understand how insane this is. “Three times, Logan. I felt each one. The knife in my stomach, the blade in my chest, being thrown off a cliff. And each time you…” I shake my head, which feels like it’s been split open. “Your fire’s black. Fully black—not just on the edges. And it’sdoingsomething to me. Healing me? But that’s not it, is it?”
He doesn’t answer, but his expression shifts. A flicker of... resignation? Relief? Like he’s been waiting for me to figure it out and is grateful I’m trying to solve his twisted puzzle.
Slowly, the pieces click together, like fragments of a shattered mirror reflecting the same impossible image.
“We keep ending up at the exact same moment.” My grip on his arms tightens, and he doesn’t pull away. “The exact same place. Watching the exact same thing. Which means we’re either stuck in a twisted Hell loop, or you’re turning back time.” The words tumble out, each one more certain than the last, even though it’s completely, mind-bendingly insane. “Every time I die, you bring us back to this same moment. Every single time.”
His gray eyes meet mine, and I see it all there. The truth. The exhaustion. The cost of what he’s been doing. The refusal to fight me on this, to lie to me and say I’m wrong.
“Yes,” he says simply.
One word, and my entire understanding of reality shatters.
“Holy shit.” I blink, since I didn’t expect him to justconfirmit like that, as iftime travelis a totally normal thing. “How’s that possible? Time travel isn’t… it can’t be… this is insane.”
“It’s real.” He reaches up to touch my face, his thumb brushing my cheek with surprising gentleness. “You have proof, because you’ve lived through it. I’ve brought you back three times now.”
“But that means...” My stomach drops as the full implications hit me. “You’ve watched me die. Three times. You had to live through thatthree times.”
“I have.” The two words hold so much weight.
“And what if you didn’t get to me in time?” I search his face, as if every answer is written there. “Would I have died for real?”
“No.” He breathes out in relief, although his haunted expression remains. “I could still come back here, to when you were alive, and stop you from dying again. But I didn’t want tosee you like that. I didn’t want to leave you there, on the Crown, to die alone. I just… I didn’t think it would actuallywork.”
“You didn’t thinkwhatwould work? The time travel?”
“No—I knew the time travel would work. I’ve just never been able to bring someone with me.”
Before I can process that bombshell, Thaddeus materializes twenty feet away in a burst of flame, that bloodied dagger glinting in his hand.
Just like the previous three times, murder rages in his eyes.
Logan’s arms tighten around me. Roaring black fire engulfs us, dark and reality-bending, just as Thaddeus lunges?—
And then we’re back. Same spot. The column of fire blooming on the Crown. Like hitting replay on the world’s worst movie.
Logan’s hand clamps over my mouth, and he pulls me backward, toward a huge tree, positioning us behind its trunk.
