“She survived, Ash.”
I can’t speak. Can’t move. Can barely keep my body upright against the wall.
“Because I showed up,” I say. It isn’t a question.
“Because you showed up,” Pepper confirms. No mercy in her eyes. No cruelty either. Just the unvarnished math of a choice and its consequences. “One person in the right place. That’s all it took.”
Lucinda reaches for me, her healing magic pulsing warm against my skin, but I pull back. I don’t deserve it. Not from her. Not from either of them.
“The iron,” Lucinda says firmly, refusing to let me spiral. “When you go back, I promise we will take care of our Ash.”
Which will send her—their Ash—right back on the path to Faerie.
In both versions of reality, I end up in Faerie. One version is just delayed.
“But you will have to talk to your Pepper,” Lucinda adds.
“She won’t want me there.” I think of dream-Pepper, the one who told me she stopped leaving the light on. When she knows this? This fact? It will only solidify her hatred.
She’s never going to forgive me now.
“Maybe not,” Pepper says, and her honesty guts me. “But you show up anyway. That’s the whole point, Ash. You show up even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.”
I blink tears at her. “I fucked up.”
“And I guarantee, even if I hate you, I’m going to show up for you.” She says it through her own tears. “That’s what family does.”
And she is. She said they were coming for me.
“I can’t forgive myself,” I whisper, settling against the wall.
Lucinda hushes Pepper and moves closer. “Tell me something about your Lucy.”
I frown, thinking, and then I sit up straight so fast my vision spots. “Lucy, did you find your mates?”
“What?” She laughs, but it’s strained. “Well, no.”
“The mate spell! Did you do the mate spell?”
“What?”
“Okay, in my reality, you had a sleepover. Sabina talks a lot and she’s nosy as fuck—” I explain how I know. “Your mates were dead.”
They look at each other.
“You didn’t do it here.”
“We did,” Lucinda says slowly.
“And?” I press. “The underworld?”
“Lucy doesn’t have mates.” Pepper squeezes Lucinda’s hand. “Not in any world. Are you saying?—”
“Oh.” The trade-off clicks into place.
“I have mates if I die.” Lucinda smirks, then looks at Pepper. “Well. It looks like I need to die.”
“What?” I ask, but I get it. I really do. Lucinda died earlier in my timeline, and I met my mates sooner. Here, she’s alive. Now she knows about the iron poisoning. Lucinda may die here eventually, too.
