Chapter 3
C assius followed the tracks Aurora had made through the mystical forest—until he found her hanging five feet above the ground, entangled in a massive spider’s web. She was out of breath, grunting, as she attempted to pull from the sucking pull of the threads. “The more you pull, the more of a mess you’ll get yourself into.”
Aurora’s head twisted, her fiery gaze landing on him from between the crook of one elbow bent behind her. “What the fuck is this place?”
Cassius chuckled to himself as he coiled magic into his palms before shooting it her direction. The silky threads split, peeling off her body until she was dropped unceremoniously to the soft ground below. She jumped to her feet and backed away from the web—nearly running into another. Cassius tugged her away, and she glared at him.
Until he pointed out the other web.
“You can’t imprison me here!”
“I’m not imprisoning you anywhere.” Cassius snapped back.
“I’m here against my will!”
Cassius winced. That hadn’t been his intention. “I put you somewhere safe until I could go find Ash’s mate and tell someone to go look for him. That’s all.”
“Safe? Did I just look safe?” She growled under her breath. “You wouldn’t let me leave Enchanted Ink and then forced me through a portal into wherever the fuck we are. That’s kidnapping, dude.”
Cassius sighed. “I see how it looks from your perspective, but I mean you no harm. I’m sorry. I just need answers and then you can go.”
“I already told you what I know.”
“You never told me what spell you used,” Cassius said. “Other than the memory enchantment. What came first?”
“Well…” Aurora cringed.
Cassius’ shoulders tensed. “We might need to know what it was to reverse the damage. You have to tell me.”
Aurora remained silent.
Cassius lifted both hands in surrender. “Look… if it was something illegal, I don’t care. I won’t rat you out, I promise. We might not be able to fix what you did without knowing, though, and I don’t think you want that to happen.”
“I would tell you if I knew, but I don’t.”
Cassius sighed, cracking his neck bones. “Was it some kind of reversal spell?”
“I don’t know,” Aurora murmured. “I don’t have a name for it. It’s…” She sighed. “I’ve just always known how to use it. Since I was young. No one taught it to me, not that I remember. I just… know it.”
“Can you tell me the words you use?”
Aurora opened her mouth and shook her head. “It comes when I need it. I can never remember it until I’m in danger. Or something bad is happening.”
“Did you use it to try and get out of here?” Cassius asked.
Her eyes widened. “It… it didn’t come to me.” She frowned. “Why didn’t it come?”
“Because you weren’t in danger.”
“Tell that to the massive spiders running around here,” she spat, crossing her arms over her chest.
Cassius searched her face. Was she being purposefully obtuse or was she being honest? He sensed honesty, but Luca’s comments gave him pause. Could he trust the hedgewitch? “This spell only comes to you in moments of danger?”
“Yeah. It stops bad stuff.”
Cassius narrowed his eyes. “Like what kind of bad stuff?”
“All kinds,” Aurora said. “I’ve used it dozens of times before. Anytime things get dangerous or bad… it… it just stops it.”
Cassius eyed her, sensing no guile. She believed what she said. “Okay, then let’s see if we can’t sort this out. You said you’ve always just known how to use it.”
“Yeah. Since I was like six.”
“The first time you used it—what caused it?”
Aurora’s face darkened, eyes shining. “Someone… was… hurting me.”
Cassius sensed a wave of pain emanating from the girl. It was strong, thick, and sucked the air from his lungs. Whatever it had been, it was bad. “Someone was hurting you.”
Aurora winced. “My stepfather. He… wasn’t a good man.”
Cassius eyed a nearby fallen log and slowly moved to it, holding out his hands to Aurora in surrender. He sat down, making himself smaller to help calm her and get him access to the answers he needed. If a man had harmed her, he needed to show her he could be trusted. She already thought him her captor, so he needed to change her perspective to figure out what she’d done to Ash, and fast.
“I’m sorry he harmed you.”
“Not the first man to hurt me,” Aurora murmured, scowling at Cassius.
“I didn’t mean to scare you when I dropped you in here, but I couldn’t have you running off until I learned more. I had to let Luca know something might be wrong with his mate and have the others search for him. As soon as I did that, I came right back here to find you. You’re not my captive, and I apologize if you thought you were.”
“Yet here I still am.”
“We can go back to Enchanted Ink,” Cassius said, prepared to open a portal.
