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“Would what bother me?”
“To know that all along, your actions haven’t been your own. That you only thought you were making your own decisions, but really it was someone else pulling the strings all along, planning your every move. Like you’re the character in a novel or a play, and your only purpose is to tell a story, or prove a point, or teach a lesson to the audience?”
I frown, choosing my words carefully as my sister stares out into the distance, toward the last glimmers of sunlight fading over the horizon.
“Of course it would bother me. I think it would bother anyone. We all like to assume that the good we do, the choices we make, can be ascribed to ourselves.”
She cuts her gaze back to me so quickly, it’s startling. She opens her mouth as if to say something, but then she folds her lips together, holding whatever it is in.
“You could come back, you know. You could wake up in our world. In the realm where you belong.”
Zora taps her fingers against the ground. “What makes you think that?”
“The male who wove your tapestries…he’s dead now. Has been for weeks. Or months. I’m not sure how time works here relative to there. I don’t know how many tapestries ahead of you he was when he died, but Abra, the queen who keeps us enslaved—she made a fae bargain with me. That you would be free if I delivered an ancient magic source over to her. If you were still trapped, she’d be dead for breaking her bargain. You’re free to leave this place. Free to wake up. We just have to figure out how you’re supposed to do that.”
Zora lets out an exasperated chuckle. “Well, when you put it that way, you make it sound easy.”
I laugh and rub the back of my neck. “I wish I could say I knew where to start, but I figure there’s something in your past lives that could help us figure it out. If you can remember much of them, that is.”
Zora furrows her brow, and I realize I misread her meaning.
“You don’t mean figuring out a way to get back, do you?” I ask, apprehension cresting inside of me.
She shakes her head, then buries her face into her knees, which she’s tucked into her chest.
Abra’s words echo in my head.
Perhaps she simply does not wish to return.
“You already know how to leave,” I say, my realization only barely catching up to my words.
Her laugh is dry, raw. “Oh, don’t sound so judgmental. As if everyone doesn’t know a way to leave the life they’re currently living and move on to the next. Tell me, Nox, do you believe in a life after the one you currently live?”
I blink, hardly wishing to broach this subject at the moment. “I used to. I suppose I never quite stopped.”
“Do you think it’s better than the one you currently live?”
My throat bulges. “For some people, I think it will be.” I don’t mention that such a group likely doesn’t include someone who’s murdered innocents. I can’t imagine there being any fairness in them having to face their murderer in whatever life they currently rest in.
“Then why don’t those people end their lives in order to reach the next one sooner?”
“Some do.”
She shakes her head. “Only those who are in despair. But the rest who are sad, oppressed, afflicted—the ones who believe there’s something better on the other side. Why don’t they end it?”
“I suppose they don’t believe they’re finished with their current life. I suppose they believe there’s something left for them to do. Some purpose they haven’t yet fulfilled. Or perhaps they would miss their loved ones if they left.”
Zora swallows and nods.
“And is that what you’re waiting for? A purpose you feel you haven’t fulfilled yet?”
It’s a strange way to think of Zora. Zora, who never seemed to put much thought into the future, into anything past her current impulse.
But the Zora I knew was a child. This Zora has lived dozens of lives. How many years, how much grief, how many losses had she endured?
“I remember some of them, some of my lives. Not every detail, of course. It’s funny how you forget more days of your life than you can remember. It’s even worse when you’ve lived multiple. I remember highlights. Turning points. Beginnings and ends. First kisses. The last breaths of a lover. Not much in between. I remember every time I commit”—she stops, choosing her words carefully—“an evil for the first time, and my soul cracks. But there’s always a purpose. I never forget those. There’s always something I’m sent to do. Or so I thought.”
I cock a brow at her, and she goes on. “You said back at the pit that my purpose in all my lives has been the same. To gather information. To research other worlds for your master, this queen, whoever she is. That’s…that’s difficult for me to accept.”
