Grief hollowed me out, but somewhere deeper, a fire sparked to life.
I couldn’t change the past, but I could tear my future free from the chains they'd locked me in. I could be the one who saved myself.
Fingers trembling, I finally turned on the phone Nemo had given me. The screen flared to life, harsh, blinding against thedarkness. I flipped through the contacts, ready to call Nemo and ask for Gentry’s number. But when I opened the list, I froze. There weren’t just one or two names anymore. There were five.
Day. Feodora. Gentry. Nemo.Death.
A text from Nemo bubbled up on the screen.
Just in case you’re ready for the untarnished truth. Telling it. Receiving it. Welcome back, kid.
A tentative smile found me. Small, but real. I typed a dozen replies, deleting them all before settling on the only thing that mattered.
Thanks, Nemo. For everything.
And for the first time in what felt as though a lifetime, I knew exactly what I had to do.
Rooting around in my bag, I fished out the penny. It's surface smooth from where I'd rubbed it over and over again. I stood in front of the window, overlooking the dark fog settling over the Thames. The window was slightly ajar, from when Day had opened it to break up the stale air in the room with a breeze. I opened it farther, gripping the windowsill tight as I leaned over to look at the passersby below, their forms a haze under street lamps.
With a deep breath, I took a step back and tossed the penny out of the window, and watched as it sailed through the air and landed somewhere below. I was done with superstitions.
I was going to break this curse. Not for him, or anyone else, but for me.
Running my sweaty palms over my legs, I willed my knees to stop bouncing. I don’t know why I was so nervous; I’d already met Gentry. I knew what to expect.
I called him yesterday from the hotel, and when he answered, it was clear he did not remember who I was or what happened the day I met him. Rightly so, considering Time froze everything around us in order to get Grim out. His memories of Grim and I had been erased, so our meeting would be a fresh start. A beginning.
“Astoria Reeves?” Gentry asked, nearing my small café table, his leather messenger bag over his shoulder. Some books tucked under his arm.
“Hi, yes! It’s nice to meet you Dr. Townes.” I shook his hand, a small smile forming as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose once more.
“Oh, please call me Gentry. I was surprised to get your call. I mean, pleasantly, of course.” He smiled. He looked like a disheveled scholar—one exhausted, but excited, and on the verge of breakthrough. It made me wonder what he was currently studying or working on.
“Thanks for meeting me on such short notice,” I said, but then he began to stare, and I shrank back into my chair. Perhaps Day’s little trickery of magic hadn’t cleansed his memories well enough, maybe he remembered…
“I’m sorry, you are quite… I mean—” he cleared his throat and began rummaging through his bag, setting down the heavy books on the table as he took his seat. “You’re very beautiful, first.” His eyes flicked to mine, causing a tightness in my limbs. “Second, you look uncannily similar to…her.” He placed a drawing on the table, the very one he’d shown me before. He tapped his finger against Alice’s face.
I smirked.
Tempest curse, you shall no longer hold power over Astoria Reeves.
The moment I stepped inside the Bodleian Library, I was lost. Lost to the sheer weight of history pressing in around me, venerate and heavy. English Gothic architecture arched overhead in a stone-laced embrace, vaulted ceilings etched with centuries-old craftsmanship, tracery so fine it could’ve been spun from shadow and prayer. Light filtered in through tall, mullioned windows, soft and golden, painting the air with dust motes that danced like ancient spirits.
It was as if stepping back in time. Back before electricity. Before photographs. Before evenIwas born.
The scent of old paper clung thick in the air—earthy, ink-sweet, tinged with the sharpness of leather bindings and secrets long sealed. Whispers drifted like ghosts between rows of ancient shelves, hushed reverence hanging in the vaulted stillness. The entire place felt like a sacred inhale, like the world holding its breath around knowledge too precious to speak aloud.
Gentry walked ahead of me, a quiet guide beneath the cathedral hush. He led me down a discreet staircase, tucked behind a column carved with ivy and saints, into a secluded alcove where the air seemed older still. Here, the texts were preserved with almost religious care. He donned white gloves before pulling select tomes from their resting places, each movement deliberate, delicate. Ritualistic.
“Here,” he murmured, holding up a looking glass for me to peer through.
I leaned in and forgot to breathe.
Beneath the magnifying lens was a 16th-century document, its ink faded but legible, the script painstakingly neat. It chronicled the hanging of five women, the first recorded witchcraft trial. Alice had stood accused of silencing her twin sister, of cursing an infant to death, of summoning ailments and ruin across their town. The other women were condemned by association. Witches by kinship, or merely friendship. A cult, the record claimed. Her cult.
What Gentry had tried to tell me before was that at the time of Alice's disappearance, the other women who were to stand trial lost their tongues. Cut from their mouths. Texts heavily suggest that it was Alice's way of silencing them from speaking out against her.
“From what I’ve gathered,” Gentry said, eyes still on the document, “there was deep-rooted tension between Maggie and Alice. But I haven’t been able to determine what exactly caused it.”
