I hit the ground with a thud, then caught a sharp elbow to the face. Stars danced before my eyes and blood trickled from my nose, but I jumped back up to my feet before he could pin me down and do any more damage.
“Like it or not, Rayanne,” he said, circling me again, “we stand a better chance of getting out of here if we work together.”
“This is the Shadowrealm. Thereisno way out.”
“There has to be. Our souls aren’t trapped—we still have have our bodies.”
“I don’t know why we’ve physically manifested here, but you can’t leave,” I panted, swiping the back of my hand across my bloody nose. “It’s over. This is your fate now. Your final destination.”
“If you think this is the end, witch—”
“It is,” I shouted, cutting him off before the poison of his words leeched into my thoughts. “You can chase me all over this realm. We might spend the rest of eternity beating and tormenting each other.”
“That’s theleastof what I’m going to do to you.”
I shook my head. “No matter what you do to me, you’re never leaving here. Nothing will get you out of this. It’s over.”
Jonathan stared at me a long moment, his eyes boring right through me.
The realization seemed to settle over him like a shroud. In a defeated voice, he said, “If that’s true, then you can’t leave either.”
I looked back in the direction of where I’d seen my black forest, but the landscape had shifted once again. Maybe that was how the Shadowrealm worked—different realms shifting in and out, constantly rearranging themselves.
Or maybe the forest hadn’t existed at all—just a mirage fueled on hope and impossible dreams.
I swallowed the lump of regret in my throat, wondering how much longer it would be before I no longer felt that sort of thing—regret, oranyhuman emotion, for that matter. Liam had warned me about this the night I’d tried to banish Travis’s soul.
But… no. No matter what I’d told Jonathan, deep down I didn’t regret my choice. How could I? I’d saved Ash. Bought the others a fighting chance. That was what mattered.
“You’re right,” I said now. “I can’t leave. That’s the price I had to pay.”
“Why would youdothat?” he asked. “Why?”
I wanted to ask Jonathan if he’d ever really loved anyone, but there was no point. He may have been innocent once, but that innocence had been twisted and tarnished, leaving him incapable of love. Obsession and madness were all he knew now.
Maybe it was a tragedy. Maybe he could’ve turned out differently if someone had only taught him that love was boundless and beautiful.
But his father had made sure he’d never gotten that chance, and I couldn’t give it to him now. Not even if I possessed all the magic in the world.
“Why?” he screamed, his voice equal parts rage and agony.
It almost—almost—hurt to hear him in so much pain.
I turned away from him, but not before leaving him with my answer. They were the very last words I’d likely ever speak, but I was okay with that now.
They felt like the right ones. The true ones. And for that brief moment, they brought a smile to my lips.
“To make the world a better place for the ones I left behind.”
Certain he wouldn’t follow me this time—and not really caring if he did, anyway—I took a step toward the spot where I’d last seen my forest. It seemed like as good a direction as any other.
But before I could take a second step, a wave of dizziness hit, followed immediately by a deep rumbling beneath my feet.
I’d felt a similar sensation one other time in my life, back when I lived in Portland, just before I’d come to Blackmoon Bay.
It was an earthquake.
The rumble quickly progressed to a tremble, then the ground shook violently. I struggled to stay upright as the forest floor cracked apart, toppling trees all around me.
