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CHAPTER NINE

I found it hilarious that the next day in English class, our discussion topic was on Jekyll how the human psyche can twist things, distort them if they’re not acknowledged.”

I nodded. “So, Hyde is just Jekyll’s repressed gay side.”

“That’s certainly one reading of it, but I don’t think it’s really Jekyll & Hyde that had you so upset.”

“It’s just stress,” I said, not meeting his eyes. “Senior year. I haven’t heard back from any colleges yet, that type of thing.”

“Well, it’s early days yet,” he said, even though it wasn’t, and half the class had got their acceptance letters already. “You’re a smart girl, I’m sure you’ll have no problems.”

“Thanks,” I said. “You wrote me an awesome recommendation letter. I’m sure that will help.”

But I cared less and less about college all the time. It seemed like a dream I’d had, that I’d forgotten nearly all the details of. There was only a vague feeling left. There was so much going on in the here and now that college was totally eclipsed by it.

Althea was still back at the manor. She’d messaged me a few times to update me on her research, and to tell me the curator said I’m not welcome back there after exposing his precious book to radiation from my phone. She hadn’t had any more visions. At least, not that she told me about. I took that to mean we had a little time before my father’s next move.

Nikolai had less luck. Nobody in his immediate family had heard from his drunk uncle in over a year. The last they’d heard, he’d gone to take part in a ritual in the Siberian wilderness. It all sounded super shady, so I didn’t ask for details, and Nikolai didn’t offer them. He said he’d keep asking around, maybe some of his uncle’s friends had details, but it was a long shot.

My part of the plan was going a little better. If I wanted to lure Other-me back, all I had to do was dangle the lodestone in front of her. Even if she knew it was a trap, she’d walk right into it. She was so arrogant, thought she was so much smarter than me, that she wouldn’t even think twice.

The hard part was, we didn’t know how much freedom she had. We could lure her all we liked, but if she was locked up in some dingy little cell in my father’s compound, that wouldn’t help at all. I didn’t really want to stage another breakout. Every time we broke through my father’s defenses, he tightened them. I wanted to leave a few holes in his security for when I really needed to use them.

The easiest way for us to contact her was through my soul bond with Tennyson. She could hear any messages he had for me. Even though we couldn’t hear a response, we could let her know we were coming. The only problem was, to do that, we’d need to let Tennyson in on the plan, and I knew he wouldn’t like it. Not breaking Other-me out, but definitely not the ritual.

And honestly, I didn’t like it either. Even if everything else was in place, I didn’t want to go through with it. We didn’t have nearly enough details, so anything could go wrong with it, and even if it all went to plan, what then? She’d be some Mr Hyde, bursting through my consciousness and taking over? Or worse still, we’d both be in the driver’s seat, struggling for control. I wasn’t sure I could live like that.

Though if it stopped my father, stopped these awful attacks, and let everyone live in peace, how could I say no? Even if I were a fractured shard of myself, wouldn’t it be worth it? It would be too selfish to refuse.

My thoughts chased each other around like a dog trying to catch its tail. It was a good thing that Tennyson and I were taking a break from each other, because he’d have known something was up within seconds otherwise. As it was, I avoided him.

It was horrible and lonely, especially now that Althea had gone home. Hannah was always off with Nikolai, Sam was avoiding me as much as I was avoiding Tennyson, and I didn’t want to hang out with Harper.

At lunch, if Tennyson was around, I sat with Milo and Fatima. I wasn’t particularly welcome there. Fatima still didn’t look up from her books, though she did seem a little warmer toward me now that I wasn’t a threat to her academic standing. Milo had grown into himself over the summer and wasn’t bad-looking. He made the most of that by flirting with nearly anyone who moved, and using any spare minute to work on his Insta or TikTok accounts. He did not want me in frame for either, and I had to stay out of his light. That made it hard to eat lunch, so half the time I’d just give up and sit by myself.

It was kind of sad. I felt like I was living out the last days of my life, so I should be taking full advantage of them. I missed Tennyson, sometimes unbearably. All I wanted was to be with him, to spend every second of the rest of my life with him, to imprint every moment together so deeply on my soul that nothing could ever erase it, but he had enough to deal with. I didn’t want to burden him.

Finally, Althea came back. She was loaded up on research, and it wasn’t promising.

“Everything I’ve found confirms what was in our translation,” she said, hoisting a pile of books into my arms. I was surprised the curator had let her take them, especially when he knew they’d come near me. “And before you ask, I read through texts other than what the curator suggested, so there’s no bias of his in any of this.”

I set the pile of books on the table in front of me. The titles weren’t encouraging. Soul Magic: The Darkest Art and Apocalyptic Prophecy , that kind of thing.

“Honestly, I wish Sam’s mother were here. She had a really good handle on all this type of thing. She said you were ‘the one’, didn’t she?”

I rolled my eyes. “A few times, but that was more to do with her and my father’s crazy research, I think. Nothing to do with a prophecy. I think they messed with my genetic code or something. Sam’s too. She said that’s what ‘The Others’ are, just people who aren’t straight up lycanthrope or magic user or fae or whatever.”

“Just because something’s science, doesn’t mean it can’t be magic as well,” she said, distractedly. She was rifling through a big file of papers, then pulled something out. “I went into the cell where we’d been keeping her at the manor. She’d left all her notes and everything there. Take a look at this.”

I was a little dubious about anything Mrs Spencer might have notes on. She had some pretty wacky theories, and unethical ways of testing them out. Maybe not as bad as my father, though I didn’t know enough about what she’d been doing to say that for a fact.

I read through the notes. My blood ran cold. It matched up almost exactly with the translation of the ritual from the old book. On the back of one page, she’d scribbled a list of names, mine and Sam’s included. They’d all been crossed out, all except mine.

“We should get Nikolai to look at this,” I said. “To see if it matches with what his uncle said.”

She nodded, still flicking through her file and pulling out more pages here and there. “We need to tell Tennyson, too. We probably should have told him earlier.”

“Told him what?” Tennyson said from the doorway.

I muttered a swear. Every. Single. Time . You’d think I’d have learned by now that he was always loitering around like a creeper.

I sat down and let Althea explain. She understood it much better than I did, anyway. As expected, Tennyson hated it.

“No,” he said. “Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

I rolled my eyes. “We don’t have a better plan.”

“Anything is a better plan. Doing nothing is a better plan. Losing your powers forever is a better plan. Nothing is worth this.”

“You’re overreacting,” I said.

“You’re underreacting,” he replied.

“It’s not as if I’ll die or something.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure? If you’re not still you, then where are you? Who are you?” He stood up and started pacing. “If your soul and her soul merge, does one of you lose your soul? Surely two souls can’t reside in the same body. What will happen with our bond?”

He kept on pacing and shooting out questions. He was panicking.

I stood up and grabbed him by the hands, forcing him to look at me.

“We’re going to research this completely before we do anything,” I told him. “If it’s not safe, we won’t do it. You’re not going to lose me, not to her. Not to anyone.”

I was vaguely aware of Althea leaving the room, but all my focus was on Tennyson. I’d forgotten his warmth, his scent. I closed my eyes and just let myself appreciate the moment, being there with him. I felt his hand in my hair, then he pulled me closer. He held me so tightly, as if he could keep me there through his own will, keep the waves of the future from washing me away.

“I hate this,” he whispered against my skin. “I hate being apart from you.”

And even though I knew it was for the best, even though he’d been doing so well as alpha while we were apart, I hated it too. Even though I knew it was dangerous, just for a moment, I let the walls of our bond come down. Just for a moment, the two of us became one, and it was perfect.