Chapter 27

27

CAROLINA

D eclan’s gaze is searing as I explain why I know Annabelle doesn’t have anything to do with this. Things were getting too tense between us to avoid this subject for much longer.

I’d almost kissed him, for Fates’ sake. That could not happen again.

“So is that it, then? What’s happening between us?” he asks from his place by the bed.

There’s something so strangely…domestic about this conversation. Like if we were normal, we’d be about to argue about something mundane before bed. Except, it’s 3 in the afternoon, neither of us has slept in two days, I’m a witch, and I’m about to tell him why we can’t ever be together.

I shake my head. “No. There’s nothing happening between us, Declan.”

It hurts me to say it, and I feel a part of my heart fracture at the lie. My magic doesn’t like it either, and it seems to retaliate by making my fingertips prickle, mirroring the feeling of static shock.

The energy crackling between us is undeniable, and I know he can feel it too. I can sense the pulse of my magic trying to push against the walls I’m so desperately trying to build, and I’m afraid it’ll betray me.

His brows raise, and he scoffs. “That’s such bullshit, Carolina, and you know it.”

It’s anger that propels me out of the chair and to the opposite side of the bed. My heart is racing, and the tension between us feels like it could snap at any second.

“No, I don’t know it, Declan. I don’t know anything except what my dreams tell me.”

Declan holds out his hands like the point he’s arguing is tangible, sitting right in front of me, but I’m still missing it.

“And your dreams, at least the ones I’ve seen, tell you that we should be together.” His voice is level, but there’s an edge of desperation to it.

He’s hoping he can reason with me, I’m sure, but I’ve already seen him die too many times to forget what will happen when this inevitably ends poorly.

The visions flash behind my eyes—the smell of smoke, the sound of screams, the moment I watch the life drain from his eyes. My throat tightens just thinking about it.

I shake my head again. “Well, you haven’t seen how they end, and you’re lucky for it. They’re not just dreams , Declan. My power is foresight, but it also shows me my past lives. Throughout history, we’re thrown together time and time again, but we always end the same way.” My hands are splayed out in front of me, pleading for him to understand.

“Outside the car, you said what I saw was the future . The things I saw us doing are supposed to happen. We’re supposed to happen, Carolina.” His legs are bringing him closer to me, but when I take a step back, he freezes.

“The future can be changed, Declan. I’ve changed it before, and I can do it again.”

A flash of hurt passes over his face, and it says more than he ever could. Why would I want to change us? Why didn’t I want us?

“Then show me,” he says. This time, the desperation rings clear. His voice cracks slightly, and for a moment, I see the vulnerable side of him. The side that’s just as scared of this as I am. “Show me how the dreams end.”

My mouth drops open and closes again. Swirling in my fingertips again, my magic doesn’t like that suggestion either. It wants to protect him from the visions. But maybe it’s the only way to convince him that we’ll never work. That it really is for the best we don’t give in to some predetermined Fate.

“If you’re so sure that I’ll feel the same once I see what you have, then show me,” he says again, but more confident.

His eyes bore into mine, challenging me to prove him wrong. I know this isn’t just about us—it’s about him needing to understand the truth I’ve been keeping from him.

“Fine,” I relent, climbing on the bed and sitting cross-legged.

“Fine?” He’s staring at me as if I’m kidding.

“Get on the bed. I’ll show you how that dream ended.” My voice is steady, but inside, my stomach churns with nerves. I’ve never shared something this personal with anyone, not even Camila.

He joins me a moment later, matching my position. The bed is a king, but his legs are so long that our knees touch. I want to take it back, and my magic certainly agrees I should, but it’s the only way to erase the look in his eyes.

His gaze softens, and for a brief second, I wonder if he realizes how hard this is for me. I look at our hands, so close yet not touching, and the electricity between us buzzes louder.

“What do I do?” he asks.

“Nothing. I’ll try to send you the vision like I did the other two times. I’m not entirely sure what triggered it, but I’m hoping it won’t take much time. Hands.”

I set my hands, palms facing up, on my knees. He places his hands on mine, and my fingers wrap around his wrists as his do the same to mine. The contact sends a jolt through me, and for a split second, I almost pull away. But I don’t. I need him to see.

My eyes flutter closed as I recall the dream from a few nights ago. Just like I’m reading someone else’s memories, I flip through my own until I find it.

