25. Reason
CHAPTER 25
Reason
C onsciousness returned with the careful precision of post-operative awakening. My surgeon's mind cataloged symptoms automatically: slight disorientation (possible mild concussion), stiffness in major muscle groups (involuntary unconsciousness, duration unknown), lingering metallic taste (magical sedation, if such things existed).
The scent hit me next – ancient herbs and burning candles, but not the commercial kind. These smelled older, more sacred.
When I opened my eyes, the space around me felt heavy with age. Stone walls held centuries of secrets, perhaps part of the Rothschild estate's foundations. An intricate circle surrounded me, its symbols pulsing with soft light that made my medical training want to argue about impossible things.
Will knelt nearby, and something in my chest ached at the sight of him. His usual corporate polish had cracked completely, revealing something ancient and terrible beneath. But his movements remained gentle, almost tender as he arranged items that looked centuries old: a bronze bowl that pulled at healer's memories, Vale's vial of blood, a knife that seemed to drink in candlelight.
“I'm sorry about the restraints. But we both know you'd try to stop this, and I can't...” His voice cracked slightly. “I can't let that happen.”
Even now, even bound in this ancient space with power humming around us, I couldn't help wanting to heal whatever was broken in him.
“Alex is alive,” Will added, answering the question I hadn't asked but needed desperately to know. Relief flooded through me, making the symbols beneath me pulse brighter. “I couldn't...” He touched a family photo he'd brought down here, propped against the bronze bowl like an altar offering. “Even now, I couldn't kill my brother.”
“Will,” I started, but he shook his head, ancient grief clear in his expression.
“You don't understand yet,” he said, hands shaking slightly as he uncorked Vale's vial. The contents moved in ways that defied physics, making my scientific mind want to shut down. “In every lifetime, I've watched you both find each other. Watched you love and lose and die, over and over.”
His laugh held centuries of pain as he began arranging candles in a pattern that felt older than civilization. “Do you know what it's like to remember every death while pretending to be just another person in your story?”
“The pattern was beautiful, really,” Will continued, movements precise despite the tremors. “The way your souls reach for each other across lifetimes, generating more power with each tragic ending.” He touched the vial again, almost reverently.
“You sound almost proud,” I said, keeping my voice steady despite how the magic made my skin crawl. “Like an artist admiring his work.”
His smile held edges sharp as surgical blades. “Aren't you proud when a particularly difficult surgery succeeds? When all your skill and knowledge come together perfectly?” He gestured at the circle surrounding me. “This is my masterpiece. My greatest working. The spell that bound souls across death itself.”
I watched him work, this man who had been Alex's brother in this life but something much older in others. His movements carried the same careful precision I used in surgery, each item placed with exact purpose.
“You're shaking,” I noted, medical training making me catalog symptoms even now. “The magic – it's hurting you.”
Will paused, something almost gentle crossing his features. “Still trying to heal, even now? That's why it had to be you, you know. Your soul's dedication to mending what's broken... it made the pattern stronger. More pure.”
He began to chant in a language that felt older than time, each word making the symbols around me pulse brighter. Power built in the air, heavy as storm clouds, hungry as open graves.
“Your love for Alex, his for you – it's been the foundation of everything,” Will explained between verses. “Pure enough to transcend death, strong enough to fuel magic that shouldn't be possible.” His hands steadied as he worked, ancient power overwhelming mortal exhaustion. “But it was never just about you two. It was about all of us. About keeping our family together, no matter what.”
The bronze bowl began to glow as he added ingredients my healer's senses recognized: herbs blessed under full moons, water from sacred springs, things that shouldn't exist in our modern world but somehow did.
“Why tell me this?” I asked, though part of me already knew the answer. “Why explain anything?”
“Because you're a healer.” Will's smile held genuine warmth. “In every life, every incarnation – you try to understand what's broken. Try to fix what's damaged.” He touched my restraints again, checking for any signs of harm. “Even now, bound and helpless, you're trying to diagnose what's wrong with me. Trying to find a way to heal whatever made me this way.”
