A Matter of Forever (34 page)

Jonah and I had a brief discussion with the Guard before going to the Council this week. We told them everything that Sophie Greenfield did in the Battle of Karnach. We offered up both our memories; once viewed, the consensus was unanimous. Conspiring with the Elders and committing murder against a Magical has the Council deeming Sophie a traitor.

I’m here to let her know what her punishment is.

She scoffs at me, her lips twisting in displeasure as she defiantly looks me up and down, and I can’t help but be awed over how, even now, even here, her scorn for me is thick and tangible as always.

“Why did you do it?”

She simply stares at me in return.

I try another question. “How did your relationship with Enlilkian happen?”

I already know, though. The Guard forcibly surged with her and took her memories. From what they could deduce, Enlilkian, via Jens, had conducted intensive searches for me after I’d run to Alaska. Somehow, he’d traced my, for lack of a better word, scent early on back to Jonah and subsequently Kellan. When he discovered Sophie’s obsession with Kellan, he viewed her as the perfect spy that could blend easily into Annar’s life without causing suspicion. He’d promised her the man she thought she loved if she could report my comings and goings to the Elders, even though chances are, he never would have come through. So all those times she stood outside my building and gazed up were her desperate, brainwashed attempts to hold onto someone who never loved her.

When Zthane told me this story, I didn’t even know what to do with it. It felt like one of those absurd stories about scorned women, only ... Sophie was, I suppose, scorned. According to one of the Council’s Emotionals who evaluated her (not Jonah, because they said it was a conflict of interest), even prior to Enlilkian, Sophie had a healthy dose of narcissism and has been prone to unhealthy attachments to people from early childhood. After, though, she suffered a break with reality. Mentally, she was a sick girl whose mind and emotions were so heavily warped and hidden over months of abuse that it took days to break through what Enlilkian had done. The first Creator had mentally tortured her with Emotionals his people found and used, often forcing his victims to build her back up and believe she needed the Elders to get what she wanted. They lived in her apartment, using it as a base in Annar. All that love she thought she felt for Kellan was really nothing more than a manifestation of Enlilkian’s wishes, masked behind shields and emotional distortions so thick that Jonah and Kellan never saw her exactly for what she was for nearly a year.

And it’s hard to hate somebody who is sick, even one who has done such awful, terrible things, and even as I have a hard time forgiving her for what she did to Mac Lightningriver. She’d dated him once, they were friends, and yet thanks to Enlilkian, she’d murdered him all too easily because she believed a madman’s absurd promises of forever with somebody who could and never would love her.

“Did you know Mac’s wife is pregnant?” I ask when she stonewalls at all my questions. “Did you know that they’d gotten married just recently?”

She looks down at her chipped nails. “He didn’t love her.”

No, I think, that much is true. Mac told me more than once that his was an arranged marriage, and it ate at his soul. But he’d gone ahead and married Isadorna anyway, because it’d been expected of him. And now he’s dead and his wife that he barely ever talked to, let alone liked, is carrying his baby.

“Raul Mesaverde died, too.” Oh, it hurts so much to say this, especially as it comes on the heels of his funeral. “As did several other people. Actually, a lot of people died, Sophie. Too many people.”

She flinches, just a little. Just enough to give me hope that Enlilkian hasn’t corrupted her fully.

“I’m here to tell you what the Council has decided.” I take a breath. Lay my hands flat on the table in front of her. “I will strip you of your craft, Sophie. You will no longer be a Muse after I leave you today. And then your memory will be blocked and you’ll be banished to the Human plane within the next few weeks.”

She still doesn’t say anything. Just continues to inspect her nails like she’s debating whether or not to get a manicure.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her.

She blinks in surprise before narrowing her eyes.

“I truly hope that you use this as what it is.”

“And what’s that?” she scoffs.

“A second chance.”

It amazes me that, even now, she still regards me as a bug worth squishing.

I stand up and come around the table. Finally, she shows me something other than scorn. Panic flares in her eyes; the Guard in the room come over to hold her as anxiety sends her limbs into motion. “No,” she shrieks at me. “You can’t do this to me. Don’t. Don’t, Chloe.”

But I lay my hand on her—gently, rather than harshly. And I take every last bit of her craft out of her. It’s surprisingly easy; all I do is reach inside and pull it out, like it was nothing more than an extra shirt over her head.

She breaks down sobbing, screeching how much she hates me, how I’ll be sorry, how someday I’ll pay. But I choose not to listen to her. She can’t hurt me anymore. Not now, not with Enlilkian gone.

I stand up and leave the room.

When I come home, I find Jonah and Kellan sitting in our living room. I’d asked them to stay behind when I went to visit Sophie; it wasn’t fair dragging either of them back into that mess, not when it’s time for us to put it all behind us.

I perch on the edge of Jonah’s chair. “It’s done,” I tell them.

My husband reaches up and takes my hand. “Are you okay?”

I nod. It’s funny, I’ve just taken all of Sophie’s craft, and yet ... I don’t feel it in me at all. On the walk home, I let it go into the autumn winds blowing leaves through city streets. I have no need for her craft.

I’m not Enlilkian.

“When is she going to have her memories blocked?” Kellan asks.

He’s been surprisingly distant since coming home from the hospital. I try to ignore the pleasure that comes from him finally acknowledging me. “I think in a few days? Maybe a week. The Guard is working out the logistics.”

He looks at his brother and then at the window. And then he says, “Chloe, I am no longer a Magical.”

My mouth falls open. Shuts.

“After you two went home from the hospital a few weeks ago, I purposely stayed behind and asked Kate to run a bunch of tests on me. To figure out why I didn’t feel ...” He blows out a quiet breath. “Right. Or, the way I used to. Especially after our talk, you know?”

