Page 5 of Zero Happily Ever Afters (Branches of Past and Future #4)
I soared through the evening sky, zipping across the land in a blur of psychic energy. It didn’t take long to pinpoint Milo’s mind. He was a single star in the cluster of the cosmos, but he burned as bright as the sun. It didn’t matter that a galaxy of minds buzzed around me. It didn’t matter that I traveled faster than light and further than sound or that my branch should’ve stretched thin and shattered a hundred times over from the distance. I breezed ahead, fixating on what I’d learned.
Manifestations weren’t a separate entity. In retrospect, I always knew that to a degree. I mean, they were me. They were my thoughts split into two forms at the same time. Forms that allowed me to use my telepathy without restraint or distraction in my day-to-day life by turning the volume down, so to speak. I left my other half to his devices, making observations and then informing me later when we merged back as one entity. But then there was the vile manifestation, the one who plotted and conspired and brought death where he walked. I’d met him before, an active, engaging manifestation who warped my perception of how my psychic energy worked.
But he was never a manifestation, merely a persona. A figment of personality traits, an arrogant piece of my imagination that sprouted real desires. And while I knew everyone had personas, fantastical sides to themselves that dwelled in their imagination, I didn’t spend a lot of time in people’s imaginations. Either they ran wild with chaos or were dim and depressing, dying a slow death as reality seeped into every waking thought, preventing a mental escape.
One day, someday, I’d need to delve into the deepest recesses of my subconscious and account for every possible persona lurking in those shadows. What happened with the Doppler would never happen again. While I knew attaching to Milo was a priority and teaching my students another, I’d ensure that both halves of my conscious mind worked to master my magic. I’d strive to make sense of it once and for all.
For now, I focused on Milo. Having finally reached him, I sighed a deep exhale of relief. Sure, I was nothing but magical energy, and breathing didn’t actually fill my nonexistent lungs in this psychic phantom-like form, but it still offered me a reprieve, a chance to think and compose myself before attaching to Milo. My other half was probably already wondering when he’d need to message Milo about this development and creating a schedule on when to check the memories and observations I made.
Milo walked through the airport, a swagger in his steps, even though exhaustion weighed heavy on his shoulders. His flight had an unexpected layover thanks to some high-flying fiends. Waiting for the airport in Kansas to get a half-decent enchanter to banish the demonic energy took forever, and Milo hated the restrictions on licensing across state lines. Sure, in the case of an emergency, Enchanter Evergreen could’ve swooped in and cleared away this threat in minutes without fear of a fine or penalties. But since everything The Inevitable Future gleaned from his potential outcomes, it seemed the only way their state’s general attorney would consider the incident an actual emergency was if those fiends formed into a demon and ripped one of the plane’s wings off.
Not every state, every branch of government, worked well with guilds and enchanters. Turned out Kansas was quite adamant their local authorities could handle any threats, which explained why they had the highest warlock mortality rate in the country and often required National Guard intervention on their demon populace.
None of that mattered now. Milo had arrived. It didn’t take long for the Global Guild representatives to find him and make swift introductions as they escorted him out of the airport.
A group of fifteen people circled Milo, taking pictures, measurements, jotting notes, feeling the skin of his hands, his cheeks—one even squeezed the tips of his hair then played with the gel between their fingers. It was as if they only had one job to do. An invasive one at that, but Milo didn’t seem too shocked by their actions since he’d caught glimpses of the possibility and had years of experience with the Cerberus Guild PR team. Granted, they weren’t as handsy.
“I’m Ronald MacDonald,” a short, stout man said with a chuckle. “And no relation. But you best believe I trademarked my name, too. That’s how good I am at my brand.”
He was a round man. Quite literally very rounded, almost perfectly symmetrical like an ornament. It must’ve been his magic, an augmentation branch, perhaps. It didn’t hinder him any. He had a sturdy build and a quick pace as he led the pack that continued evaluating Milo. I assumed because he assumed and, well, he understood the industry far better than I did.
“You’ll wish to familiarize yourself with these.” Ronald snapped his fingers, and the young woman to his left scuddled around and handed Milo a stack of papers.
