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“I don’t feel like I have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

I pause, letting his words sink deep. He’s right. I can’t change the past, no one can.

I can’t fight this, I won’t win.

I stand, closing my eyes and breathing in deep as I stop fighting the sharp memories being forced onto me. Everything feels as if it’s shaking, my ears being assaulted by the sound of shattered glass.

This isn’t my mind.

This isn’t my chaos.

I open my eyes and I see myself. I see myself picking up the pendulum on the grimoire and summoning the ghost, chanting with the hope that I might save my brother.

A light in the dark. This is the one who will save me.

The voice doesn’t belong to me. But it presses into my thoughts, insistent.

The one? I don’t understand. Who?

My attention locks onto Cade. As I study him with the little light, I feel everything being logged—every image, every sensation—each moment nudged forward toward Cade getting closer to finding his ghost. I’m recording it all, writing it down within my mind—but it isn’t my mind.

It’s the grimoire.

Every moment. Every thought since summoning the guardian angel. All of it gathered, preserved, laid out before me.

The grimoire wants Cade to find the ghost?

Our thoughts, our feelings, everything we’ve experienced since the moment I found the pendulum.

This is wrong.

I can feel my mind wanting to reject the concept. To push back at the idea that all this happened so Ashur could find a way to be free.

We haven’t been being watched. We’re being read, and this story isn’t in my mind or Cade’s.

It’s yours.

Angel, if you can hear me, I don’t know what part you have to play in all of this. But… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I dragged you into it. I didn’t know…

A wave of knowing rushes over me; I have to accept it. I can’t change it. But knowing it wasn’t fate banking on any of us to survive.

It was Ashur. Hoping Cade would find you.

I close my eyes, the clarity of everything washing over me as I see a bright light behind my lids. I look down and I finally find myself in the present moment. I’m on the ground. My body lifeless.

I try moving, but I’m only witnessing the scene like before. As if still seeing Ashur’s memories, but in real time. Kai is holding me tight, tears streaming down his face as he kisses my head.

In that moment, I push myself to accept my death and everything that happened before. But I’ll sure as hell fight with everything I am to change the future. I don’t know what’s coming, but I’m ready. I feel the buzzing of magic wash over me; it feels warm, yet unsure. But I know I can trust it. I know I can trust myself now.

CHAPTER 44 CADE

I stand above Calli and Kai, waiting to see if she will make it through. If she does, there will never be a question of her surviving. If she wakes up, my job is done.

It felt similar to seeing Calli through your eyes, when you showed her to me, but this was far more twisted. I never could have imagined everything that has happened was for you. Although I shouldn’t be surprised.

Ashur. He set all of this up, all so I would find you. Knowing I would. I knew it wasn’t fate. And if Calli is seeing what I saw… then she will know that, too.