“Spider!” Aurora screamed, racing to his side, putting him between her and the spider.
One of the massive six-foot spiders that lived in the realm wandered closer. Cassius reached over and rubbed its furry head and smiled as it crooned under his touch. “They’re harmless.”
Aurora’s wide-eyed, frantic look told Cassius she wasn’t convinced.
“Did the spell just come to you?”
Aurora relaxed, but only slightly. “No.”
“Whatever sends it to you might not have sensed real danger,” Cassius murmured, her case growing more curious. A spell that appeared only when she was in true danger? How odd. He rose, opening the portal back into the Enchanted Ink building. “But it’s clear you want no parts of my fuzzy buddies, so let’s go.”
“Go where?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest and tilting her chin arrogantly. The spider began ambling her way and all arrogance was lost. She ran through the portal without another question.
Cassius followed, laughing to himself. He walked through and into the fourth-floor lounge above the tattoo studio, closing the portal as he exited.
Aurora crossed her arms again, trying to act unfazed and unbothered. “What was that place?”
“To be honest, I don’t know it’s true name,” Cassius said. “When I first learned to portal, I landed there somehow. I’ve been back many, many times since. No humans. No witches. No beings of any kind—other than animals and insects. I’ve always found it a peaceful place, so that’s where I dropped you.”
“I don’t consider spiders peaceful,” Aurora said.
“Clearly.” Cassius sat on one of the lounge’s chairs and motioned for Aurora to take the one directly across from him.
The look on her face made him think she might try to run again, but after a couple of seconds, she seemed to relent. After she sat and faced him, she sighed.
“So, you were six when you first used this spell, and it stopped something bad from happening.”
“My stepfather was a violent man. He’d hit me, my brothers, and my mom all the time, but one night…” She paused, the past revisiting her from the haunted look that came to her eyes.
“You don’t have to share anything that will cause you pain… only what’s relevant to Ash and his situation.”
“Well, since I don’t know what this power is or how it works, I can’t be sure what’s relevant and what isn’t.”
Cassius sighed. “If you were… a victim… my desire here is to not revictimize you.”
Aurora lifted her chin. “I don’t consider myself a victim. They never got the chance to make me one.”
Cassius held back the smile tugging at his lips at her bravery, as it was out of place in the moment—but he sensed the little hedgewitch might be a spitfire. It was then that he realized she’d used the word they. Not he.
They.
Did that mean there was more than one who’d tried to harm her?
“Anyway, my stepfather crossed a line and I… this magic… it just came out of my mouth. I’d never heard the words before but I… I knew them.” She shivered. “My stepfather got this weird look on his face when I was done, and he simply walked out. Not just out of my bedroom, but out of the house. He left everything behind—his clothes, his stuff, his truck—and he never came back.”
“That’s an impressive gift.”
“Impressive? I suppose, but back then, it seemed more like a curse. I told my mom what had happened, and she somehow both didn’t believe me and blamed me for him leaving. To some degree, she wasn’t wrong with the blame, but we were all better without him. No matter what she said.”
“Was there anything else that changed with that use of magic? Any side effects?”
“Other than pissing off my mom? No. He just left. The violence he’d inflicted on us all stopped. The pain, the fear. We didn’t have to worry about it. Not until the next stepdad,” Aurora murmured, rolling her eyes. “A carbon copy of the first. In more ways than one. I made him stop, too. And the next. And the next.”
Cassius winced. Four abusive stepfathers? Her mother sure knew how to pick ‘em. “I’m sorry you experienced that. Again, and again. No one should. Not even once.”
“By the fourth one’s departure, I think my mom realized she wasn’t going to hold on to a man with me around and stopped bringing men home for a long time—which was perfectly fine with us. She didn’t shack up with stepfather five until a few years ago, but he seems relatively harmless, thankfully, but then, he didn’t have to deal with a house filled with a bunch of her asshole kids, as past stepfathers called us.”
“The only girl in a houseful of boys. I bet that toughened you up.”
Aurora narrowed her gaze. “How’d you know I was the only girl?”
“You mentioned you and your brothers a moment ago. You didn’t say anything about sisters, so I assumed.”