Milo sighed, skimming through the confidential case files. The last thing he expected when getting tapped by the biggest and strongest guild in the world was paperwork. To be fair, they hadn’t given him paperwork. It was research and intel, so it was more like homework.
I snickered, floating alongside him as he read through the documents. The team of representatives ushered him outside of the airport and toward a parking strip where cars pulled in and out for pickups and drop-offs.
“Geez, this is a lot,” Milo said, eyeing the traffic. “Like, a lot a lot. It’s just so much.”
“The number of times I’m sure you’ve heard that, Enchanter Evergreen.” Ronald winked—not in a suggestive, flirty manner, but playful and definitely with a hint of winning over his audience.
Which worked. Milo laughed, then went right to work diving into the reading material. I rolled my eyes because, at the end of the day, Milo was an easy audience to appease. If I weren’t so closely attached to Milo at the moment, I’d consider delving into Ronald MacDonald’s thoughts, where I was certain I’d find a list of ways to appeal to Enchanter Evergreen’s ego. This guy was a “yes” man on the Global Guild level, so winning over top-ranked witches was a sport for him.
“I’m not sure what your team expects from me.” Milo flipped through a few pages, heart elevating with each passing second. I wanted to reach out, console him, offer him some type of reprieve from the dread that consumed him with each word he read. “I can’t see the potential futures of the dead.”
Not them directly, anyway. He needed a living anchor to read their possible outcomes. The most tragic part of Milo’s clairvoyance was he could still see the futures where dead loved ones could’ve played a role. There were hundreds of futures with Finn floating around Milo’s mind. They were like knives stabbing me in the stomach every time I stumbled onto one of those possibilities that would never be.
“Oh, not to worry,” Ronald said, grabbing a file from the stack while nonchalantly shrugging off the mountain of reported deaths in the papers Milo held.
Ronald had the appearance of a man who never dealt directly with death. Sure, he worked for the Global Guild, clearly handling dangerous cases like this one regularly, but he maintained a healthy distance from murder. Milo noted how it made Ronald oblivious to the weight and horror. Not in an insulting way, merely a uniformed, desensitized manner. After all, people died every day, and Ronald didn’t even know them, so why should those deaths sting? Milo understood not everyone could carry the guilt.
I reached out as the psychic phantom I was and consoled Milo, wishing to send him waves of comfort and healing and hopeful one day he’d stop blaming himself for every atrocity that struck the world. He couldn’t be everywhere, he couldn’t predict everything, and he couldn’t save everyone.
“See.” Ronald pointed to a section of the file he’d snatched up. “There’s a survivor.”
Benjamin Oxland. He didn’t look very old from the portrait they had on file. Maybe four or five. It was hard to say. I typically avoided little children as their thoughts were wonky, and their voices were loud. Plus, I didn’t have much patience for anyone.
Milo came to a stop, rereading the state of the child. The magic that’d killed all those people in the novel of papers he clutched hadn’t struck down Benjamin Oxland. This kid survived, if one could call it that. Apparently, the attack left him physically unscathed while in a vegetative state.
“What happened to him exactly?” Milo’s mind whirled through every magic he knew from years in the industry, from years of listening to Finn’s branch history lessons, but he’d never heard of a magic that could attack multiple minds at once and slaughter them, of a magic that could keep the victim trapped even after the witch who cast the magic had fled the scene of the crime. “What kind of magic traps someone inside their own head?”
“That’d be—”
“Oceanic Collapse,” a feminine voice answered from above.
Milo spun around, catching full sight of the woman floating above him. She wore a golden cape with the Global Guild emblem on display for all those nearby. It matched her makeup and complimented her dark brown complexion. She’d appeared from literal thin air, moving so quickly and silently that neither mine nor Milo’s magic detected her presence until she was right on top of us.
Milo’s mind turned to mush, fanboying with a thousand different thoughts on Alicia Lawrence, best known to the public as Global Gladiatrix. Which made sense as a gladiatrix was the female version of a gladiator, and gladiators were renowned for their skill as warriors and champions of entertainment. Something every enchanter these days strived for. Of course Milo would be a fan for a fellow witch in love with the absurdity of stage names like The Inevitable Future.
