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“That’s not what he said. He led me to believe that things in his universe had unfolded similarly to things here, but instead of dying at birth, his Katia lost her baby and survived. He said he couldn’t bear the pain of seeing her consumed by agony and madness, of seeing her broken… I didn’t care. I wanted her. I knew I could make her better, save her. She was the love of my life. It didn’t matter she wasn’t from my world. I loved all Katias from all the parallel universes. So, we made the exchange. He wanted a scythe attuned to his energy, and I wanted my wife. It all worked out in the end.”
I was in shock. Hyperventilating, shaking, and dangerously close to waking up. I grabbed the cup before me with both hands and lifted it to my lips. The coffee was cold now, but the bitter taste grounded me to this world, to this universe that wasn’t mine, but was so similar to mine.
“No, nothing worked out in the end,” I finally managed to speak. Weakly at first, then more loudly and firmly. “Nothing worked out. In fact, it was all a mess. It is a mess. He lied to you. I didn’t die, and my mother wasn’t delusional. She was sick. Admitted to a mental hospital because of her schizophrenia. Do you even realize what you did?” He looked at me, lost, confused. He shook his head. “Do you know how he broke his scythe? He tried to kill me! That’s how. He tried to kill me when I was only a child. I was two years old, and he tried to cut my bloody throat! His scythe broke into pieces, and then he found you and took you for a fool.”
“I… I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know. I would’ve never…”
“Where is she?” I stood up, all my joints shaking with nerves and adrenaline, my body close to collapsing. Indeed, I was made of flesh and bone. I was in two places at the same time. The implications were mind blowing, but I couldn’t spare a moment to think about them. “Is she here?”
“She is,” he whispered.
“I want to see her.”
“She’s in the back, by the pool. Reading.”
That was all I needed. I burst through the main door, crossed the hallway, the living room, and the dining room. There was a glass door leading to a wide terrace, and I pushed it open.
There she was. Just like he’d said. By the pool, reading. Her long, blond hair shone brightly in the sun, covering her shoulders and back like a golden curtain. Her eyes were trained on the book she was balancing on her elegant knee, her face relaxed, and her lips slightly parted. Her dainty hand reached for the glass of wine on the table next to her chair. She lifted it to her red lips and took a sip.
My eyes filled with tears. I let them fall, and they soon soaked my cheeks, neck, and the T-shirt I was wearing. I was stuck on the terrace, looking at her, crying and trembling. Morningstar stepped behind me, and he must have guessed I needed a minute to compose myself, because he didn’t say a word. Katia hadn’t noticed me. She was engrossed in her book.
I had to move. I had to put one foot in front of the other and go to her. She was there, just a few feet away. I knew it was her. The Katia Angelov from my universe, the woman who’d given birth to me. She hadn’t abandoned me, and she hadn’t died. She’d just been used as a pawn on a board of chess where Valentine Morningstar was playing black, and the other Valentine Morningstar was playing white.
“You’re no different than him,” I spat through gritted teeth.
She looked up at the sound of my voice. My blue eyes met her blue eyes, and I felt like I was falling. Coming apart, slipping away, collapsing… I didn’t know what was happening to me, but something was happening, and I couldn’t stop it. I’d held
on long enough. Too long.
“My baby…” She whispered.
I opened my mouth. I wanted to say “Mom”. That was all I wanted to say.
It was too late.
I woke up in my bed. Corri was staring at me from atop the nightstand.
“Bad dream? You were screaming.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. Jumped out of the bed. Ran into the bathroom. Threw up in the toilet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It was early morning, before breakfast. On a Saturday. The Academy was asleep. I burst out of my room in my pajamas, startling Crassus and alarming Corri, who flew after me, her translucent wings beating wildly as she tried to keep up. Crassus himself found it hard to keep up, and his sword clanged when he accidentally knocked it against the winding staircase. I should have teleported. Would’ve been faster. But it wouldn’t have had the same impact as stomping angrily down the stairs, out of the north tower, across the inner courtyard, and into the Headmaster’s office. Just as I’d hoped, he was awake and at his desk, planning how to fuck the Academy harder in some new, twisted way.
“Mila!” He jumped when I banged his office door against the wall. “You’re in your pajamas. Proper dress and decorum…”
“I know everything.”
He furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”
I walked up to his desk and slammed his dream journal on top of the files he’d been reading. Corri gasped, realizing my boldness would enrage him. Crassus simply closed the door and took his usual position in a corner, waiting to see how things would unfold.
“I know you’re a dream traveler. Turns out, I am one too. You saw the prophecy in one of your dreams, and you tried to kill me when I was just a child. Your scythe broke, so you universe-hopped some more until you found a lousy version of yourself to trick into giving you his scythe. Instead, you gave him my mother. Who isn’t dead, by the way, I know that too. She’s in a parallel universe, living with your lousy doppelganger. I saw her. I literally just saw her.” Tears were stinging my eyes, but I dragged in a breath and forced them back. This was not the time to become emotional.
Corri was in shock. In other circumstances, she would have done a happy floaty dance in honor of my discovery. But now that I knew the truth, I was in danger. She could feel it, I could feel it, and even my Unseelie bodyguard had tensed up. But there was no turning back now. After what I’d learned the other night, I couldn’t keep quiet. I had to confront him.
“Good job,” he started clapping lazily, but I could tell he was just buying time. He didn’t know how to react. “You’ve got it all figured out. I knew you could do it, Mila. After all, you are my beloved daughter.”
