Page 177 of Bound By Fury

I mull over everything I’ve just learned.

Kai hasn’t said a word this entire time, though I’ve heard something. A murmur in the back of my mind, like Fiona’s whispers, but different somehow. I turn my head and look at him, tracing his profile with my eyes.

The familiar shape of it settles something in my core.

The Midnight Guard have the Air. I am the Water.

Where are the Earth and Fire?

There are four of us. Four pieces of a prophecy. Four fated witches, sent from the stars to return the balance between our kinds.

I close my eyes and see Gigi’s face.

I wish the resentment that floods me at the thought of her wasn’t there, now that I’ve survived, now that I have my friends by my side. But it’s still simmering beneath it all.

I hope it fades with time. If I have time.

But this was never just about me. This is about us. Zodiac Witches. And how far I’m willing to go to save us.

Despite it all, under the dawn-pink sky, next to the boy who broke my heart and the two (and a half) friends who have risked their lives to save me, I make peace with my grandmother and with the prophecy that has led me here.

With the fact that I am the prophecy.

Just as I’m thinking this, a glowing speck floats across my field of vision. Blinking in and out. A lightning bug. A much sweeter sign from Gigi than the cardinals with their beady little eyes.

This time, when I’m flooded with emotion, I have no tears left to cry. In their place, a steel resolve and the crumbs of a new plan begin to grow.

Kai might have saved me, we might be bound by this prophecy, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive him.

I mull over the words I want to say.

Rolling onto my side, I rest my face on my palm. He watches me curiously with bloodshot eyes and a face to match. Tears stream down his cheeks.

I’m scared, but I’m not alone.

He reaches up and tucks a frizzy curl behind my ear.

The sun shines in tangerine against the freckles that burst along his skin.

There’s nothing we can say to each other to make this better.

Nothing we can do to change what’s happened.

I still hate him. With every fiber of my being.

For the lies. For the bloodshed. For the future he made me dream about that I’ll never, ever get.

Against my better judgment, against all logic, against the past that has followed us here, against the miles of distance that have formed between us—I wish I didn’t need him.

But I do.

“So,” I say. “How do we rescue Fiona?”

EPILOGUE

SNOW FALLS LIGHTLY, BLANKETING THE ground, gray clouds obscuring the sun. Fiona can’t see it though, of course. But she can feel it, drifting gently from the sky, layer upon layer of cool white. She paces, her fingers rattling against the bars of her cage, each touch of the burning, cursed iron a searing pain that she eats greedily. Just to feel like less of a ghost.

When the Guardians captured her and put her in the box that dampened her magic, all she could think about was how empty she felt. Gone were the rumbles of power, and in their place was a void. She might not have her magic, but she can still sense things. Things like the snow falling outside or the blast of power that erupted two months ago when the Water was awakened.