“Oh, yeah, I did, didn’t I?” Aurora sighed. “Anyway, I didn’t use that magic again until… high school? Yeah, high school. A guy I was out with. He got handsy and tried to force me to do things I didn’t want to do. He wasn’t the last one of those, either.” She paused. “I’ve been around a lot of shitty men in my life, it seems.” Her gaze swept back and forth, as if in thought, searching her memory. “Nearly everyone I’ve used this on has been a man. My stepfathers, dates, boyfriends. Random dude on the street who tried to drag me into his car. Guys my friends were dating that hurt them. Two feral shifters fighting to the death.”
“And they all just walk away?”
“Yep. They walk away, never to darken my doorstep again.”
“Why didn’t you use it against me when I tossed you into the portal?”
Aurora frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe I was just thrown off balance being in a cotton candy forest with six-foot spiders.”
“You hadn’t seen the spiders yet,” Cassius teased.
“The pastel-hued, acid-trip forest with weird trees and plants was enough for the first few seconds. It shut my brain down long enough for you to lock me up there.”
“Sure,” Cassius murmured. “Or maybe you sensed I wasn’t putting you in danger.” Or whatever sent the spell her way had.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. I haven’t decided if I like you or not.”
Cassius grinned. “Have you used this spell when it wasn’t because of a shitty man.”
Aurora paused, inhaling. She let out a slow breath. “I use it if a new spell goes sideways.”
“When did you begin learning other magic?”
“A few years ago.”
“Who taught you?”
“I… ah… I’d just transferred to Boston College, and my roommates told me to steer clear of this one girl who lived in our dorm. She was supposedly Wiccan and had hexed people. They called her a freak and weird and a bunch of other unsavory names. At first, I did steer clear. I assumed it wasn’t really anything but her being different, but I was new and didn’t need to be lumped in as different, too, considering the things I’d done in the past.”
“Understandable,” Cassius murmured.
“But then I was in the bathroom one early morning, showering, and I sensed her enter before she did. I poked my head out of the shower and locked eyes with her as she walked in, and… it was like… I don’t know how to describe it. She felt like… family, if that makes sense?”
“Makes total sense. We usually know our own kind on sight.”
“I freaked out because it was… weird. I didn’t understand what I was experiencing. You’d think by twenty I would’ve met a witch before, but I hadn’t.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Bumfuck, Idaho.”
Cassius chuckled. “That’s why you never met a witch before. With small town life, it can be hard to hide who you are—especially in the Midwest where witchcraft is even more reviled than in other places. Many witches move away, which ends up leaving natural-born witches to fend for themselves with no one to guide them.”
Natural born witches? Why had he said that? If Aurora was a hedgewitch, she wasn’t natural born. Yet six years old? To show a talent for magic that young spoke that she might be.
Or what had happened to her was so depraved that it had unlocked something bordering unnatural. Was whatever supplied her with her spell a dark entity? He scanned her again and sensed no darkness.
Aurora eyed him. “Growing up, I thought I was a freak, especially when the rumors started to circulate in town and people would cross the street to avoid me. It would’ve been nice to have met another magic-user back then and not felt so alone.”
“I bet,” Cassius murmured. “At least you have now.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Umm… where was I? She tried to talk to me before I raced out, but I wouldn’t listen. I avoided her for weeks, but I was drawn by that feeling of familiarity, and I eventually sought her out. After I apologized for freaking out, Maura—that’s her name—she explained she was a hedgewitch and she sensed I might be, too—and she started teaching me a little about magic and stuff over the next year. She said I was good, but nothing seemed to work right for me.”
“Where was this—where you went to college?”
“U of Idaho, at first, but I transferred to Boston College the start of my third year. That’s when I met Maura.”
“Ah,” Cassius said. “That’s what brought you here to Salem.”
Aurora grinned. “I liked Boston, but when Maura brought me to Salem, I fell in love with it here,” Aurora said. She smiled, joy in her expression. “Fell in love with Maura, too.”
“Are you two still together?” Cassius asked.
“No.” The joy drained from her face, leaving behind a bittersweet smile. “She graduated last spring and moved back to her hometown—and she wanted me to move there when I graduate, but my journey isn’t taking me there.”
“Where’s it taking you?”
“No idea. I just feel like I belong in Salem. Other than that?” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“So, you used this unknown magic of yours when learning how to perform a spell with Maura?”
“Fairly early on, she taught me this incantation that can help you speed read. I was falling behind, and she wanted to help. I was excited. I did the incantation, and it worked well. At first. After I sped-read, fires happened.”
“Oh.”
