Chapter 67

67

SYLAS

For a brief time, I was alone, and it was quiet.

Like being in the hourglass—but I wasn't anymore, I was still free, because my last task remained undone.

And I could read the lost fates, seething all around me, moving against my skin like bright snakes as they rattled old bones. Some were small, like missing a red traffic light, others were large, like getting bad news from a doctor. And instead of being out there, in the world, attached to their owners, giving them the opportunity to navigate life with grace, they were trapped in here with me.

Time gave fate a reason. Fate gave time a point.

I wondered at the men outside wandering through life without any knowledge of how lucky they'd become, through no action of their own. Whether or not they truly appreciated the lives they lived, because they'd never experienced any but the most trivial of struggles along the way.

And then someone was fighting me for control of the pit's lid .

They were strong, but I was stronger—until one of the threads wove in front of my eyes and blinded me—while another tried to wriggle beneath my hand. I let go for a second—and then it was too late.

The very person I'd been trying to protect was falling into the bone pit with me, screaming in fear as she fell—I felt called to her at once, and saw her light dropping into the pit like a comet.

"Mina!" I shouted, catching her, as the bones of the other forgotten women poked against her sides. I pushed them away from both of us, so that we could have space. "Why are you here?"

"Because you're a dick for leaving me!" she said, turning into my arms at once. "How could you?"

"I was trying to protect you, and—" I began, then paused.

"Oh yeah, I know about the baby, and I'm still here," she said, pounding a fist against my chest. "And if you think I'm going to raise your asshole offspring without you, no. Just no." She was still breathing hard, for some reason she was dressed in an all-black uniform, her hair was in a severe bun, there were inexplicable blue streaks beneath her eyes, and she was still the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

"What're you thinking?" she said, before biting her lips.

"How you are in the ninetieth percentile now, for certain," I teased.

That made her give me a choking laugh. "You just like me when I shout."

"Yes," I said, bowing my head to hers.

"How could you leave me, Sylas?" she asked quietly, holding me close.

"Because I love you," I said, pulling back. "Show me your arm. "

It took some wriggling, during which she muttered, "I'm just really trying not to think of what all's down here," before rolling up her sleeve. Her life was now spilling out, from the top chamber to the bottom, catching up for all the time that we'd lost. Seeing it made me gasp—and she caught my head in her hands.

"You're not going to hurt me, Sylas."

"My queen, you do not know that," I said sorrowfully, as she gave a gentle nod.

"Haven't you ever had a dream?" she asked.

"No. I am a Nightmare. We do not dream, ever."

"Well, can I tell you what I've dreamt of? You already know, some," she said, taking her arm back to wrap around me. "Normalcy. Having a best friend who is awake. Having a boyfriend who loves me. Maybe even having a baby. But none of that could've happened without you. So you can't kill me, Sylas—and I need you to make all of my dreams come true."

"Mina," I whispered, as all of the abandoned fates I'd incarcerated myself with started to roil.

"Just trust yourself, please?" she asked, leaning forward to kiss my cheek, making the light between us burst. "And failing that, trust me," she went on, moving to catch the corner of my lips.

I turned my face towards hers to kiss her properly. I could feel and see all of her light racing into me, and I had no idea where she stored it, wondering if it, like her tears, was an infinite property.

And then there was the tiny, little tether between us both, a light that we were supposed to share, and knowing I would be the death of it broke my non-existent heart.

"Don't make me kill you," I begged her .

She shook her head. "Then don't make me live without you."

I opened an eye on my back to see where the sand was on her mark—and then realized that was how I might have a chance. If I could crawl back into my hourglass somehow without hurting her...

"Stay here," I said, wedging her into the bones, peeling myself away from her and diving down to get it from where I'd set it on the ground, near the waning stone. I returned with it and put it between us like a shield, and at seeing it Mina laughed with a sad sniff.

"Is this like one of those rulers they use to keep kids apart at school dances?" she said, while the sand inside of it was pouring out—same as all of her light was pouring into me. The cloud of fates twisting and knotting behind her would've been absolutely breathtaking to watch, except for knowing hers would join them, severed from all the life she'd never get to lead. Moments of joy, love, and pain, all denied her, because of me.