The banging on the door begins, and the smell of smoke finds its way into my nose. It’s only then does the weight of what’s about to happen press against me.

We’re about to die.

I can feel it in my bones. This is the last time I’m going to see him.

Turning around to pull on my dress, I yank the sleeves up my arms. I flinch at the chill of his touch against my spine as he works his way up the laces of my corseted dress. He’s careful not to tighten it too much.

His touch is gentle and reassuring, as if he doesn’t feel the same impending doom that weighs on me. His calmness only makes my panic worse.

The room we’re in begins to fill with smoke, and I can hear the creaking sounds of wood splintering in a fire. The sound of the flames grows louder, a cruel reminder that time is running out.

“You need to leave,” I tell him, looking up into his eyes of deep blue .

His hands wrap around my forearms, and he pulls me against him. Determined eyes meet my wary ones. “I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever.”

Panic lights up my throat, or maybe that’s the smoke I’m inhaling. I can feel my chest tighten as fear grips me, and the weight of his words is too much.

Doesn’t he understand? He can still survive.

“They want me, not you,” I whisper. “You have to run.”

He’s so calm about this. He’s accepted his fate, while I refuse. The back of his hand strokes my cheek delicately, starkly contrasting with what lies outside the cabin.

We’re drowning out the sound of the people gathered. The ones chanting “witch.” The ones who have brought their pitchforks and torches. They’ve followed the magical footprints straight to my door.

“I should have let them die.”

I’m ashamed of myself the second it’s left my mouth, but he only looks at me more lovingly. His gaze softens, filled with the kind of love that makes me want to cry. How can he still look at me that way after everything? After what I’ve condemned him to?

“You do not mean that,” he says simply.

He’s right, of course. He’s always right.

I do not regret saving little Cassandra Huttons from the disease that swept our town. She gets the chance to have the future I saw when I treated her.

I do not regret saving the crops from failing this season. The townsfolk will have plenty to eat and enough to recoup last year’s losses.

I…do regret saving William Johnson from drowning when we were kids. There was no doubt he was the leader of this witch-fearing mob .

“You saved them.” Awe fills his tone, and his eyes shine with unshed tears.

For them, for me, or for us, I’m not sure. Maybe he’s finally gotten a grip, and his sense of mortality is sinking in. My magic is praying that’s the case.

“Stop looking at me like you hope I’m going to leave you here,” he says.

I shake my head, pulling away from his touch. “I can’t believe you’d stay here and give up your life so frivolously. You have a chance to have a normal life, and instead, you’re going to waste it, dying in here with me.”

He looks offended and hurt by my words. “What do you think is going to happen if I walk out of this cabin? Those people will not welcome me with open arms. I’d be running from this town for the rest of my life when I could leave this one with you. Get the chance to try again in another place and time with you, and maybe get a different ending.”

The flames have made their way into the cabin, catching on the fabric curtains covering the windows and spreading across the ceiling. The heat is unbearable now, and the smoke stings my eyes. There’s no escape. It will only be a few minutes before the room is engulfed, and the foundation collapses, burying us in our sanctuary from the world.

His hands wrap around my shoulders, thumbs stroking over exposed skin. “You still don’t understand the extent of my feelings for you. Even now. To even call them feelings is a vast misrepresentation of the way my soul perfectly matches yours. I will always choose you. I’ve seen how good, how selfless, how pure you are, my love. I do not wish to exist in a world—a lifetime—without you in it.”

This I understand. More than he could possibly know. His words cut deep because I know exactly what he means. I feel it too—the way our souls seem to mirror each other. But that doesn’t change what’s coming. Why can’t he see that by asking him to run, I am doing the same thing? I am choosing his life over the comfort of him staying with me until the end.

“I know that face,” he says sadly. It’s almost drowned out by the snapping of the wooden beams holding this place together. Any second now. “Maybe in the next life, you will get your way, but in this one, I’m choosing to stay.”

His head lowers, and his mouth catches mine like it wants to stay there for eternity. It’s a soft yet demanding kiss—a perfect final one.

When he pulls his head away from mine, he wraps his arms around me and holds me against him as everything around us is incinerated, and we are nothing but ash on the wind.

The vision fades slowly, like smoke dissipating in the air, but the ache it leaves behind is fresh and raw. My fingers are still wrapped around Declan's wrists, and I can feel the tension in his body as he processes what he just saw. The silence between us is thick, almost unbearable. I can’t bring myself to open my eyes just yet, not until he says something. Anything .

