Chapter 37 The Door of Ever
The Door of Ever
The four keys clinked in my hand as we climbed the stairs toward the Door of Ever.
Each one felt different. Different weights, different textures, each a symbol of what I’d overcame to get this far.
They were heavier together than I’d expected, echoing the ache of my heart as we moved. Beside me, Tarran trailed me, silent.
The Carls followed too, strangely reverent.
Carl-One’s usual sarcasm had vanished. Carl-Two looked like his favorite dog had just died.
Out of everything, the little guys had really grown on me.
I was going to miss their humor, their child-like sentiment to life.
I hoped they truly understood what this was.
The Door stood at the top of a dais, vast and quiet, carved with lines that pulsed, emitting a gentle hum like it was breathing, waiting. For us.
I turned to Tarran.
She’d stopped a few steps down. Arms crossed. Jaw set.
“This is it,” I said.
“I know.”
“You’re coming with me.”
She looked away. “You know I can’t.”
“Won’t you at least try?”
“I made my choice already,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You heard the King. The book will not let me go.”
“How do you know if you refuse to try?”
Her lips parted, but no words came. Her violet eye flickered, less bright now, fading at the edges. Her golden hair was dull, fading closer and closer to brown the longer we went. She looked more real, more human.
More breakable.
“I can’t leave,” she said quietly. “I’m not meant to go.”
“Then I’ll stay.”
“No!” Her glare met mine, fierce and wet. “You were never meant to be trapped here. You are so much bigger than this book.”
I stepped toward her, but she took a step back, mirroring my actions. She shook her head. “You don’t understand. It won’t work. I already belong to this place.”
“And what if it does work?”
Her breath hitched, but she said nothing.
“Fine,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. I turned toward the Door. The keys shimmered in my hand, reacting to the magic around them. It was like they knew that they too were almost home.
The King stood beside the Door, watching in silence.
His expression was unreadable. Regal. Patient.
One look from him, and I could tell he wasn’t going to stop me, no matter what I decided to do.
“Choose wisely,” was all he said, and the glint in his eye told me he already knew what I was going to pick.
Choices and all that bullshit.
I reached for the first lock.
Click.
Then the second.
Click.
The third.
Click.
The golden key slid into the last lock and waited.
Behidn me, Tarran whispered, “Liss…”
I turned.
“Don’t forget me, would ya?” A sad smile burned her cheeks, a tear trickling down her cheek.
As I turned the final key, the door creaked open, nothing but black stretching beyond. I pivoted on my heel, turning to look past Tarran, to the Carls who stood a little too closely behind her. Our eyes met briefly, Carl-One blowing me a kiss while Carl-Two gave me a small wave.
“It’ll be nearly impossible to forget you, Tarran,” I told her before looking back to the Carls and giving them a very pointed and cheesy wink.
And then—
SHOVE.
“What the—” Tarran gasped as she lurched forward, my hands catching her just in time to yank her with me, both of us stumbling through the doorway like a bucket of ice had been poured directly over our heads.
We stumbled, a burst of blinding light and frigid cold, pulling, tugging, swallowing everything whole. It was blinding. Weightless. Like I was falling and floating all at once.
And then—
Thud.
I hit something hard, solid, and blessedly real. Hard wood provided no cushion to my fall as I warily opened my eyes, taking in the shelves and shelves of books lining the spacve around me. The light was gone, replaced by the dim golden hue of the bookstore.
The same creaky floors, the haphazard shelves, the glass case of the enchanted book that had started me on this whole journey.
I gasped, sitting up. I was back.
But I was alone, the space beside me empty. My gut twisted, cold and sharp, like a knife stabbing through. “No, no, no, no.” Panic bit into me as I looked around wildly, half expecting to see a Carl pop out from the stacks and yell surprise!
Nothing.
Just quiet.
My breath hitched as tears pricked my eyes. How had I been so wrong? I was sure, so sure, that Tarran would come right through with me. I’d thought I was calling the King’s bluff, but the only thing I had done was sabotage myself. I pressed a hand to my chest, on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Liss?”
The voice came from behind me. Soft. Uncertain. Familiar.
I turned slowly, not sure I could believe I was still in reality.
Tarran stood there, hair tousled, a smear of dust across her beautiful umber skin. She looked disoriented, blinking at the books like she didn’t quite recognize them.
But it was her. Whole. Solid. Here.
I opened my mouth, but no words came.
Because for the first time since I’d met her, since I’d crashed down from the sky into a literal book that had spun my world on its axis…
Her eyes were brown.
Both of them. No violet glint. No hint of madness.
Just two beautiful, warm, brown eyes.