He wasn't wrong. Even as he prepared what was clearly a ritual of enormous power, my doctor's mind kept noting symptoms: the way fatigue dragged at his movements, how using magic seemed to age him slightly, the tremors that suggested he was pushing himself beyond safe limits.
“There's nothing wrong with me,” Will continued softly.
“Let me help you,” I offered, meaning it despite everything. “Whatever you're trying to fix, whatever pain you're carrying – there are other ways.”
Will's smile held centuries of secrets as he lifted Vale's vial. “That's exactly what I'm doing,” he said gently. “Fixing everything. Making it so we never have to lose each other again.”
The symbols beneath me flared as he began the ritual in earnest, power building in ways that made my medical mind want to shut down completely. But my hands... my hands remembered other magics, other healings, other ways of mending what was broken.
The ritual halted abruptly as Vale appeared in the doorway, looking ancient and tired in ways that had nothing to do with physical age. Alex stood beside him, bloodied but alive, his eyes finding mine immediately across the candlelit space.
“I wondered when you'd find us,” Will said, sounding almost relieved. His hands never stopped moving through ritual preparations, but something in his posture shifted. “You always were the protector.”
Vale moved into the room with careful steps, his doctor's hands steady despite everything. Even now, even here, I recognized his surgeon's grace – the same precise movements I'd watched in countless operations.
“You're right about the pain,” he told Will, voice gentle as delivering difficult news to a patient's family. “That's why I tried to stop it, all those centuries ago.”
Alex tried to move forward, but ancient power held him back.
“But this isn't the answer,” Vale continued, moving closer to my containment circle. His eyes met mine with centuries of regret, healer recognizing healer across time. “I thought I could save them too, once. Thought I could break the cycle of loss.”
Will's magic crackled in warning, making the candles flicker, but Vale didn't stop. “All I did was change the pattern, make it more complex. The same thing you're trying to do now.”
“You don't understand,” Will's voice held equal parts anger and pain. “Your curse just made everything more beautiful, more perfect. The power it generates...” His hands glowed with ancient energy. “It's almost enough. Almost ready.”
“Will, please,” Alex tried again, straining against magical bonds. “This isn't you. This isn't what you wanted.”
“Isn't it?” Will's laugh held no humor. “Haven't I always wanted to keep us together? To stop death from taking everyone I love?”
The air grew thick with power as Will raised his hands, ancient magic gathering like storm clouds. Vale moved closer still, ignoring the danger with a doctor's focus on what needed to be done.
“I understand better than you think,” he said softly. “But this...” He gestured at the ritual circle, at the symbols pulsing beneath me. “This will only make it worse.”
Everything happened too fast after that. Will's spell launched, deadly and precise – magic learned from watching Alex across centuries. Vale moved with unexpected speed, placing himself between the power and my containment circle.
The impact threw him across the room, but his sacrifice did something unexpected – it broke the containment circle, shattering the symbols with a burst of light that made my medical mind want to argue about impossible things.
“I'm sorry,” Vale gasped as I rushed to his side, doctor's instincts taking over despite everything. Blood stained his lips as I checked his vitals, my hands remembering battlefield medicine from lives I shouldn't recall. “For everything. For all of it.”
Alex knelt beside us, his own bonds broken by whatever Vale's sacrifice had done. Will stood frozen, power still crackling around his hands but expression shattered as he watched him bleed.
“Stay still,” I ordered, trying to assess the damage. But this wasn't physical injury – this was magic older than medicine, power that shouldn't exist in our world of surgical steel and evidence-based treatment.
“Remember,” Vale whispered. And with that single word, everything changed.
“No,” Will's voice cracked as he watched understanding dawn in my eyes. “No, it's too soon. The ritual isn't ready.”
But Vale wasn't finished. His hand found Alex's, completing some circuit of power none of us had known to look for. “Remember,” he said again, and Alex's gasp told me he was experiencing the same flood of memory.
“What have you done?” Will's magic flared dangerously, making reality feel thin around us. “The pattern – it's breaking.”
