Page 91 of The Messengers of Magic
Chapter Sixty-Four
“ P en?”
Adelaide’s voice broke through the thick fog of his thoughts, but it sounded distant, muffled, as though she were underwater. His world tilted on its axis.
The longing that had burned through him only moments ago faded quickly into something else, a mix of wonder and apprehension.
“Pen, are you still here?” she questioned, her voice still breathy and full of longing.
He knocked the journal onto the floor and dropped to his knees, frantically flipping through the pages until he found it, the entry about the Nephilim and the birthmark.
The only way to identify them , the journal read, is through a birthmark, an ethereal, celestial branding in the shape of the Star of Venus, the Morning Star. This mark signified their heritage, a trace of their ancient, divine lineage.
His knees wobbled, the floor suddenly unsteady. How could this be happening?
Pen looked over as Adelaide pulled on her sweater. She reached down to pick up the journal, but Pen pressed his hand firmly against it, pinning it to the floor.
Her brow furrowed, tugging at the journal again. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice edging into frustration.
He pressed down harder, trying to get her to pause, to understand.
“Do you want me to read this page?” she asked, her tone now carrying a hint of annoyance.
Pen let go.
She scooped up the journal and sat on the edge of the bed. He watched as she began to read, her expression shifting subtly as she worked her way through the passage. When she finished, she looked up, her brow still knitted in confusion.
“I don’t understand.”
She doesn’t know. She doesn’t realize what she is.
How could he tell her? How could he make her see that she bore the mark, that she was the very thing they’d needed to find? That she was the key. The one who could destroy the watch. The one who could mend the tear in time.
His gaze dropped back to the journal, to the line that haunted him: Most of them live unaware of what they truly are, oblivious to the power held within their blood, the power of time itself.
It all made sense now. Her presence, her effect on the timeline. The growing connection between them. And it explained why the unraveling of reality had accelerated; the watch must have been reacting to her proximity.
He wanted to be relieved that they didn’t have to search for a mythical being after all, but relief was also crushing.
How could he tell her that the fate of this reality, of time itself, rested within the blood in her veins?
Telling her she was the one, the one who could stop all this, meant handing her the fate of the world, and maybe that was more than she could bear.
Pen hurried into the kitchen, The Great Gatsby still in his hand. He let it fall with a deliberate thud, the sound echoing through the apartment. Within moments, Adelaide appeared, her expression taut with concern.
“Pen, what’s going on?” she asked again.
He turned to the window, exhaled on the cold glass and wrote the words: Hidden room
“I hate this,” Adelaide said, her voice sharp and raw. “I hate that I can’t see you. I want to see you!”
Her words cracked through the air like a command, powerful and absolute, like the voice of a god.
Then, something shifted. She blinked, stared, and for the first time, her gaze didn’t slide past him or settle near him. She looked directly into his eyes.
“Pen,” she breathed, voice full of disbelief. “I can see you. I can see you!”
She rushed toward him, joy lighting up her face, but as she got closer, her expression faltered. The smile faded, her steps slowed, and disappointment crept in.
What had just happened? Had he broken into her timeline, or had she slipped into his? Either way, her powers were manifesting, even if she wasn’t aware of it.
Pen breathed onto the window again, scrawling the words Hidden room once more.
She nodded, the light in her eyes now a tangle of confusion, her brows drawn tight. She turned and led the way out of the apartment, down through the bookshop, and into the hidden room.
Pen went straight to the typewriter, fingers trembling as he began to write:
Adelaide, this is going to be hard for you to take in, so please sit down. Tonight, when you took your shirt off, I noticed something on your shoulder, a birthmark.
“Pen, I don’t have any birthmarks.”
But then, a flicker of realization crossed her face. “Was it my right shoulder?”
Yes.
She ran her fingers over the spot, wincing.
“This morning, when I was getting into the shower, my shoulder hurt; it felt like it was on fire, like I’d burned it.
” She shrugged the sweater off her shoulder, twisting awkwardly to try to see the spot.
“What does it look like?” Her voice was quieter now, worry filling in the spaces between her words.
Pen stared at the mark, the Star of Venus, shimmering faintly as though her skin were lit from beneath, a window letting out her inner light.
His fingers hovered over the typewriter keys as he searched his mind for a way to tell her. Then he began to type.
The Morning Star. Look in the dark brown journal and turn to the fourth page.
She pulled the journal from the stack and opened it, her hands steady, but her breath no longer so. On the fourth page, drawn in intricate black ink, was the symbol, five points interwoven. Below it, a line of delicate script.