When I finally do open them, I’m met with his wide, stormy gaze. He’s staring at me like he’s seeing me for the first time, and the air between us feels like it’s charged with a thousand unsaid words.

“You didn’t tell me it was like that,” he whispers, voice hoarse. His hands tighten slightly around my wrists, grounding me in the present, but I can feel his shock and heartbreak pulsing through the connection.

“I tried,” I say softly, my voice sounding much smaller than I intended. My throat tightens, and I feel the weight of all the other lives pressing down on me—the ones where I lost him, the ones where he died for me.

He pulls his hands away from mine and scrubs them over his face, groaning as if he’s trying to expel the emotions surging inside him. “Carolina, this...this wasn’t just a dream.” His voice is rough, full of disbelief. “It felt real. Too real.”

I nod. “Because they were once. The memories are stored in some sort of magic mental time capsule. The ones of you in them only started in the last year or so. I didn’t start seeing your face until recently. After I met you.”

He stares at me, his chest rising and falling heavily. The gravity of what I’ve shared with him has clearly shaken him, but I don’t know how else to make him see.

“And we’re supposed to just accept that?” His voice breaks, the weight of all those lifetimes bearing down on him now, too. "That no matter what we do, no matter what we want, it always ends the same way?"

I bite my lip, fighting back the tears that are threatening to spill over. “It’s why we can’t be together, Declan. I’m trying to save you from that. I don’t want to watch you die again.” My heart shatters even as I say the words, but I know they’re true. I can’t bear the thought of losing him again, not like this.

I’ve already seen him almost die in this lifetime once, there was no reason to risk it again.

But you changed that . You saved him, my magic seems to remind me.

He shakes his head, disbelief etched into every line of his face. “But what if this time is different? What if?—”

“It’s never different,” I interrupt, more harshly than I intend. “It always ends the same. We die. Over and over again, in every life, in every timeline, we die.”

For a moment, the only sound in the room is the faint dripping of the shower faucet. The heaviness of the words lingers between us, each second dragging out the tension like a blade slowly being twisted.

Declan’s face is a storm of emotions—anger, frustration, grief—but underneath it all, there’s still that stubborn hope that refuses to die. “But what if we could change it?” His voice is softer now, more pleading. “What if we could find a way?”

I shake my head. “It’s too risky, Declan. What if we just end up in the same position we always do?”

His hand reaches out, grabbing mine, his touch grounding me in the present even as everything else feels like it’s spiraling. He leans forward, his face inches from mine, his voice low and fierce. “I don’t care. I’d rather fight for us and lose, than not try at all.”

I close my eyes, letting his words settle over me. For so long, I’ve been trying to protect him, to push him away for his own sake. But what if he’s right? What if this time, things could be different?

It’s the literal definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a new outcome.

My magic flares in my chest, pulsing with indecision. It doesn’t want to lose him, just like I don’t. But every part of me knows the risks are too great.

I open my eyes and meet his gaze, and for a moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like to fight for us. To choose love over fear. To stand beside him, no matter what the future holds.

But then the memories crash back into me—the flames, the smoke, the feeling of his body turning to ash in my arms. The weight of those losses is too heavy, and I can’t shake the fear that we’re doomed to repeat them.

“I can’t,” I say, my voice breaking. “I can’t go through that again.”

Declan’s face falls, the hope draining from his eyes. The pain that flashes across his features is like a knife twisting in my chest.

“But you don’t have to,” he says, his voice soft and full of sorrow. “You don’t have to protect me, Carolina. You don’t have to carry this burden alone.”

I pull my hand from his, stepping off the bed as if putting distance between us will somehow lessen the ache. But it doesn’t. If anything, it only makes the pain sharper.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice barely audible. My heart feels like it’s breaking all over again, but I know I have to do this. I have to let him go.

Declan watches me for a long moment, his blue eyes filled with a mix of grief and understanding.

“I know,” he says quietly. Then, without another word, he turns and walks out of the room, leaving me standing there, alone with the gravity of our shared history—and the future we’ll never have.

As the door clicks shut, I sink onto the bed, my hands trembling with the effort it takes to hold myself together. The vision may be over, but the echoes of our past lives still linger, haunting me. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t shake the feeling that this—this moment right here—was always part of the plan.