Immortal Consequences(109)

No. This wasn’t her ending.

She’d survived worse. She’d endured far greater suffering than this.

Irene’s lungs began to give out. Her mind wandered to Masika. Her friend. Could she even still call her that? After the way she had treated her. The secrets she’d kept from her. She thought of Masika looking back at her in the clearing, the silent plea written in her eyes.

Don’t go.

Don’t leave me.

But she’d left.

Because that was the kind of person Irene was. She survived, even if it was at the expense of others. She’d destroy those around her if it meant preserving everything she’d fought for. And even as the illusion threatened to consume her, to take her under, she knew there was only one option left.

She’d fight.

And she would win.

50

Emilio

He’d been walking through the densely packed snow for what felt like hours, arms wrapped tightly around his chest and eyes lowered, when he came across the body. Fresh snow blanketed her limbs like powdered sugar, obstructing the side of her face and engulfing the outline of her body. But Emilio recognized her bronze skin and dirty-blond hair. The periwinkle gown she had worn to the ball. The tattoo of a compass etched into the skin of her wrist.

Josie.

He collapsed onto the ground as his knees gave out beneath him. Placing his hands gently on her shoulders, he flipped her over, revealing a face full of bulbous veins and a sickly rash. Her eyes were wide open, jaw askew, white foam still dripping from the corner of her mouth.

The illusion had consumed her.

And destroyed her.

A teacup dangled from her hand, the remnants of the illusionary elixir still lingering at the bottom.

“I’m so sorry,” he choked out.

His heart ached; he knew that part of her had probably wanted this. Because what was an eternal existence without the person she loved? It was the same way he was certain that if Olivier didn’t return, if he didn’t survive, then he had no intention of saving himself.

Her body slowly began to disintegrate, feathering away into tiny particles of magic and ash, until Jocelyn Foster was nothing more than a mass of swirling particles drifting in the wind.

Emilio staggered away from the place where her body had been, desperately holding back the urge to vomit. She’s gone. The thought made his head spin as he continued to move forward, pushing through the snow. He might have collapsed from the sheer panic had he not spotted the lake in the distance.

He came to a halt, squinting to get a better look…and that was when he saw it.

The teacup sat at the center of the frozen lake, pressed against the thin ice, as if silently challenging him. Go on, it seemed to say. You won’t do it. But he would. Even if his hands trembled as he took the first step onto the frozen water beneath him. Even if his breaths turned uneven and his chest swelled with panic.

He had to do it.

He picked up his pace, angling his face away from the bitter wind, until he was standing atop the ice. The closer he got to the teacup, the more the panic seemed to take hold. Once he drank the elixir, there was no going back. He would have to dismantle the illusion or perish. There were no other options.

His mind drifted to Olivier. To the way he had looked at Emilio before crossing through the arch.

He should have been braver. He should have closed the space between them and finally summoned the courage to tell Olivier how he felt—completely. How he desperately and recklessly loved him. How he would do anything to stay with him, even if it meant setting aside his dreams of the Other Side. Because if there was anyone worth staying for, anyone worth enduring eternity with…it was Olivier.

But he had been too afraid, too wrapped up in his own thoughts. And now there was no changing what had already been done.

Emilio’s hands trembled as he picked up the teacup. With one final breath, he readied himself and chugged back the liquid, letting the illusion take him.

Time froze. The wind stilled. Even Emilio’s panic dissipated, replaced by a velvety warmth spreading through him like running water. And when he opened his eyes, he found himself somewhere he thought he’d never see again.

His home.

The faded yellow walls, delicate white trim adorning the edges. His father’s leather chair tucked in the corner of the living room and facing the television, the imprint of his body still embedded in the leather. The glass coffee table Emilio had cut himself on when he was four, the portrait of his grandmother and the dingy microwave that beeped in the middle of the night.

And then a voice.

“Emilio! Come in here!”

His legs moved robotically beneath him. One step. Another. And then he was standing in the kitchen, looking up at his mother behind the sink. She was wearing her favorite dress, the light blue one with the white flowers, her bare feet against the tile floor.

“There you are. I was calling for you.”

Emilio shook his head. He knew better. This is all just an illusion.

The delicate wrinkles on her face, the trickle of the water hitting the base of the sink, the cracks in the walls. None of it was real. How could it be? There was no conceivable way to get his mom back. To get this life back. And though he wanted nothing more than to lean into the illusion, to let himself sink into it and wrap himself around it, he knew illusions weren’t meant to be listened to.

They were meant to be destroyed.