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“Do you think it?”
“Do I think what?”
“That you are the One?”
Denial is on the tip of my tongue. Right there, but I stop my mouth before it falls off my tongue. I don’t stop because I want to, not really. I stop because the instant before I say it, I see Duncan. Duncan and his easy smile, his beautiful face. His acceptance. I see the nobleness of him.
I stop because of the man I love. Or I might love. If I say no, I’m closing the door on him forever. And I can’t.
“I don’t know,” I say, feeling miserable.
“Doubt,” he says, shuffling his dirty shoes through the sand and kicking it up around him. “The killer of dreams. Slayer of ambition. Destroyer of chance.”
“You’re poetry sucks.”
“Poetry hides truth in pretty words.”
“Thanks. That’s deep. Is that your magical power? Because outside of an apparent ability to teleport me at random, I haven’t seen it.”
I’m angry. Angry at him and angry at myself. I thought when I’d made a decision that I had put all of this on hold but now here I am, right back in it.
“Power?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You’re supposed to train me in the ways of magic. You’ve taught me nothing. Nothing at all. We’ve worked out. I could do that at the Y and not have it interrupt my entire life. Where’s the power? What’s the point of any of this? Everything is getting worse, not better.”
“Power, she says. She wants. She demands. She orders. Listen, though?” He stalks towards me, and as he approaches, he grows bigger. Much like what happened when I confronted the hag in the Fae Realms. As he grows, I feel small in comparison. “Does she ask? Does she think?”
“I ask, you never answer.”
“Wrong questions!”
“Teach me the right ones!” I strain my neck to keep my eyes on his. He is towering over me.
“You are no Destroyer,” he says. “The Destroyer decides. The Destroyer listens.”
“I didn’t ask to be this,” I shout. My heart is thundering. I raise a balled fist between us.
“The Destroyer never does. The One does, without asking.”
“If I’m not the One, then what is all this? What’s the point? All I wanted was to go back to Duncan. Now everything here is falling apart. Everything is worse, not better.”
He glares, chewing and smacking his lips. He shakes his head.
“Power. All you think about is power and what you want. You want power? Claim it.”
He motions with one gnarled hand and we’re standing in the middle of a time-lapse video. The sky darkens, stars come out and the moon races across the sky followed by the sun. The waves come in and out rapidly as time speeds up, racing past us.
I look around in amazement and watch as the trees grow; then, one by one, they fall. The ocean claims more and more of the sand off the beach until the water is around our ankles even at low tide. Then a fireball streaks across the sky and slams into the moon. I scream, ducking and covering my head as the sky above flashes brightly.
“Stop.”
“You are not the One.” He speaks softly and I look past my protective arms and the beach is back to normal. “The Fae are wrong. Go home, Quinn of the Humans. The One is not yet found and may not be found in time after all.”
He turns and shuffles away.
“Wait,” I say, reaching for his arm.
I move to catch him and then my foot comes down in a stagnant puddle of water. The stench of the dirty alley engulfs me. The beach is gone. I’m alone. Again.