“The first fire was small, but then the textbook had been small. I was able to stomp it out without using the spell. It had been two days between reading and the fire, so I didn’t make the connection. A couple of days later, I sped-read another assigned reading. It was out of a massive volume, and I sat it on my bed when I was done. I went to the bathroom and when I came back out, the bed had gone up like a tinderbox. Half of my bedroom was in flames. It’s crawling up the walls and I’m panicking—and the magic just… happened. Like it always does. The flames actually withdrew down the walls and stopped… at the book. When it was over, it was like it never happened, no soot, no scorch marks, no burnt bits. And I never sped-read again.”
Cassius still wasn’t completely sure what she’d used. It did sound like some sort of reversal spell, especially if the flames withdrew, but he couldn’t be certain. In the fire scenario, it almost sounded as if she reversed time itself, but with the men whom she’d sent away, it sounded more like she’d placed a suggestion in their minds to simply go.
He didn’t see a link. Nothing that could point him in the right direction of the spell.
“You mentioned other witches had put the spell on the wolf shifters.”
Aurora’s face darkened. “Yeah.”
“I didn’t miss that you nearly called them friends. Hedges don’t have covens… so, who were these witches?”
“Hedges do have covens. Just not quite like you guys do.”
“Let me make myself clearer. It’s against the Celestial Council’s laws for hedges to have covens,” Cassius said, annoyance growing. Not at her, but at the possibility of another underground coven. “Are you a part of a coven?”
“Yes… and no.” Aurora shook her head. “It’s not so much as a coven, but a group of us who meet once a month or so to do a little magic together.”
“That sounds like a coven to me.”
“They don’t call themselves a coven. Honestly, I’ve only been hanging with them for about a year. A while after Maura left. I don’t go to all meetings; I don’t have the time. Not really sure I like them all that much, especially after today. I can’t believe they did that to those wolves. It’s not cool.”
“Exactly why hedges aren’t supposed to have covens. They tend to cross lines.”
“How else am I supposed to learn how to use magic if I don’t have people I can talk to and ask questions?”
“Hedges were never meant to know or use magic in the first place,” Cassius said. “That’s why it’s outlawed. Getting them together only multiplies the danger that could cause.”
“So, it’s better to be alone and not have a community of folks that help make you feel like less of a freak? Fuck you.”
“A community? Hedges are humans, that’s all. Sure, they might have a little witch blood in their veins, but that doesn’t mean they should dabble in something they don’t have ability to master. It’s dangerous.”
“And you weren’t dangerous when you were first learning how to use magic?”
“I was born a witch. Born with this power,” Cassius countered.
“Hedges say they are, too. I surely was, if I was six!”
“They’re not born with it.” Cassius sighed. “Yes, they may have witch blood in their veins, but not enough to use magic. Along the way, a witchblood opens a door they never should. Most often it’s done purposefully—through trial and error with stolen spells. For a few, it’s triggered through trauma, like yours sounds to have been.”
“Triggered through trauma,” Aurora muttered. “Put that on my tombstone.”
Cassius sighed. “Most hedges steal a sliver of a dark gift that was never theirs, one they will never truly master because they don’t have the strength to contain it. It often makes them cocky and unwilling to follow Council law. They think themselves rebels and end up doing magic in front of huma?—”
“That wasn’t me being cocky and unwilling to follow Council law. That was me wanting to protect people,” Aurora interrupted.
“I wasn’t implying what you did was that. I sense you truly wanted to help, and that’s admirable. But you have to understand that Hedge Magic is dangerous. It’s probably why your magic often goes wrong. Why many hedges go dark. Hedges are little more than a toddler behind the wheel of a Mac truck. They can’t see over the dash and can barely touch the pedals, but the damage they wreak along the way can devastate lives.”
Aurora’s face paled.
Cassius saw the pain in her expression, and guilt suddenly hit him in the chest. He’d not meant to upset her, but he’d had to clean up hedgewitch messes too many times to count and witnessed the chaos they’d created. Hedges were dangerous. Undisciplined. And played with magic they had no business touching.
“All I know is that piece of a dark gift that wasn’t mine saved my life,” Aurora whispered. “Saved my brothers’ lives. It stopped bad men from hurting us.” She shook her head. “I never asked for it. I was a child, being terrorized, and if I opened some door, then I’m glad I did. If I hadn’t, I don’t know what would’ve happened to us. My brothers and I might all be dead by now.”
