“I do.”
“I told you I see nothing.” Catherine swallowed. Her hands began to shake as she approached Masika. “But that’s not true.” Silence stretched between them. In the distance, Masika could sense the students of Blackwood Academy emerging from their dormitories to assess the damage. Their precious souls lighting up her own like fireflies beckoning to her in the night.
“Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?” Catherine’s voice was soft, almost reverent. For a moment, it sounded like the Catherine whom Masika had once known. The one who had loved her unabashedly—the one who would have stayed. “What I’ve always seen?”
Masika nodded, and Catherine took her face in her hands.
“My future.” Masika felt the dam inside her finally break free. “When I look at you…I see my future.”
“Everything is going to be different now.” Masika’s voice wobbled with unshed tears.
“Good.” Catherine tucked a loose curl behind Masika’s ear. “I like different.”
Masika lifted her hand between them. Her ring lit up their faces in its golden sheen.
“I’ve changed.”
Catherine smiled.
“So have I.”
Masika’s heart soared. It was everything she wanted, everything she needed, yet still—a part of her faltered. It was fear. Fear of losing Catherine again. Fear of knowing she’d already lost so much.
“You can’t leave me again.”
Catherine’s thumb delicately brushed Masika’s lip.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I’m not going anywhere.Those four words burned inside Masika, cutting through the fear, wrapping her in a warm embrace. She couldn’t do this alone—she didn’twantto. For once, Masika wanted to believe that she was meant for happiness. That she deserved it.
Masika let out a long-held sigh.
“Okay, then.”
Catherine cocked her head. A shy smile spread onto her lips.
“Yeah?”
A soft laugh tumbled out of Masika.
“Yeah.”
It was in that moment, standing among the wreckage, staring up at Catherine, that Masika realized how painfully wrong she had been. She’d always assumed that their story had come to an end long ago. That her fate had been written for her the moment she’d awoken at the gates of Blackwood Academy.
But that was the thing about fate. It wasn’t some stuck, stagnant thing. It could change.
Masika Sallow had once been destined to love Catherine Clarke and lose her.
But she’d also been destined to love her and love her and love her, forevermore.
THE END…?
EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER
The Headmaster of Blackwood Academy walked between one world and the next. It had become rather easy for her—traveling from one plane of existence into another. It was just like crossing through a door, after all.
The living never noticed much. Too preoccupied with their mortal concerns. Too caught up with the fleeting complexity of their lives. So, even though they should have seen the strange girl with eyes the color of molten amber and the odd batlike puppy trotting beside her, they didn’t. Or, if they did, they simplythoughtthey saw her, though when they turned back to check, there was never anything there.
