“Make time,” he growled. “I already know the magic inside me is from Phaedra, when she died after saving my life, and Olivia, from the magic she used to heal me . . .”
“Yes. And that is how I knew you were a vessel. I gave you more magic in the last dream of yours I entered—as much as I could. You already know that whatever is shared in your unconscious mind can become reality.”
The golden blade. So Timotheus transferred magic into Jonas just as he’d given him the blade, which had traveled from one world to another.
He stared up at the massive form of Timotheus on the side of the tower in awe. The immortal looked like a man, walked and talked like a man.
But he was no man. He was a god.
All the immortals were gods.
For someone who had never believed in anyone or anything . . . this was a stunning realization.
“Why did you place this magic inside me?” Jonas began, more tentatively now. “Was it because you knew you’d become weak like this?”
“Partially,” Timotheus allowed.
“And now what? You take it back, recharge yourself, and you’re good as new?”
Timotheus gazed down at them for a moment, his lips pursed in thought. “No.”
“No?” Lucia said, stunned. “What do you mean no? I need you, Timotheus. There’s no one else who can help me. Kyan has kidnapped my daughter, and I am afraid I can’t save her!”
“I’ve seen your future, Lucia Damora,” Timotheus said then, evenly. “I’ve seen you standing next to the fire Kindred with the crystal orbs before you, your lips moving as you complete the ritual that will empower him and the other three like they’ve never been empowered before. And you do so of your own free will, just as you stood on the side of the cliff that night—that fateful night—ready to help him destroy the world. You are aligned with Kyan, and any excuses having to do with Lyssa are only that—excuses.”
Lucia’s face was red, her eyes full of fury. “How dare you say that to me? I am not aligned with Kyan. I hate him!”
Timotheus shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t change. We are who we are throughout our lives. We can try other paths, other roads, but it never works. I am no different. I was created to be a guardian to this place”—he waved his wrinkled hand toward the land beyond the city gates—“and to the mortal world. I tried . . . I did. And I’m still trying at this very moment, but I am failing, as all the others of my kind have failed. It is over, Lucia. The fight is over, and we have lost. We were never meant to win.”
Jonas had listened silently to what the immortal said and to Lucia’s reaction, and now he joined her in her outrage. “Is that it? You’re giving up, just like that?”
“You don’t know how long and how hard I’ve fought to reach this point,” Timotheus said wearily. “I thought there was a chance, and I did what I could to help. But in the end, none of this matters. What will be will be, and we must accept it.”
Jonas’s fury began to boil over. He moved closer to the tower as if he could reach into the image and pull Timotheus out. “That’s so typical of you, speaking in riddles, even now. Lucia needs your damn help to fix this bloody mess, and you’re up there on your . . . whatever magic that is that you’re on right now, looking down your nose at us. Detached from it all, safe and sound in your tall tower while we’re out here fighting, bleeding, and dying.”
“Fighting, bleeding, dying . . .” Timotheus shook his head. “It is the way of mortals. Past, present, and future. What little future is left, anyway. Everything ends. Nothing is truly immortal.”
“Timotheus . . .” Lucia’s tone had calmed. She clasped her hands before her as she gazed up at the image of him on the side of the tower. “Where are the others to help you?”
“The others are gone,” he replied flatly.
“I . . . I saw Mia. I saw her in a Paelsian village not far from the monolith.” She shook her head. “She couldn’t remember anything—not being an immortal, not the Sanctuary, not meeting me before.”
“You did that to her,” Jonas said, filling in the blanks for himself. “You hurt her . . . you stole her memories. And the others as well.”
“Jumping to conclusions, like always,” Timotheus replied. “Hasty in your decisions, rash and bold and, so very often, wrong.”
“Then what actually happened?” Lucia asked.
Jonas didn’t want to listen to any more lies. It had been a waste of time to come here. He was about to say so when Timotheus finally replied.
“I called in a favor from an old friend,” he said. “One with the means and the magic to erase memories. There were so few of us left, and no one but me knew the truth of what this place has become. They only thought it to be a beautiful prison, one they could leave in hawk form to gaze upon the lives of mortals. Over the centuries, some chose to stay in your world as exiles, their magic fading over the remainder of their limited lives. Exiles, as a whole, I’ve found, are happy with their decision to leave. To live a mortal life that is imperfect and short and beautifully flawed.”
“So you gave them that chance,” Lucia said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “All the others that were left. You exiled them and had their memories erased so they could live a mortal life without ties to the Sanctuary.”
Timotheus nodded.
Jonas wanted to hate him. He wanted to pull the golden dagger that Timotheus had somehow given to him that night through his dream and throw it at the tower right here and right now.
But he didn’t.
He studied the old and weary face of this man, this man who had lived for countless centuries, with one question rising in his mind that he desperately needed answered.
“Why not you too?” Jonas asked. “If what you say is true, why wouldn’t you choose to live a beautifully flawed life as a mortal?”
“Because,” Timotheus said sadly, “I had to hold on for just a little while longer. I had to hope that in these last moments, someone somewhere might surprise me.”
“Surprise you how?” Lucia asked.
“By proving me wrong.”
“Come down here,” she urged him. “Help me imprison the Kindred. Everything will return to normal then—here and in the mortal world. You can recover from what has happened to you, and . . . and then you can be whatever you want to be, wherever you want to be it.”
“I had hoped that might be possible, but it’s far too late for that now.” He looked down, shaking his head. “The end is here. Finally, after all these years. And now, if you have any hope of survival you must—”
He flinched then, as if a wave of pain had hit him. When he looked up at them, his eyes were glowing with a strange white light that was nearly blinding.
“What?” Jonas asked as Lucia clutched his arm. “What must we do?”
“You must run,” Timotheus said. And then he yelled it. “RUN!”
The glow from his eyes brightened so much that the entire image of Timotheus turned stark white, and then he disappeared completely.