Chapter Forty-Six #3
Her mind kept slipping, dragging her backwards, stitching the present over the past until she couldn’t tell where one era ended and the other began.
Same kind of room. Same kind of noise. The same stupid decorations.
She could almost see it layered over this one — the first party, the first time.
The exact place she’d been sitting, drink in hand, already halfway to leaving.
The exact moment she’d looked up and found him: Steve Jobs, in his black turtleneck.
Theo, before everything that happened between them. Before cinnamon rolls and memory loss. Before a witch’s spell and magical wallpaper.
Augustine felt a rising surge of not quite panic, not quite pain, but something in between. She turned, already moving towards the door, her heartbeat too loud in her ears, her thoughts tangling over each other.
You don’t get to do this twice, she told herself. You don’t get to rewind something like that and pretend it’s all fine—
“Augustine!”
She stopped, flinching slightly. It was Celestine. Augustine slowed just enough for her to catch up, already shaking her head.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, the words tumbling out before Celestine could even hand over the drinks. “I can’t— I thought I could, but I can’t actually do this.”
Celestine studied her face for half a second, something perceptive flickering behind her eyes. “Okay.” Her sister nodded. “Let me come with you, though.”
“No, no, you should stay and enjoy the party,” Augustine replied.
“I’m not going to enjoy it knowing you’re in a state.
Come on, let me get my coat, tell Maddy .
. .” They both spotted Maddy, backed in a corner, her arms flung round a man in a red devil suit.
Augustine could tell it was taking all of Celestine’s willpower for her not to roll her eyes.
“Okay, then,” Celestine said slowly. “Let me just get my coat.”
“No, no,” Augustine argued again. “You should stay. Honestly. I just need to be alone. A quick walk, a ride on the DLR and then into bed. I’ll be fine.”
Celestine looked at her sceptically. “Ags—”
“I’m really okay. I just need to not be here.”
Celestine nodded slowly. “Okay,” she finally agreed. “But you message me the instant you get home, okay? As soon as you walk through the door. Text, WhatsApp, email, I don’t even care if you have to send one of your spirit friends to tell me. Just let me know.”
Augustine nodded, reaching up to kiss Celestine on the cheek, avoiding her sister’s fake fangs.
Then she was gone, out into the hallway and into the lift. She’d been here before, she recalled. From this very lift she’d fallen straight into Theo’s arms, and for one small, unwise moment Augustine imagined the lift doors opening again, revealing Theo on the other side.
But no. The doors slid apart with a clinically bright ding, revealing nothing more on the other side than a sparse lobby and polished floors. No warm smile. No black turtleneck.
No Theo.
Augustine headed out into the cold night. The city hit her all at once — traffic, voices, the distant hum of everything continuing exactly as it should. Augustine wrapped her coat tighter around herself and started walking, fast, like she could outpace whatever had just happened back there.
I should never have gone back, she lectured herself. I should have just stayed at home. Made more candles. Watched Stranger Things. Anything but go back.
The DLR station loomed ahead, bright and familiar, and she fixed her eyes on it like a finish line. She got the first train towards Greenwich that she could, hardly noticing the thrum of people around her in costumes or the steady rhythm of the train beneath her feet.
The walk back to The Priestess Reversed felt like it took forever, but when the little shop came into view, she breathed an audible sigh of relief.
She was almost there. Almost there, and—
“Hey!”
The voice cut through the night behind her, clear, certain and close, and Augustine stopped. Something within her froze, because the voice . . . the voice was familiar. Far too familiar.
Warily, she turned towards the sound — and immediately tripped, her foot catching on the uneven pavement, her balance tipping forward before she could correct it. As she fell a sharp, startled breath left her throat, and she braced herself to hit the ground.
It was completely unexpected, the hands that caught her around the waist, breaking her fall.
They were warm and solid, hoisting her up and settling her easily back onto her feet.
For a second, she didn’t move. Didn’t think.
Just felt the overwhelming warmth from skin that was still upon her, the steadiness of hands not her own.
The realness of someone who, for months now, had felt impossible.
Her heart slammed violently against her ribs, because no.
No, no, no.
It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Augustine raised her eyes.
And there he was. He wasn’t a memory, or a ghost, or something her mind had conjured out of nothing, a patchwork quilt of a man made from grief and longing.
No. He was real and he was there.
Theo.