Everything around me, us, it all just stops. Just ... freezes, not in the way that Enlilkian or I can make time do, but in the way that life forces on us when everything is precariously close to collapsing down around us and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. “But,” I say, but he’s not done.

“I told you I couldn’t hear my brother. I couldn’t feel any of your emotions. I still can’t, Chloe. They brought in another Seer and then another. I’m no longer a Magical. I no longer have a craft. Fate no longer controls my life.”

I can’t breathe. He’s not really saying this to me right now. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.

“Haven’t you noticed?” Kellan asks me quietly. “Haven’t you noticed how, when we’re in the same room together nowadays, you no longer feel me?”

Stop. I need this moment to stop right now.

He continues, “I am no longer a Magical. We are no longer Connected. Neither are Jonah and me. I’m ... I’m a non now.”

What is he saying? Why is he saying this? “This isn’t funny, Kel—”

“Breathe, Chloe,” Jonah is saying to me, but I don’t see him. I only see Kellan right now, gorgeous, wonderful, strong Kellan Whitecomb who came for me and died for me and now is saying he’s no longer an Emotional because I ruined him yet again.

I’ve lost my Connection. Years of fervent wishing I wasn’t constrained by Fate’s choice mean nothing as I struggle to find the tug that tells me he’s here. Jonah’s—yes. It’s sharp and clear. But Kellan’s? Why can’t I feel it?

He blurs in and out of focus. The muscles in my body tense. My world turns pinhole small as I focus down, down to his face. I’m frantic to find that thread that ties us together, if only to prove him a liar. Kellan Whitecomb is an Emotional. He is the twin of an Emotional, born to Magical parents. He is cursed with two Connections. He is not a non. He is not even a Métis. He’s wrong. He’s just ... things are fuzzy right now. I brought him back, yes, but I brought
him
back.

I had to have.

“Jonah, please,” Kellan is saying, and then my husband leaves and Kellan is standing in front of me, and he’s saying, he’s saying as he pulls me into his arms, “It’s okay, Chloe. It’s okay.”

Why do people keep saying this to me? Why does everyone automatically say when the shittiest things in life happen,
it’s okay?
Because it’s not okay. How can it be okay when he’s right? And why is he comforting me? I should be comforting
him
. I am not the one whose existence has been destroyed because a wildcard Creator couldn’t get it right.

Here in his arms, I’m forced to admit I no longer feel the sharp tug of Connection between us. It no longer exists.

Like so many times in the past, I tell him I’m sorry. But now that he can’t feel me, he’ll never know just how much because words are meaningless to the remorse that crowds my soul. So I just hold him and hold him and say it until I no longer think either of us assigns meaning to those pitiful words anymore.

According to Etienne, there is no documentation of any Creator outside of Enlilkian ever bringing somebody back from the dead before. No Creator has ever rebuilt body parts, nor have any ever forced hearts to beat again, let alone belonging to someone they are Connected to.

Nobody knows what to say about what I’ve done to Kellan. And they do know now, because I admit everything in an attempt to get answers.

I insist on more tests, more specialists. More time to let his craft reemerge. He deals with all of my insistences gracefully, I think, more as an effort to appease Jonah and me than to really find out how we can get his craft back. I try giving him one—after all, if I can take one away, I surely must be able to give one, right? But Astrid takes me to the side and tells me that only Fate can disperse crafts, not Creators.

How ironic that I can destroy them easily yet not create them at all. And yet, I try anyway, because I can’t leave a single stone unturned.

A month after he wakes up, he stops going in to work, saying it is pointless no matter what I, his brother, Astrid, Zthane, or Karl argue. He spends most of his time in his apartment, watching television or playing video games when he isn’t suffering through ridiculous tests for me. Jonah tries so hard to get through to him, to assure him that we’ll figure it out, but the day comes when he announces to us that there would be no more testing.

I’m free falling without a parachute in sight.

Jonah must have heard this before me, because he doesn’t even try arguing. He’s just sad.

“But—”

“I want you to know right now that, no matter what,” Kellan continues calmly, “I am not upset about what you did. You saved my life, C. I will always be grateful for that. I don’t want you ever thinking differently. I’m just ready to accept what is, okay?”

He’s lying to me, I think. He’s miserable. I know he’s miserable.

When he goes back to his apartment, his twin brother trailing silently after him, I go into the bathroom, lock the door, and try to learn how to breathe again.

It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. I should not be snooping; I should not be breaking their confidences. If I ever found out somebody did to me what I’m doing right now, I’d probably lose my mind.

Even if it were my Connection doing it.

But I make the little screen to watch what’s going on with Jonah and Kellan anyway.

Kellan is handing Jonah a drink—I think it’s coffee, but ... Kellan is also a big tea drinker, much like Astrid is. I suppose in the long run, it doesn’t matter what they’re drinking. It’s just so good to see them together, like I didn’t rip Kellan’s life apart two months back. Like ... they’re still the brothers they’ve always been, Connected by biology and history.

Jonah takes the mug from his brother. “Kellan—”

“Look.” Kellan runs a hand through his hair; it’s longer now, much like his brother’s. “I’ve thought about this a lot. This isn’t a rash decision.”

“It’s been all of two months. I know you feel that you’re not being rash, but—”

“There are a million and one buts to all of this,” Kellan says, and I marvel at how calm he sounds, at how ... just even he is when all of my insides are quivering, “but the most important one is this: I am no longer a Magical.”

Guilt beats against me from all sides. He is no longer a Magical because of me, because I didn’t try hard enough when I brought him back. If only I were a better Creator, a stronger one.

Enlilkian was right about me. He told me I was weak.

“If you think that anyone will treat you differently, or even dare to—”

Kellan won’t let him finish, though. “I am not a Magical, J. I can’t do my job.”