Epilogue
My Kind of Illusion
Jay Varton
They sat there for a while in silence. Three women who had known each other for twenty years, and yet they basically knew nothing about each other. Each of them had gone her own way, carried her own little secret with her, and all that remained was the memory of the bond they once shared.
“What should we do now?” the mayor finally began. She didn’t know what to do, hated drama and hated it when everything fell apart, even if she had seen it coming. Even though she should have known.
The last time drama had won over the destructive side of this town, she hadn’t just lost her sister. She had lost him.
“Gloria has declared maximum security.”
“We need to keep the kids away from each other,” the platinum-blonde woman hissed.
She had never thought she would enter this house again. When she had left back then, she had locked away all the memories. Now she sat here on the couch, which was still the same.
“How did they even find out that she...”
“Your room...” the last woman interrupted her. Her eyes were shadowed with traces of tears. “It was her room.”
“Her things are still up there?” the mayor gasped out, speechless.
She looked frightened. Not like she usually did, but like she did back then.
“Her things are still up there,” replied the woman whose world had become a little darker a week ago. “Just like she left it, back then.” No one said anything, and each of them felt that one question hanging in the air... until the one with the platinum-blonde hair voiced it.
“What if they find out what she had planned? What we had planned?”
The one with the dark blonde hair looked at her. Her gaze, empty. Exhausted.
She should never have come back. She hadn’t wanted to. But how could she not have expected that the shadow of her past could ever haunt her again? That it would find her.
“I haven’t found anything that could indicate that,” she finally said, so quiet that the other women got goosebumps.
“The book,” the light blonde woman said suddenly.
The mayor’s eyes widened in shock. “We said we were going to burn it.”
The dark-blonde woman looked up, her expression becoming more serious. “He still has it.”
“You have to talk to him,” the platinum-blonde said.
The mayor looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “We should stay away from the Senseque!” And to make it clear once again. “We should keep our children away from theirs. The same goes for the Ruisangors.” She glared at the other two women. Her expression serious. “We can’t let them find out anything.”
The three of them agreed that something like what had happened twenty years ago could never happen again. It had affected their lives so drastically. And yet they didn’t know how drastically, because each of them was guarding a secret. Each of them had the power to turn the fate of the town in a particular direction.
But they said nothing more.
When the two women had said goodbye to the dark blonde, she closed her door and turned around. She sighed and swallowed all the pain that would no doubt burst out of her again as soon as he left her house.
She had to be patient for a few more minutes.
“You have to burn it.”
It hurt her to say that. Those words sounded like betrayal to both of them.
“Burn it, please ,” she sobbed, feeling so fragile.
He came toward her and wanted to hug her, but she backed away.
“No, I can’t,” she continued to sob.
She wanted it so badly. She needed someone to hold her now that he was gone. But she couldn’t.
“Nickolas has also declared the highest level of alert. He’s convinced that the Ruisangors or the Quatura have something to do with this.”
She could no longer hold back that one sob.
He remained silent. And listened to her. He was sorry. S orry for everything. He, too, was here again, and had the feeling of being in a familiar place that had gradually lost its life.
It hurt to be here. And it hurt even more to think that her room was up there. Unchanged. A place where even he could break. Where he had almost broken…
This part of his life was a scar that kept ripping open.
It was time to leave.
He had only wanted to update her, and if the other two women hadn’t suddenly appeared, he would have told her even more. That he sensed change in the air, and that he knew the students were further ahead than the others of his generation thought.
He would have asked her about her . He carried so many questions inside him.
“Burn it and keep an eye on them all. You’re closest to them on campus.”
He just nodded and opened the door to let her grieve alone. She needed time. And maybe she wouldn’t understand, would block him out, lie. He didn’t want to force her to lie. She had already had to lie enough. Because of him...
The man stepped out, nodded to her and closed the door behind him.
He wouldn’t burn it, because who would willingly throw the key to their last hope into the fire? He had seen it in her eyes that evening when she had worn the dress. The lock to his key. A gift he didn’t deserve. A gift from her. And he would protect that gift until it broke him.
Nimb
Jay Varton
Meanwhile, just a few kilometers away, she entered the Hall of Councils. A white room with gray Greek columns, almost as large as the temple halls of Moenia.
She knew that this was where laws were negotiated, where difficult decisions were made. One day she would be allowed to be part of it... if she followed the rules.
“Step forward!” the familiar voice commanded. The woman with the short gray, almost white hair, looked at her. Around her, other women, dressed in the gray robes of the Councils, sat in the tiered rows of the hall, which was located somewhere beneath the Council District.
The girl obeyed and stepped forward as she had been taught, hidden beneath a gray cloak.
“Speak!” the woman urged her. “What is the reason why we should call an urgent meeting for you?”
Some of the women exchanged amused glances. But not for long. The girl was confident enough to know that her information could change everything.
“We have a spy among us,” she began, and a murmur traveled through the ranks of the Council members. “And I thought it would be right to tell you before it’s too late.”
The murmur turned into an agitated whisper. Many voices. They fell silent when the old woman raised her bony finger.
“Who’s that supposed to be?”
A triumphant smile crossed the girl’s lips.
“The girl who had the first rite of passage gone wrong. Bayla Adams.”
Again, the voices of the Council members whispered in disbelief.
The woman’s face had darkened.
But the girl wasn’t finished yet. “I saw her eyes.” The silence in the hall was almost suffocating, but for her, it was an epic feeling. “She’s a Senseque.”
As soon as she said it, a heated discussion broke out.
The girl smiled with satisfaction.
She had warned her. And Vivienna Westcode only warned once.
Secession (Main Title Theme)
Nicholas Britell
The End