Chapter 25
That night, Riya’s desk was a war zone.
Her Caltech essay blinked mockingly on one side of the screen, cursor hovering mid-sentence, while a dozen tabs crowded the
other: magical forums, botched-spell recovery guides, grainy scanned pages from dusty peri texts. Her notebook was splayed
across her keyboard, filled with cramped handwriting, erratic diagrams, threadwork theories. Her eyes burned from lack of
sleep.
Nothing was working. No loopholes. No easy outs.
She was ready to post on that godforsaken peri message board again when her phone began to vibrate.
The name that flashed across her screen made her jump out of her chair. She dove onto her bed, snatching the phone before
the call could go to voice mail.
“Hello?” she said, breathless.
“Hey, kiddo! Mind explaining to me why you left nineteen voice mails on my phone?”
Riya’s grip on the phone tightened, her body collapsing in on itself. “Sirah khala.”
She’d almost given up hope, even after finally deciding to reach out.
But it seemed her perseverance had finally paid off.
“Anyway, I was on retreat in Sodankyl?,” Sirah khala said. “No signal, barely any electricity. Just me and a bunch of overly friendly reindeer. I got back, turned on my phone, and thought someone had died.” Her voice softened. “What’s going on? Tell me everything.”
So Riya did. The words poured out of her in a rush as she recounted everything: Kian breaking Mel’s mousetrap car, the botched
love spell, and how it had all spiraled into a curse she couldn’t undo.
She was out of breath when she finished. But only silence followed.
“How long ago did this start?” Sirah asked after a beat.
“Twenty days.”
“That means you don’t have much time. Ten days, right? And the longer a curse sits, the deeper it settles.”
Riya swallowed hard. “Yeah. I know.”
Sirah khala sighed. “You do have a talent for finding trouble with magic, don’t you?”
There was no anger in it. Just recognition. Or resignation.
“I’m . . . sorry,” said Riya.
“Hey, enough of that. How are you holding up?”
Riya’s breath hitched, and for a moment, heat prickled behind her eyes. “I’m all right. I just . . . want to fix it.”
“And the boy? How bad is it?”
“Not as bad as it could be.”
“And you said you didn’t know him at all before this?”
“Correct.”
There was a pause on the other line, then a thoughtful murmur: “That’s unusual.”
“What’s unusual?” asked Riya. “Besides literally everything about this situation.”
“Well,” Sirah khala said slowly, “love spells and curses don’t create feelings out of thin air. They only amplify what’s already
there. Are you sure there wasn’t anything between you two before this?”
“I’m sure,” Riya said firmly. “We only spoke once—for five minutes.”
“Hmm.” A soft murmur came through the line. “Then how . . . ?”
Riya opened her mouth to respond but came up empty. How could she explain the inexplicable? The idea that Kian might have
felt something for her before all this was . . . impossible.
“Well, we’ll shelve that for now,” Sirah khala said briskly. “Right now, your focus needs to be on breaking the curse. You
know I can’t break this one for you, right?”
“I know. Amara and Nyra said love curses are complicated. And the only other way to break it is if I . . . fell in love with
him.”
“Wait, you told your sisters?”
“Not everything. Just . . . enough.”
“And your parents? Do they know?”
Riya’s spine stiffened. “No.”
“Well, they should. This isn’t something you can carry alone—”
“I can’t tell them.” The words shot out of her, too fast. Her throat tightened. “Not after last time.”
Sirah khala didn’t answer right away.
Riya closed her eyes, trying to slow her breathing. “They’ve been walking on eggshells ever since. Like if they say the wrong
thing, I’ll snap. Or run. Or shatter.” She clutched her phone tight. “It’s easier when they don’t know.”
“It might be easier,” Sirah said gently, “but it’s not safer. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Riya pressed the phone tighter to her ear. “I’m talking to you, right? Isn’t that good enough?”
“Fine,” she said, sighing. “I’ll keep it between us, for now. Unless things get worse. And it might.”
“Thank you.”
“Anyway, if falling in love with the boy isn’t an option, there is another way,” Sirah khala told her. “But I don’t recommend
it.”
“Tell me.”
“You’ll have to make a sacrifice. A big one.”
Riya’s stomach dropped. “What kind of sacrifice?”
“One equal to what you took,” Sirah khala said. “You took his free will—his ability to feel and choose for himself. The universe
doesn’t let that go lightly.”
Riya frowned. “But what does that mean?”
“It means you’ll have to give up something you care about more than anything else. Something that defines you.”
Something that defined her? Her mind rushed through possibilities—her telescope, her position on Student Council, her routines, her notebooks—but none of them felt big enough.
Then it hit her. Like a dropped glass in a silent room.
“Caltech,” she whispered.
Because it wasn’t just a college. It was the finish line she’d been crawling toward for years. The reason she’d missed parties,
skipped birthdays, spent whole weekends buried in labs and simulations and studying while other kids lived their lives.
It was safety. Structure. Control. But more than that, it was proof that she wasn’t a failure. That she didn’t need magic
or shortcuts.
Just hard work. Just herself.
Without it . . . who was she?
And yet—
Hadn’t she wished for something like this? In the bookstore, when Kian bled and her hands trembled—she’d wished the cost could
fall on her instead.
And now in all the universes, in all the possibilities of the multiverse, she ended up being the Riya who would have to give up Caltech.
Her voice wavered. “What are the odds?”
Sirah khala let out a slow breath. “Oh, Riya.”
“I guess that’s why they say to be careful what you wish for, huh . . . ?” Her voice broke. “But Caltech . . . it’s the only
thing I’ve ever trusted. It’s—it’s everything.”
“I know,” Sirah khala said gently. “I’m so sorry. I wish . . . I wish I’d done a better job teaching you about the risks of our magic. I should have—”
“You did everything you could,” Riya cut in. “I’m the one who didn’t take it seriously.” She paused. Bit her lip. “So then what? I give up Caltech, and the curse will be broken
for good? Guaranteed?”
“Yes. Peri magic is . . . difficult, but it doesn’t play tricks.”
“But Kian will still lose his memories, right? Of everything that happened between us. Like it—like it never happened.”
“. . . Yes. That’s right.”
She remembered the passage she and Kian had read earlier this week. She’d thought she’d understood it, clinically, detached,
the way she understood formulas, a line in a textbook. Now, though, it felt like watching someone slip through her fingers
in slow motion.
And in the end, she would lose everything. Caltech. Her future. And—
There was a faint sniffle on the other line.
“I’m taking the first flight out as soon as I can,” Sirah khala whispered. “I don’t want you going through this alone. We’ll
talk . . . logistics then. Okay?”
“. . . Okay.”
“I love you.”
Riya clutched the phone tighter, knuckles white. The words caught in her throat, but she made herself say them.
“Love you, too.”