The Star of Venus signifies divine guidance and the merging of earthly and celestial realms.
Adelaide stood motionless, and Pen saw her chest rise, saw her swallow, saw the exact second the truth began to bloom behind her eyes.
Without a word, she turned and left the room. He followed. Her steps grew faster, more purposeful as she climbed back into the bookshop, then into the apartment. She made her way into the bedroom and over to the journal that still lay open on the bed.
She snatched it up, her eyes darting over the page. And then she went pale, the color draining from her face in an instant. A thin line of crimson trickled from her nose, traced a line over her lip. She wiped it away absently with her sleeve, her expression lost somewhere far away.
Her eyes glazed over, and she simply sat there, silent and unmoving.
Pen sat beside her, instinctively reaching out to offer comfort.
But his hand passed straight through, as if she were made of light and vapor, not blood and bone.
The ache twisted deeper. How badly he wanted to hold her, just to let her know she wasn’t alone with this, whatever this really was.
“No,” she whispered. “It can’t be. It can’t be!”
Then, to his surprise, it was like an idea struck her, then a smile. She tossed the journal aside and sprang to her feet. She bolted from the room and out the door, and Pen followed, struggling to keep up.
“Adelaide!” he called after her, but his voice didn’t so much echo as evaporate, no weight, no sound, nothing real.
She fled down the stairs, into the bookshop, over to the front desk. The air had shifted, thickened, as if time itself had grown heavy, swollen with a coming storm. The shadows on the floor dragged unnaturally behind her, flickering like they were caught in the wake of something unseen.
She tore open her bag, yanked out a ring of keys and sprinted back into the hidden room.
Pen was right behind her, dread curling through him like smoke in his lungs. She couldn’t… she wouldn’t… it wasn’t safe…
Her steps were sure, urgent. She went straight to the desk drawer, the one that housed the watch. The key slid in and turned with a click.
Pen lunged for the typewriter.
No.
NO!
Please.
But it was already too late.
He watched helplessly as the watch slipped from the bag and into her hands. The moment it touched her skin, the room went still. Time held its breath. Then the world detonated, like a shockwave, and a surge of ancient power unfurled.
Light exploded outward, not from the watch, but from her, a raw, searing light that poured from her skin like a supernova.
Her hair lifted, caught in a wind that wasn’t there, and her eyes blazed in a molten gold.
Symbols, unfamiliar, intricate, seemed to shimmer just beneath her skin, glowing patterns tattooed in fire, shifting and reshaping across her collarbone, her arms, as though her soul had been etched in forgotten ink, as if she held an ancient text within her.
Pen was forced back, arm raised against the brilliance, his vision fracturing at the edges. She was too bright, too fierce, like looking at the truth with naked eyes.
“Adelaide, no!” he yelled, voice ragged with fear. He prayed the sound would somehow reach her, pierce through whatever trance had taken hold.
But she didn’t hear him.
She stood still, her eyes distant, and her expression blank. Her lips moved, but the voice that emerged wasn’t hers. It was deeper, resonant, echoing from every corner of the room, carrying the weight of something far older than either of them.
“I command you to bring forth this time loop and merge it back into the line of time from which it came. Cease the separation and make two become one again.”
Her words crackled in the air, each syllable warping the space around her. The walls groaned, the ceiling shivered, the bookcases in the shop rattled like brittle bones above. Around her, a vortex of light and shadow spun into being, drawing everything into its center.
And then, silence.
The glow began to fade, and the room fell into shadows once more. For a heartbeat, silence reigned.
Then the jolt came. A burst of pure light surged from her and then imploded back in on itself, sucking the air from the room. Pen’s lungs seized. For a moment, he stood there, fearing the light might consume them both, turn them to nothing more than a pile of ash.
But the light ebbed, the vortex collapsed, and stillness returned.
Adelaide stood at the center of it, in human form again, the watch slipping from her fingers and falling to the desk.
Her shoulders sagged, her knees buckled, and her body crumpled toward the unforgiving stone floor. Pen dove forward, and this time, he caught her. Not mist. Not shadow. Her. Flesh and bone.
His arms wrapped around her as she folded into him, solid and trembling. Her eyes fluttered open, and for the briefest of instants, they locked on his.
She looked at him, really looked at him, as if she saw not just him, but everything. Past. Present. Future. All the strands of time.
Then, as quickly as it happened, her consciousness slipped away. Her body fell limp against his, and Pen held her there, torn between awe and terror, between love and the impossible truth of what she was.