Cassius eyed her. “I’ve never heard of a hedgewitch opening that door so young… but then, I don’t know what happened—nor will I ask you to relive it.”
Aurora stared at her clenched hands, and he fought the urge to rise and comfort her. She didn’t know him, and too many men had already crossed her boundaries.
“But that brings me back to the question that you ran away from. I sense there’s something else inside you. Something that may have opened that door all those years ago. What is it?”
Aurora met his stare. “I don’t know.”
“Then why run when I asked?”
Aurora’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “I’ve sensed something was different about me. Since meeting Maura and dozens of other hedges. While they do feel like family—it’s more like second cousins, at best.”
“And what about me? How does it feel when you’re around a Green Witch?”
Aurora shrugged. “About the same. I mean, maybe you’re a little closer than a hedge, but only by inches.” She met Cassius’ gaze. “Over the last two years, I’ve considered coming in here so many times, hoping one of you might be able to help me figure out what I am, but Maura and my hedge friends said the covens hate us, and from your comments, I suppose they were right.”
“I don’t hate hedges,” Cassius said, realizing that maybe that was the complete truth. Hedges were a nuisance, sure, but hate was a big, damaging word.
“Doesn’t sound like it to me,” Aurora murmured. “I’ve faced a lot of bias about being a hedge all over Salem—mostly from witches. Shifters? Ghouls? They’re all cool. So, I stayed away from the covens, refusing to deal with that bullshit.”
“Yet you came today.”
Aurora frowned. “If I harmed the detective, I have a duty to help. Regardless of what you guys think of me.”
“I have no desire to harm you, Aurora.” Cassius leaned forward. “And maybe I can help.”
“Can you figure out what I am?”
“We may be able to use magic to unmask what’s hidden. I sense… something powerful, which is odd.”
“Unmask? As in… someone’s purposefully hidden it?” Aurora asked.
“Yes,” Cassius replied.
“Who?”
“That, I can’t say. For all I know, it might be you.”
“I want to know what I am,” Aurora argued. “I have so many unanswered questions.”
“I sense your desire unlock the truth, but both can be correct. You can want answers all while another part of yourself, deep down in your subconscious, fears you finding it. You might know more than you realize and are hiding the knowledge from yourself.” He shrugged. “Or it might not be you at all. It could be another entity who cast a spell to mask this part of you—the same entity who allows you to use that spell of yours when in danger. Either way, I think we need to help you.”
Cassius immediately sensed her mistrust. Of course she didn’t trust him. He’d tossed her into another dimension and then foolishly shared his distaste for her hedgewitch brethren.
“While I want answers, I don’t know if I can trust you.”
“Trust is earned,” Cassius said. “And you’d be a fool to walk into any situation without careful consideration.”
Aurora nodded.
“I will remind you, though…Fate brought you here today.”
“Fate didn’t bring me here. I fucked up another spell and brought myself here, thank you very much.”
Cassius chuckled. “You spoke of a journey. You don’t consider that Fate?”
“Not entirely.” Aurora leaned back in the chair, eyeing him. “I believe there is a direction in which we’re turned toward—through birth or decisions made—and the end is not fixed nor is it predetermined. We have free will and we choose where our path twists and turns. Not Fate.”
“Yet I sense you believe Fate exists.”
“Is there someone or something pulling at the strings that cause us to twist and turn along the path? Sure. I believe Fate exists. It exists to cause misery.”
Cassius smiled. “I don’t think Fate causes misery. I think we do with misguided choices—ours and those of others. An unwillingness to listen to our hearts and minds, or a refusal to do what is right.”
“Maybe,” Aurora murmured.
“Either way, our choices do create a path. Your journey brought you to me. Now we both have a choice. I can send you on your way, your questions—and mine—unanswered or I can help you along your path. I choose the latter.” He smiled softly. “Now you have to choose if you accept that help or walk away. Free will and all…”
“Why do you want to help a hedge?”
“Because we both know you might be more than that and I’m a lover of puzzles.”
“So, that’s all I am. I’m a puzzle to be solved?”
He wouldn’t lie to her. “You are an enigma.”
“No thanks,” Aurora said, rising. “I’m more than some mystery to entertain a bored, old man.”
“Bored, old man?” Cassius said, clutching at his chest and feigning pain. He was in his seventies, but only looked to be in his forties. Yet, compared to a young twenty-something, he likely did appear old—even at nearly half his age. “Maybe I am an old man, but I’m far from bored. I’ve got a whole coven to run and what seems like an unending series of chaos knocking on my door of late.”
