Page 32

I cocked my eyebrow. “If your magic is depleting, receive help from your Pair.”

He lowered his eyes as he fiddled with his bag strap. “Her magic is how I’ve survived this long, but I feel bad continuously taking from her without giving her anything in return. We’re supposed to be a partnership.”

I wanted to sympathize, but it was difficult when my anger towards Angel remained, the hurt that she’d pushed me away without even giving me a chance to explain myself.

Just like you did to Darius.

The thought cut my heart open anew, and this time I wasn’t strong enough to experience the pain my faltering defenses caused to wash over me in waves, weakening me; the barriers I’d built around my heart cracked further at Caspian’s soft, knowing look.

“If you help me, I’ll see to it you get a chance to see Angel and Iris. I know how much you miss them.”

As much as I ached to deny it, he was right. No matter how much I pretended otherwise, I desperately wanted to meet with my old friends in order to finally explain myself and hopefully rekindle our friendship. I couldn’t lie to myself and pretend I didn’t miss it, for I did, desperately so, just as I missed everything about my old home.

Yet part of me was afraid to even try to reclaim it. How could I continue to endure the Nightmare Realm if I received a portion of the world I’d left behind, one I wouldn’t even be able to hold on to?

I swallowed the tears threatening to escape and arranged my expression back into my mask of indifference. “Let me see if I understand your proposition correctly: you want me to let you winon purposeso you can replenish your magic? In exchange, you’ll force Angel and Iris to finally talk with me?”

“Exactly.” Caspian looked relieved that I understood. “I’ll only need your handicap for about a week or so. I’m getting desperate, so please help me; after all, we used to be friends.”

Exactly:used to be.But despite that painful reminder, I felt myself softening at Caspian’s pleading look, causing empathy to slither through the cracks Darius had made in my defensive walls.

But this sliver of empathy was no match for the fear that was my constant companion—fear of what would happen should Mother learn of my softening, fear of how much harder it’d be to close this door to my old self even if I’d only opened it a crack. Faltering from my chosen course, even in so small an instance as this, would make it impossible to continue to endure the darkness. And it was already nearly unbearable now.

Not trusting myself to speak, I merely shook my head. Guilt joined the overwhelming emotions already whirling within me at his crestfallen expression. Unable to bear it, I turned my back on him, hating myself for my weakness, for the Eden who reigned within me now.

My mind drifted once more to my meeting with Darius the day before. Whatever he thought he’d seen in me clearly didn’t exist. The old Eden was dead, and because of my fear she wasn’t coming back.

* * *

I layon my bed staring blankly up at the ceiling. All the emotions seeing Darius again had uncovered—my longing for him, the ache of missing him, the desires to be the person he believed me to be—raged within me, and for once I didn’t try to suppress them but allowed them full rein over my heart.

“Eden?”

Mother frowned from the doorway, but this one was different than those that usually accompanied her disapproval. When I didn’t answer she approached to settle at the foot of my bed and rest a surprisingly gentle hand on my hair.

“You’re unhappy.”

I couldn’t answer, afraid if I opened my mouth all my newly unlocked feelings would tumble out. Mother stroked my hair. I stiffened before relaxing against her soft touch, for once rather soothing.

“Why are you unhappy when you have everything you could want and more power than you could ever dream of?”

I traced my hourglass locket bursting with dream dust, which pressed against my chest like a weight. How could I be happy with my increased magic when so much of it had been stolen from the one I couldn’t stop thinking about, the one who’d admitted he’d have given me some of his magic if I’d only asked, the one whose distance only caused me to realize how fiercely I missed him?

With the passage of time, the fears that he’d betrayed me had faded, eclipsed by my yearning for him. Yet he’d never felt so far away as he did now. If only I hadn’t closed my heart to him and pushed him away, for I now realized his heart was what I desperately needed, and it was agonizing knowing it wasn’t even available to me; the Universe had chosen Shade for him instead.

But if that was true, why did I still sense the connection between us?

My heart tightened and I let out a choked sob. Mother stopped stroking my hair with a weary sigh. “Come now, Eden, we’ve talked about this: no tears.”

I forced myself to swallow them and bury my pain back inside, but some lingered, burning through me like poison.

Mother nodded in approval. “I know just the thing to make you feel better. We can garden together, just like we used to.” And without even waiting for my response, she strode to the door.

It took me a moment to move, paralyzed by all the feelings I’d fought to suppress now swirling unquenched within me. I slowly sat up and trudged to where Mother waited. She wrapped her arm a bit too tightly around my shoulders—almost possessively—and led me to her garden where she grew her forbidden plants.

The back stairs twisted further belowground to open up to a spacious chamber dug from the soil. Mother had formed a counterfeit sun for her plants, which hovered like a large, golden flame from the ceiling, lacking the warmth and brightness of the real sun, for with the constant cloudy overcast it seemed as if no such thing existed in this world. An array of plants, twisted in foreign shapes and comprised of uncommon colors, lined the plot in various stages of growth.

Trinity knelt amongst a row of jagged orange stems growing at strange angles, her fingers burrowed in the soil. Her smile stiffened when she saw me. “What a lovely surprise to see you, Eden. Are you here to assist us?”