Chapter 35 Harder and Harder Truths
Harder and Harder Truths
The door shut behind us with a quiet snick, final and weighty like I’d just received a life sentence. The King’s words still rang in my ears. My fingers curled around the cold metal of the key, nails biting into my sensitive palm.
Tarran hadn’t spoken a word since we’d left, and neither had I. We stepped back into the small, warm quarters we’d first arrived in, but somehow, the air felt heavier, more serious.
Carl-One was reclined upside-down in a velvet armchair, feet kicking lazily in the air. Carl-Two stood behind the stove, stirring something in a pot he was barely tall enough to reach.
“You’re back!” Carl-One said, blinking at us from his inverted angle. “Bit pale, aren’t you?”
“We watched from here,” Carl-Two added. “Not with our eyes, of course. Only our hearts. Would’ve been rude.”
I said nothing, not even mustering a smile at their semblance of humor. Instead, I only opened my hand and held out the key. Both Carls straightened at once.
“Oh!” Carl-One shouted. “Well, great job then.”
Carl-Two nodded slowly. “She’s the one.” Then, he squinted at Tarran. “There is something else, isn’t there?”
“I…” She trailed off.
“She used to be a sky girl,” I said softly, my heart heavy just thinking about who Tarran must have been before she entered. I’d barely had the chance to process, to understand the implications of everything the King had told us.
“Ah,” they said in unison, sounding quite unsurprised.
Tarran stepped back, jaw tight. “You knew?”
“We suspected,” Carl-Two said. “You just…showed up one day, with no idea of who you were before you got to us.”
“Who were we to question it?” Carl-One gave her a goofy smile, his cherry cheeks making him look endearing.
Silence dropped, heavy and unrelenting.
“I didn’t ask for this,” Tarran muttered bitterly. “Or maybe I did. I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“You have to go, Liss.” She turned to me now, eyes brimming with tears, raw and brittle. “That’s what we did all of this for in the first place. It’s too late for me.”
I stepped closer. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“Yes, we do.” Her voice cracked. “I stayed once, and look at me. I don’t even remember who I was. The book took everything from me, and it’s still taking. I can feel it every day I wake up here. Its bleeding me dry, until one day when I’ll lose everything I ever thought I was.”
“You’re getting out,” Tarran said, backing away. “You’re supposed to. Leave this book, and at least the night terrors will end. That’ll be something for us to celebrate.”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me.”
Her face twisted, morphing into something between grief and fury. I felt a crack in her, a fracture in her energy. “Then what? You stay and watch me unravel, becoming crazier and crazier yourself? You have a life out there! A family, friends who love you. They need you.”
My heart ached, my voice cracking on my next words. “And what about what I need?”
Tarran let out a breath, unsteady. Then, she looked at me like she was memorizing me, taking in every detail. “Go through the door, Liss. We knew this, whatever this is, was doomed from the start. We never should have gotten involved in the first place.”
I tried not to let the sound of my heart breaking be heard as she turned, storming out of the room, the door slamming shut behind her. The silence that followed was excruciating, just me and the Carls staring at the space where Tarran had once stood.
Carl-Two finally cleared his throat, clapping his hands once awkwardly in front of him. “Well, that was a hard truth.”
Carl-One looked at me, wisely choosing to keep his mouth shut for once.
And still, the key glinted in my hand.