Chapter Fifty-Four
ENZO
Starlight rips through Lola, but I hang on to her hand, grounding her, reminding her I’m not going anywhere.
The ice in my own body rears its head, clawing through me like frostbite. But I do not cry out, nor do I cower. I bare my teeth and set my jaw.
Laurel screams as light blazes through the open wounds on her wrists and hands, incinerates from her pupilless eyes, pours from her wailing mouth.
The threads of it crackle and spark against Lola, pooling in the crevices and curves of her body, leaking as tears from her eyes, drenching her hair in glowing sweat. But she does not back down.
She stands. Even when the pain in our heart becomes unbearable. Even when her knees wobble and her spine arches. Even when a screech tears from her lips and her hand trembles in my grasp. She hangs on to Nic and me as the magic engulfs her.
And I see in Lola the power I knew was there from the beginning. The power I feared for so long, feared so deeply I was willing to lock her away like a prisoner, lie to her even when it broke her, manipulate her even when my guilt told me it was wrong.
But now I know I never should have feared her.
Magnolia St. James is fierce and wild and loyal and full of so much love. Not worthy of fear or imprisonment. Worthy of awe. And now it’s time I step back and let her shine.
Our pulse stutters. We’re nearly there.
Laurel grays, wilts, caves in as her magic gutters.
The new moonshard grows brighter.
But Lola’s screams intensify, her knees buckling as her hand gripped in mine turns so cold my fingers go numb.
She pitches forward and only doesn’t hit the dirt because Nic and I are keeping her upright.
Gritting my teeth through my own agony, I try to lift her, but as I use my other hand to brace her upper arm, I realize how frigid she’s become.
It’s worse than touching ice. It’s a cold that burns like the Deep. One that nearly peels back my fingernails and turns my skin blue.
Hissing at the contact, I hoist her upright. Her eyes glow white like Laurel’s, and the soullight piercing through her vibrates, shorting out in spasms every time she moves.
Her heart rate is all over the place. Not a steady beat, but rather the frantic beating of a cicada in a jar, slamming harder and faster, erratic and dangerous and on the verge of ruin.
And I know in that moment it’s because she’s trying to hold part of the magic back for me. Fracturing its power was what made it unstable in the first place.
All of it needs to go in that shard. Even the part keeping me here.
I look past her to my brother, who sways at her side, his eyes full of that icy white light as well, his skin sallow, blood leaking anew from his broken nose.
They’re going to die. Both of them.
As soon as that thought flashes through my mind, I know what I have to do.
I have to face the void. The yawning emptiness I’ve been running from for so long—the emptiness I was willing to cage Lola to keep from having to face.
Somehow it doesn’t terrify me like it should.
Because Lola was right. Loving her doesn’t mean making her love me. I don’t care if she does. I don’t need her to.
I just need her to laugh again. To dance. To spin on her aerial hoop. To scale buildings. To fly.
I need her to live.
So I release her hand and scoop our purple pendant from the floor, draping it around her neck.
I meet her pupilless eyes. She’s staring at me in horror, her hand reaching like she’s trying to stop me, her scream ratcheting higher with panic.
But this is how it has to be. Because even as she begs me not to do this, blood vessels burst around her eyes. Her nose bleeds profusely down her front. Even her ears trickle crimson.
“I’m so sorry. For everything,” I tell her, choking on tears. “Be free.”
Then I press the voratium to Lola’s skin, relinquishing our heart bond.
The white light in the air spills over me like a tidal wave, harder and faster until my legs give out, until my scream tears through my vocal cords, until the world dissolves.
Until nothing remains but stars.