Their eyes landed on Emilio, though the boy seemed completely inconsolable, unable to mutter anything but a soft and nearly incomprehensible “I’ll miss you.”
Wren felt her heart break in two.
“Don’t worry, Emilio.” August offered the boy a reassuring smile. “We’re really only one door away.”
Emilio nodded, sniffling. “Suppose that’s true.”
“Listen…” Masika’s voice grew solemn as she looked among them. “There’s no way for me to guarantee you’ll ever cross paths, let alone be able to recognize one another. I can only usher your souls into a new life. But that’s it. It’ll be like you never met.”
Wren exhaled a thready breath. “I know, but…we have to try.”
August and Wren turned to look at one another. This was it. There was no going back, no changing their minds, once they crossed through that door. Their souls, as they’d come to know them, would be gone. Ripped from one existence and thrust into another. But it was also their only chance. Their only hope.
And that was the point of life, anyway, wasn’t it? To dare to hope? To dare to love?
Wren planted one last kiss against August’s lips.
“I’ll see you in the next life?” she asked.
August wiped a fallen tear from her cheek. “I’ll see you in the next life.”
And then Wren Loughty and Augustine Hughes walked through the doorway, hand in hand…and ceased to exist.
54
OLIVIER
Olivier had run out of time.
He was certain of it now. As he stood there, watching as August and Wren walked through the doorway, obliterating their souls from existence for the hope of a second chance, he felt the end of his own road approaching. He’d run from the inevitable for longer than most. Tricked fate more times than he could count. But now…the time for running was over.
The brilliance of Masika’s power was overwhelming. She had always been beautiful, but staring at her now feltdevastating. It was as if her soul had been infused with starlight. An all-consuming glow burned beneath her skin…an awe-inspiring sense of power.
Though, truthfully, she’d always been brilliant.
Lost in the sheer magnitude of Masika’s power, Olivier hadn’t noticed the moment she’d approached him. Her gaze seemed to drink him in, analyzing something Olivier couldn’t quite understand.
“Your mind,” she whispered. “I can’t reverse it. I can’t stop the Forgetting.”
Olivier let out a bitter chuckle. “I figured as much.”
“But…” Masika continued with a tilt of her head, “unlike Wren…your soul is intact. It’s still tethered to this plane. Whichmeans there’s something else I can offer you. Something I can offer you both.”
“What?” Emilio asked breathlessly.
“I can relieve both of you of your duties and offer you the choice that should always have been yours.”
“What does that mean?” Emilio asked, looking between them. “What choice?”
Olivier met Masika’s knowing stare. There was a flash of hope in them…a whisper of promise. But there was something else. Something far darker. An ember of sorrow that burned deep inside. An understanding that this choice, this decision, would change the three of them, forever.
“The Other Side.” Olivier laced his hand through Emilio’s. “She means both of us can cross over.”
Emilio’s head snapped toward Olivier in confusion.
“B-but…” he stammered, brows furrowed. “That’s not what you want. You always said you hated the idea of the Other Side.”
Olivier couldn’t help but laugh. He found that a warm calm had settled over him. He’d never felt more clearheaded. More certain of anything in his entire existence. It was so simple. So wonderfully, blissfullysimple.
