Daphne’s gaze flicks back to me with a bizarre sort of hope, as if she thinks I might have some idea what to do next after her explanation.
I’m still not discounting the “batshit insane” conclusion. I don’t want to believe any of this.
But… ifshe’sinsane, and I’m seeing another version of myself lying dead and mangled on a table, have I gone batshit too?
Maybe it doesn’t matter. Because no matter how far away she stole me from or by what magic, it doesn’t change that she did.
Anger surges up in my chest, searing hot. It spills onto my tongue. “What am I supposed to do about it? This has nothing to do with me. You’re telling me you yanked me from my world, my home, my— You have to send me back! My matches will be freaking out—I was right there with them—you didn’t hurtthem, did you?”
Daphne stares at me. “Your matches,” she says faintly. “You already sparked with them?”
How can she not?—
My head snaps around. There were so many more horrific aspects to take in, I didn’t pay attention to the other Elodie’s hands before. But there they lie, limp at the end of disjointed arms.
Covered in delicate leather gloves, more crimson than dove-gray now.
I wrench my gaze to my own hand, whipping the right one off the table as if I’ve burned it. My breath stalls in my throat.
An unmarred palm meets my eyes. I can’t pick out any trace of my bond mark.
My tongue stumbles in my mouth. “No.No.”
Most of the color has drained from Daphne’s peach-toned face. “I—I’m sorry. I had no idea. It must be—because your bonds didn’t happen inthisreality—your body adjusted?—”
“I don’t fucking care,” I cut in. “Get me back to them. Send me where I belong!”
Byron’s kiss on the back of my hand. Salvatore’s emphatic hug. Cole’s caress over my hair.
My heart thuds hard enough to crack my own ribs.
Just moments ago, I had them.Theywere my world. You can’t break a match once it’s been sparked.
Unless, apparently, your psychotic aunt tears you across alternate dimensions for some dimwit reason.
Said aunt is shaking her head. “I can’t send you back. Not—not right away. It took so much power—I needed help, and it’ll take time before my own magic recovers enough.”
I fix her with the fiercest glare I have in me. “As soon as it has, you reverse this. Why did you even do it? I can’t fix her!”
Daphne pauses. She glances at the other Elodie again, the niece I guess she watched grow up, the one she called “Ellie.” That awful sorrow grips her features again.
She pulls her attention back to me. “You can’t fix her, but I think you can fix something.”
“What are you talking about?”
Daphne starts to pace, her hands fluttering at her sides. “I knew—I knew you’d be a different Elodie from mine. But no one else will realize. I’m the only one who knows our Elodie died. You can’t imagine—well, actually, maybe you can.”
She pauses to meet my eyes with a cannier look in hers than I’ve seen before. “Unless your reality wasverydifferent from ours, I’d imagine you’re familiar with how the established lucent families compete for status? All the ways we try to one-up each other?”
Ha. I got a first-row seat to how cutthroat the upper crust of magical society can be when I was only six and Dad’s family refused to acknowledge Mom as his bereft wife or me as his daughter. They burned our names right out of the records and threatened to have her thrown in jail if she dared to keep calling me a Devine.
All because Mom wasn’t from the upper crust herself. Not fit for the circles they ran in. Not good enough for their precious son.
They decided she tainted the blood of their only grandchild so much they’d rather disown me.
Just like Byron’s and Salvatore’s families turned their backs on them when they committed to me as their match.
Daphne doesn’t seem to feel that way about her niece, though. Because Dad is still alive here and was able to stick up for Mom and me? How do my esteemed grandparents fit into my life in this reality?
