We know you’d never leave us on purpose. We can handle whatever we have to. You just worry about keeping yourself alive and well, Precious. That’s what matters most.
Fresh tears prick at my eyes. They will handle it, won’t they? It’ll be a lot easier without an outcast match dragging them down.
Byron might reconcile with his family. Salvatore might too, on his own terms now that he’s proven he can survive without them.
And Cole won’t have the living reminder of his brother’s death shoved in his face every day anymore.
The words my former professor might say wrap around me next, gruff and intent.I don’t regret the years I had with you. Iwon’t. So don’t you go regretting them either.
Would he say that if he knew just how much I have to regret?
But he won’t know. None of them will ever find out what my glim really was and how much I destroyed with it.
Is it sick that I’m a little bit relieved by that fact?
There’s nothing wrong with being a little psycho, a chroí,Salvatore pipes up, striking an aggressive pose.You know I’d rain down a whole lot of insanity on all the fuckers there if I could, right?
I swipe at my eyes, a bittersweet smile tugging at the corners of my lips.Of course I do.
My imaginary version of him softens and teases his fingers down the side of my face.And you know how much I love you. That’s never going to change.
It will, though. The feelings will fade in my absence. Have their marks faded too, or did that only happen to me because other versions of them existed here to interfere with my original connections?
Will fate grant the men I love new matches? Or will they simply find other women who spark other kinds of joy in them without any magical intervention?
The thought twists the dagger deeper, but I can’t protest. I don’t want them to be alone, no matter how aloneIam.
Be happy,I call out to them with my last burst of mental energy.Move on. Don’t lose any more than you already have waiting for me.
That’s the most loving gift I can give them now, if they heard or felt any scrap of my message.
I inhale shakily and wipe my cheeks again.
Maybe my life isn’t totally over. Maybe Daphne is wrong.
I spent years scouring every book on mythology and paranormal phenomena in my reach, obsessing over any bit of lore that might help me control—or eradicate—my glim. I could switch my focus to cross-dimensional travel. Dig up every shred of possibility I can.
The memory of my aunt’s wrenchingly apologetic face comes back to me, and I shove it away. She might have missedsomething.
But I have a more immediate problem to tackle if I want to do my digging without fending off lurking murderers at the same time.
Squaring my shoulders, I return to my notes.
The conversation with my matches might have been nothing more than a self-imposed illusion, but both my mind and my chest feel lighter. As I pick up my pen, the details of the course I started to envision race together with exhilarating force.
Yes. And then… Oh, that’ll draw them out.
A sharper smile crosses my face with a sense of triumph that’s tart but satisfying.
I didn’t expect Other Elodie’s problems to be so complicated… but her enemy could never have anticipated just how prepared I am for a deadly struggle.
No more wandering and waiting around. Our next confrontation will be on my terms.
And when it’s over, they’ll regret ever coming for me.
Forty
Elodie