I only wanted to watch her eyes, but her sand running out was mesmerizing, even if the quote written atop the hourglass was painful to read. Her eyes followed mine, reading it too. "Sleep and dream of me, till dreams become reality, huh?" she said, then gave me a brave smile, even as the light started draining from her eyes, while the hourglass sank down to the few bits of sand. "You're my dream, Sylas," she said—and I did the last thing I could.

I slowed time.

Out of all the tortures I'd ever concocted, had there ever been one as cruel as this? Watching the woman I loved die, because I was made of greed, and no force on earth could stop me?

How long could I keep her trapped here with me? In my embrace? Growing colder the stopping of one atom at a time?

I didn't want her fate .

I wanted for her to have it, for her to live a wonderful, beautiful life, to know happiness and pleasure, to experience joy and maybe even pain—but to be breathing. Always breathing.

Liminal thoughts leaked out of her, and I would've done anything I could to give them back.

A man in a white coat telling me, "You should cool it off down there, young lady," after I came in because it burned to pee—like my UTI was because my vagina was a race car, and not because five different guys had raped me!—drunkenly dancing with Ella till the bar played a horrible remix of Cotton-Eyed Joe to shut things down—the time I'd keyed Brad Kirk's car when I saw it at a grocery store. "No, I'm fine, I'll stay behind," when my dad asked me if I wanted to come with him and my mom on their ride ? —

All the intersections of things that'd happened to Mina and things that could've been, and then her time with me—strong and scared, resilient and loving—as the last grain of sand in the hourglass slowly rattled down.

I couldn't watch it drop.

I shattered the hourglass and caught it just in time, sending the rest of the sand in the bottom pouring out.

Maybe if it never fell, Mina could still be mine.

And from all around me, where the abandoned fates touched the pulverized stone, time began to speed up.

I ignored it, holding the grain of sand pinched between two fingers, and my Mina with the rest of my body. I would take a scapula from one of the mishmash of surrounding corpses, and scrape her light out of me, to return it. I didn't want this, I wanted what she wanted—and I wanted her. She was the only thing that mattered to me and I couldn't imagine a life, of any sort, with any meaning, in her absence .

"Give her back!" I demanded of everything that empowered me.

"Is everything all right in there?" asked someone from outside the pit.

"NO!" I bellowed—and the stone lid above slid open, letting a sliver of light in.

And the fates I that had been trapped inside the pit with me...exploded.

Some like streamers, others like snakes, all of them evacuating the area, as I hoisted Mina's body up.

"That stupid bitch," Trent said, from where he was sitting on the ground outside the pit, all tied up—and five of the streamers went for him.

I didn't think he could see them, but I could—one plunged into his thigh, another into his chest, and a third slid up his nose—and he started making gagging sounds at once.

I was almost relieved they were saving me the trouble of killing him. I didn't want to put Mina down. The light inside of her was still dim. I hadn't eaten her heart, but there wasn't enough of it left and beating.

Then there was a wicked crack from the vicinity of Trent's leg, and he screamed, as the bone inside his thigh suddenly twisted sideways.

"What's happening to him?" asked a young blonde.

"Come away, sweetheart," Royce said— Royce? Here?— pulling her back behind himself before giving me a look. "Sylas? Did you do that?"

"No," I said, shaking my head.

"But . . . did you . . ." he went on, glancing down at Mina's body .

"If I did, I did not mean to. I would've given my life for hers."

Royce's Arachnaea agent stepped up. "She was a fierce mate," his translator told me—while Trent screamed, and the young girl shrieked.

"But if you're not doing that," Royce went on, "then what is?"

"Fate," I said, as I realized it myself. "You're only allowed to push the universe so far."

The college-aged boy gasped, and then fully collapsed, sprawling within the confines of his ties on the cold, blood-stained stone.

And a tiny piece of light rose up from somewhere inside of him, the size of a gnat, and flew straight towards Mina's heart...where it...stayed. I watched it land there and pulse, like a tiny star, as I processed what might be done— where were the rest of the threads?

I flew up the stairs with Mina immediately.