It was easy to use you, and damn near impossible not to fall in love with you.
Maybe there’s an alternate universe where my coven isn’t depending on me for survival. Maybe there’s an alternate universe where my wild heart is free to take refuge in Wolfe, to love him as deeply as a person can love.
The thought almost makes me smile, this desperate hope that there’s a version of ourselves loving each other, loving and loving and loving to the ends of the Earth.
You saved my life.
I hold the cup to my lips and drink.
thirty
thirty-one
Wolfe
I say her name each night at midnight, but she never comes. I can’t take it anymore. I leave the manor and cut through the trees until I’m closer to Main Street and closer to her.
She was vulnerable and honest when she should have been distant and suspicious. She should have protected herself. But she opened herself up like one of my grimoires, and I read every page, every sentence, until she became my favorite book.
I don’t want to be angry, but I am. I was supposed to hate her, to feel nothing but disgust. I fell for her despite myself, and now she’s all I can think of. If either of us is weak, it’s me. Not her.
And it’s infuriating.
Mortana takes the long way home from the perfumery. She likes to hear the roar of the ocean and feel the wind on her face. And today, when she walks along the eastern shore, she’ll see me.
I shouldn’t be here.
I should let her go and move on, like my dad says. Let Mortana marry the governor’s son so we can finally have our meeting with the council and figure out a path forward that will save our island and calm the sea.
That’s the right thing.
But how can it be right when she’s not with me?
I’ve never put much stake in happiness. Happiness is erratic and fleeting, hardly a worthwhile thing to spend a life chasing. Living isn’t about happiness, and it never has been.
Living is about necessity. But she became necessary to me, like air and magic and blood: absolutely vital.
The Witchery is cold, inviting in winter with choppy water and dark clouds. I cross my arms and watch my breath in the air in front of me. It starts to rain.
At first it isn’t much, light enough to be mistaken for mist off the Passage. Then the sky opens up, and I’m drenched in seconds.
At least I have the beach to myself.
I should leave. She doesn’t want to see me, and I should respect that.
But god, I have to see her.
And like an answered prayer, there she is, walking along the shore. She’s looking up at the sky, holding her hands open to touch the rain.
She smiles to herself and laughs out loud, not at all bothered to be out in a downpour. She looks… content.
I want to give her the space she asked for. I tell myself I’ll leave before she sees me, but my feet stay planted on the ground, immovable.
She looks perfect in the rain, her hair soaked, water dripping from the ends.
She looks perfect.
I shove my own hair away from my eyes, needing to see her.
She looks up, directly at me. I think my heart stops.
Her steps slow and she tucks her hair behind her ear.
But something isn’t right. Her eyes don’t spark the way they normally do when she looks at me. I know, because every time it happens I want to sell my soul just to make sure it happens again.
“Quite the weather to get caught in,” she says. “Do you know how to find your way back to the ferry?”
I stare at her. All the heat drains from my body. “Mortana?” The word sounds harsh, but I don’t mean it that way.
“I’m sorry, have we met?”
I search her face and stumble back when I realize she has no idea who I am. My chest is on fire. I can’t get enough air.
“I apologize if I’m being rude. I meet a lot of mainlanders at the shop, and sometimes I forget.” She waves her hand through the air and smiles. Polite. Professional.
She apologizes too much.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Don’t apologize. It’s nothing.”
She nods and looks relieved. “You can find your way back?”
“Yes.” The word barely makes it out, and I clear my throat.
I close my eyes and cover her in a veil of magic. I can feel a memory loss spell working inside her, hiding every memory, every fucking moment, in darkness.
My god, she doesn’t remember.
I look away. My eyes are burning, and it feels like there’s a boulder lodged in my throat. I can’t breathe.
“Well, have a nice day,” she says, walking away.
I don’t respond. I don’t move. I just look at her, watch her perfect face as she offers a small smile and passes me by.
She is so close, an arm’s length away, but nothing lights in her eyes, not even a ghost of recognition.
I clutch my chest because of the pressure, the pain that’s building there. It isn’t normal, pain like this. Fuck, it feels like every one of my ribs has fractured and lodged itself directly in my lungs.
I want to know if she took the memory eraser willingly or if it was forced on her. I need to know. But if it’s the former, I don’t think I’d survive it.
She walks up the beach and onto the road, stopping when she gets there. She slowly turns around. I hold my breath as she watches me, her eyes on mine convincing my heart to start beating again. Is there the hint of recognition?
I almost walk right up to her, take her face in my hands and tell her she knows me, that whatever she’s sensing in her gut is real. But she shakes her head slightly and turns back to the road, walking away from me. I stand still, watching her until she rounds a corner and I can’t see her anymore.
I stay where I am.
It’s over. But it can’t be over. It can’t be.
Would it be wrong to see her again, to try to make her remember me if she willingly chose to forget?
I know that it would. I know it, but I can’t let her go.
Then we can burn together.
I pick up a rock and heave it into the ocean, yelling as I do. The pain in my chest gets worse, and my yelling gets louder, but it doesn’t fix anything.
God, I’m falling apart. There’s no way I’ll survive this.
You will be the end of me.
Mortana is gone, and she doesn’t remember.
I gasp at the fire in my lungs.
She doesn’t remember.
thirty-two
There is a boy on the shore, standing alone in the pouring rain. There’s a hard set to his jaw, and his hair is messy and dark. His skin is pale, and his eyes are stormy like the weather today. I’m embarrassed to catch myself staring.
But it’s hard not to.
He’s soaking wet and absolutely stunning.
I force myself to look past him and ask if he knows how to find his way back to the ferry. He does, but there’s a strain in his voice that makes it sound like he’s angry.
He says my name, my full name, and something about the word in his mouth makes my insides stir. It reminds me of a dream I’ve been having of someone whispering my full name on the western shore. It has woken me up every night lately, always at midnight. Such an odd dream. No one on this island uses my full name, and yet he did.
He did, and it looks as if his entire world has been ripped out from under him.
I want to ask him if he needs help, if there’s anything I can do, but something stops me. I’m afraid I’ve offended him by not knowing him when he clearly knows me. But we get so many patrons in the perfumery that it’s hard to remember them all.
Though in this case, it surprises me that I don’t. He’s impossible to look away from—I can’t believe I forgot meeting him.
I offer him a smile, but for some reason, it seems to upset him.
I should go.
I walk up the beach to the road, fighting the urge to turn back to him the whole way. When I reach the sidewalk, I finally do.
And when I turn, he’s watching me.
My stomach catches in my throat, and I feel weightless, like that first exhilarating moment when I dive beneath the surface of the water. He’s magnetic—an invisible force pushes me toward him.
I want to know his story.