32. Tate
32
TATE
They’re standing there, just like I remember them. Mum in her favourite blue sweater, the one she wore to all my early magick demonstrations. Dad, with his billowing cloak, suddenly reminding me he was a professor. That was something I’d forgotten, or rather, just not remembered.
They look so real, so alive, not like my parents who abandoned me to the streets and a life of distrust.
“Tate,” Mum says, reaching out. “We’ve missed you so much.”
My grip on Ivy’s hand tightens until I hear her hiss in pain. I didn’t even realise I had reached out to her. But I can’t let go. If I let go, I might run to them. And they’re not real. They’re not real.
“Son,” Dad’s voice breaks on the word. “We’re so proud of you. Of everything you’ve become.”
“Stop,” I choke out. “You’re not them.”
“We never left you,” Mum insists, taking a step closer. “We’ve been watching over you. We saw how you struggled. How you fought. How you protected others when no one protected you.”
The worst part is, they’re saying exactly what I’ve always imagined they would say. What I’ve desperately wanted to hear for years.
“Tate.” Ivy’s voice seems to come from far away. “Tate, focus on us. On what’s real.”
“We are real,” Dad says firmly. “More real than these children playing at being heroes. Come home, son. We can be a family again.”
And that’s what breaks the spell. “My real dad would never tell me to abandon true power for anything less. He was a hardass that way, but it makes me see the light. You are nothing.”
Their faces flicker, just for a moment, showing something else beneath. Something wrong.
“And my mum,” I continue, my voice stronger now, “would kick my arse for even considering it.”
The figures waver, like heat distortion, but they’re not giving up.
“Please,” Mum begs. “Please, Tate, don’t leave us again.”
“Leave you?” I choke on the anger that rises up. “How fucking dare you?”
Ivy squeezes my hand. “Tate. It’s not them.”
“Get out of my sight,” I spit at them.
The figures start to blur at the edges, like watercolours left in the rain. But they have one last card to play.
“Don’t you want to know why?” Mum asks softly. “Don’t you want answers?”
For a moment, I waver. Because, yes, I’ve wanted answers for years. Every night on the streets, every time I saw other families together, every success and failure I couldn’t share, I wanted to know why.
“Of course I want answers,” I say finally. “But I want them from my real parents, not whatever this is. And if I never get them? I’ll live with that. I’ve been living with it for years.”
The illusion shatters completely.
“That’s it,” Bram mutters approvingly. “Show them what happens when they fuck with your head.”
I send a blast of pure energy through the shadows, dispersing them like smoke. The temple around us groans, and new paths appear in the darkness.
“I’m okay,” I say before anyone can ask, wiping my face roughly. “But I really want to punch something right now.”
“Good,” Torin says grimly. “Because I have a feeling this place is going to give us plenty of opportunities for that.”
He’s probably right. But as we move deeper into the temple, I keep hold of Ivy’s hand. Some questions might never be answered. But some answers I’ve already found.
The temple seems to huff as we move forward, like it’s disappointed its trick didn’t work. Shadows creep along the walls, and I catch glimpses of other shapes in them - faces I might recognise if I look too long, so I don’t look.
“That took strength,” Ivy says quietly, still holding my hand.
I try to smile, but it feels shaky. “Yeah, well, this place picked the wrong trauma to poke at. I’ve had years to process that particular mess.”
That’s mostly true. Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt to see them, to hear their voices. Doesn’t mean part of me didn’t want to believe.
“Heads up,” Torin calls from ahead. “Got something weird up here.”
The passage opens into a circular chamber, its walls covered in what look like mirrors. But the reflections are wrong—they shift and change, showing different versions of each of us: me with my parents, me alone on the streets, me as I might have been if they’d stayed.
“Don’t look too long,” Bram warns. “Place is still trying to mess with our heads.”
“No kidding,” I mutter, turning away from a reflection that shows me living a life I might have had. “So what’s the play here? Rush through?”
The chamber vibrates, and suddenly, the reflections aren’t just in the mirrors anymore. They’re stepping out, becoming three-dimensional, surrounding us with might-have-beens and never-weres.
“Well,” Torin says dryly, “I guess ‘rush through’ just got more complicated.”
A dozen versions of us circle like wolves, each one a different possibility.
But the others are facing their own reflections, too.
“Don’t let them separate us,” I call out. “That’s what they want.”
“Too late to run,” Bram says, his magick swirling around his hands. “Guess we’re fighting our demons literally today.”
The reflections attack as one. A darker self launches forward with street-fighting brutality, while a privileged version weaves complex spells I never had the chance to learn. A corrupted one just grins and releases waves of tainted power.
“Any brilliant ideas?” Ivy asks as she deflects a blast from her alternate self.
“Yeah,” I grunt, pulling her down as a spell whizzes overhead. “Stop thinking of them as us. They’re not us. They’re just shadows wearing our faces.”
“Easier said than done,” Torin replies, barely dodging his fear-driven counterpart.
He’s right. These versions of us know our moves and our weaknesses. They’re everything we could have become, everything we feared becoming. And they’re not pulling their punches.
I duck under a wild swing from streetfighter me, only to catch a blast of corrupted magick that sends me staggering. These versions of us aren’t just strong - they’re coordinating and working together in ways we haven’t figured out yet.
“Switch!” Ivy shouts suddenly. “Stop fighting yourselves!”
It takes me a second to get it, but she’s right. We’re too evenly matched against our own reflections. But against each other’s...
I spin away from my alternates and launch a blast at Ivy’s controlled reflection. She can’t counter my raw power. She dissolves into shadow with a shriek.
“They’re what we’re afraid of becoming, but we didn’t become them, and we won’t. Keep fighting,” I grit out as one of the Ivys unleashes a swarm of fucking bees in my direction. “What the fuck?” I growl as they buzz all around me. “Not cool.”
Real Ivy snickers, but it’s short-lived as one of Bram’s other selves launches at her, knocking her off her feet.
“Oh, fuck this,” she snarls, getting up and coiling a power that I know is going to blow the lid off this temple and probably us into a million pieces.
But I don’t stop her.
Instead, I yell to Bram and Torin, “Run!”