“Then don’t let me waste any more of your valuable time,” Aurora muttered.
“Do you know what I see when I look at you?”
Aurora rolled her eyes. He’d lost count to how many times she’d done so. “Do I care?”
“You’re a scared, young woman who might contain something powerful that I fear you’ll not be able to handle on your own,” Cassius said, eyeing her.
“Because I’m a weak hedge,” she said, cutting her gaze at him.
“No, because you’re an inexperienced magic-user, taught by hedges who have no real idea what they’re doing. You have no magical support in your life.” Cassius sighed. “While you might not believe in Fate, I do. You were led to my door for a reason, and I sense it’s much more than a spell gone wrong that brought you here. You need a mentor and a teacher.”
Aurora frowned, sitting on the arm of the chair. “It’s against Council law for a witch to train a hedge. Or so I’ve been told.”
“That’s correct,” Cassius murmured. “But since we don’t know that you’re only a hedge, I don’t see that we’d be breaking any rules.” He smiled. “Do you?”
Aurora fought a smile. “Maybe.”
“You have zero real knowledge. Less than zero if you count the unlearning from the hedges we’ll have to do. We’d have to start from square one.”
“I’m nearly done with a degree in biochem. I have an internship waiting in Virginia after graduation. Then on to a career and a life … I don’t have time to start from square one now.”
“You’re barely more than a child. You have plenty of time.”
“A child. Sure, Boomer.”
While he knew she’d likely meant to piss him off with that title, he ignored it. She was erecting walls, and he needed to keep breaking through while he had the chance. “I’m offering you an opportunity to learn how to safely use magic—and perhaps uncover who you are.”
“A lot of unknown variables there, Pops.”
Cassius knew he wasn’t offering her much. “I thought your path was in Salem? You’re leaving for Virginia?”
“An internship isn’t forever. I plan to come back as soon as possible.”
“And do what?”
Aurora eyed him, silent. She clearly had no idea what came after her internship—and from his understanding, most candidates hoped for permanent employment from their placement. She’d likely end up someplace she didn’t want to be with no way back.
Cassius held one empty palm out to the side. “Go to Virginia. Be a good human employee, working for peanuts—or free as I understand some internships are—and hope you find a way back here.” He held out his other palm. “Stay in Salem, learn how to use magic safely, and perhaps unlock what it is you truly are.” He weighed both hands in the air. “Sounds like you have a twisty-turny decision to make on that path of yours.”
“I don’t trust you,” Aurora said. “You held me against my will and then made me sit here and tell you my magical life story.”
“I never made you sit here and tell me that. I asked. You offered.”
“No. You used my guilt over what I did to the squirrel to get me to talk.” She brushed a hand through her unruly red locks. “I never tell all that shit to anyone. Did you use magic on me to get me to spill?”
“I did not.”
Aurora glared at him. “I don’t know that I believe you, and that makes this choice easy.” She rose. “I hope the squirrel is okay. Please let him know I never intended to harm him.”
“I will. As soon as we find him.”
Guilt washed over her face. “I know I should likely stick around and make sure he’s good, but—I need to get out of here.” She glanced over one shoulder. “That elevator will take me out?”
“It will. First floor opens in the back of the shop.”
“You’re not going to force me to stay?”
Cassius opened his hands. “You could’ve left at any point.”
“After you brought me back from Spiderville, right?”
Cassius sighed. “Given that you harmed one of mine—” He lifted a hand as her mouth opened, ready with argument to fly from her lips. “Accidentally or not —I think I was within my rights to seek answers to help him. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. Again, I apologize. I was concerned for Ash’s safety. That is all.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Aurora replied. She backed up toward the elevator, not taking him out of her sights. She glanced down for a half second to press the Down button and lifted right back to him. The elevator soon pinged, and the doors opened wide. “Hopefully this is goodbye, and I don’t end up in a portal right back here.”
“You won’t.”
The expression on Aurora’s face almost made him think she wished he would force her back—but he wouldn’t. She had free will, so she said. If she truly wanted his help, she’d be back. He wouldn’t force her.
She disappeared into the elevator, and it closed behind her.
“See you soon, Aurora,” he whispered, sensing that wasn’t the last time they’d come face-to-face.