“No,” Vale managed, though blood stained his teeth. “It's healing. The way it always should have.” His eyes found Will's, carrying understanding that transcended anger. “You were right about one thing – love is the strongest magic. But not when it's bound and caged. Only when it's freely given.”
“Brother,” Alex said softly, and something in his voice made Will's power falter. “Let us help you. Let us all help you.”
Will's hands shook as he looked at the tableau before him – his ancient teacher bleeding, his eternal brother reaching out, the healer he'd bound through lifetimes finally remembering everything.
“I can't,” he whispered, but his magic dimmed slightly. “I can't watch you die again. Any of you.”
“Then don't,” Vale gasped, his voice growing weaker. “Choose differently. Choose to let love heal instead of bind.”
The candles flickered as Will fought some internal battle, ancient power warring with modern love. I kept working on Vale, trying to stabilize him with everything I'd ever known about healing – modern medicine and sacred arts combining in ways that shouldn't be possible.
“Remember,” Vale whispered one final time, his eyes closing as centuries of carrying everyone's pain finally overwhelmed him. “Remember that love isn't about holding on. It's about letting go.”
The room held its breath as Vale's words hung in the air, heavy with possibility and power. Everything balanced on this moment – Will's choice, Vale's sacrifice, the pattern that had bound us all through lifetimes.
Vale's death shattered whatever barrier had held back my memories. It was centuries of lives demanding attention all at once. My mind tried to categorize, to organize, to make sense of the flood, but there was too much. Too many lives. Too many loves. Too many losses.
The memories brought me to my knees, centuries of emotion threatening to tear me apart. My hands – healer's hands, artist's hands, surgeon's hands – pressed against cool stone as I tried to steady myself against the onslaught of remembering.
“Partial,” Will gasped as the ritual took hold, energy crackling around him like dark lightning. “Not complete immortality, but enough. Enough to keep my memories, my magic. Enough to protect what's mine.”
The ritual's completion shook the foundation, stone walls cracking with released power. I crawled to Vale's body, my healer's hands finding no pulse despite centuries of medical knowledge. Modern training merged with ancient arts as I tried everything I knew, but some deaths transcend healing.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” he whispered, and for a moment I saw the boy he must have been before remembering everything. “I just couldn't bear to lose you all again.”
The door burst open as Will vanished in a swirl of ancient power, leaving me kneeling beside Vale's body.
Alex reached me just as my strength gave out completely. His arms caught me as I fell, steady as they had been through countless lives. The memories crashed through me again as he held me – every version of us finding each other, loving each other, losing each other while Will watched and remembered and tried to change fate itself .
“I remember everything,” I whispered against his chest, my voice raw with lifetimes of emotion.
“I know,” he said softly, his hand finding mine with practiced ease.
Vale's body lay still beside us, his sacrifice finally giving us the truth he'd tried to protect us from. I saw him now – not just the hospital administrator who'd been my antagonist, but a teacher who had loved us enough to try breaking the pattern, even knowing the cost.
“Will,” Alex's voice cracked on his brother's name. “All this time, he was trying to...”
“To save us,” I finished quietly. “To keep us together. To stop death from winning.” My hands shook as understanding settled deeper. “He loved us so much he broke reality itself, just trying to keep his family safe.”
The foundations continued cracking around us as ancient power dissipated. Modern emergency lights flickered on, harsh fluorescents replacing ritual candlelight. The contrast felt wrong somehow – scientific reality trying to assert itself over older magics.
“We have to find him,” Alex said, but we both knew it was too late. Will had what he wanted – enough power to keep his memories, to continue watching over us through lifetimes. Not true immortality, but something close enough to maintain his eternal vigil.
My eyes caught the empty vial on the floor – the one that had held Vale's blood before Will used it in his ritual. Without really knowing why, my surgeon's hands reached for it. Vale's fresh blood still stained the stone floor where he'd fallen. Acting on instinct older than medicine, I carefully collected what I could.
“Just in case we need it,” Alex said quietly, understanding without needing explanation.