“Gladiatrix,” someone shouted, waving their hand and flashing the pink, light blue, and white bracelet they wore with two golden Gs.
The globally ranked enchanter posed, hands on her hips, chin held high, and chest proudly raised, displaying the heart-shaped trans flag on the front of her shirt. Her slow descent drew many eyes, many minds, and soon, people approached the internationally famous witch.
“She’s one of the…” “Whoa, I know her.”
“What’s she doing here?”
“Doesn’t she work like halfway across the world?”
“She works all over the world.”
“I can’t believe she’s here.” “Must be something big happening.”
“You heard what happened in…” “What? That was here?”
“Not here here, but yeah.” “Heard hundreds died.” “Try thousands.”
The chatty group nearly swarmed Milo as they crowded around Gladiatrix, each eager to stand beside her for a picture, for an autograph, for a chance to talk with one of the strongest witches in the world.
Physicality came in varying degrees, so much so that the licensing committee created different titles based on the level of enhancement the witch possessed. Physicality, in the most basic sense, gave a person more physical ability than those around them. It differed from mere enhanced strength or speed. It was a combination of overall physical enhancements throughout the body: strength, speed, reflexes, senses, channeling, and healing.
That, in turn, gave them greater access to their root magics. I’d seen several differing levels of physicality over the years that included enhanced physicality, major physicality, and ultimate physicality—which came from a coach between jobs and trying to earn his way back into guild life—but I’d never encountered someone with supreme physicality. I couldn’t even fathom how powerful Gladiatrix truly was. They say a single punch from her could hit harder than a semi-truck at full speed. And that was only if she held back some.
Milo had noticed how no one in this crowd paid attention to him, recognized him, or even acknowledged his presence. It was odd, comforting, and a tinge insulting. Enchanter Evergreen knew his audience was mainly back in Illinois, but he believed he had some national fame. After all, he’d recently become globally ranked, and he’d always had an engaging online presence. Still, he enjoyed watching Gladiatrix interact with her audience. Her strong stance, her poised expression, her gentle smile, and the lightest laughter when someone spoke to her. Every interaction held finesse and expertise.
Ronald stood beside Milo and huffed. “I told her we didn’t have time for a photo op.”
Milo knew that was a lie. He knew sooner than me, simply studying Ronald’s stance, the slight grin on his face, the way his eyes darted around the crowd, and every other thing that years in the industry had taught Milo to be observant on.
A quick glance into Ronald’s surface thoughts revealed how the recent attack had shaken the state, and he’d been tasked with ensuring the public calmed. He staged Gladiatrix’s arrival, a small gesture he believed would spread quickly, much like the wildfires he noted California currently contended with. I grimaced. Seriously? Even as the man’s poor taste in a comparison sat on the surface of his mind, he weaved together ideas of stealing some time from Gladiatrix’s current mission so she could assist the local guilds on the current fires that ate through suburban neighborhoods. His mind reminded me of Caleb’s if Caleb fixated solely on one woman’s career and ways to play on the public to push her approval ratings higher and higher.
“Don’t worry.” Milo smirked, pulling me from my snooping. “I predict it’ll all work out.”
“And you’d know, huh?” Ronald replied with a small chuckle.
Facts about Gladiatrix poured out onto the surface of Milo’s mind as he admired how she held herself for her audience.
Enchanter Alicia Lawrence was the highest-ranked woman in the Global Guild, sitting at number four with only three witches in the whole world deemed officially stronger than her. She was also the only trans person in the top ten rankings.
That wasn’t a detail I knew because of Milo, though he did find her queer activism admirable. But no, I knew quite a bit about Gladiatrix, such as her work to gain the trans community more recognition and acknowledgment for their history in the guild industry and how only six witches out of the several hundred listed in the Global Rankings were trans.
This insight came from Carter and Jennifer as they took on leading roles in Gemini’s LGBTQ+ Club. Each researched the roles queer witches played in the industry, in the world, and how that had evolved recently. They weren’t the only students in the club, but they were definitely the pair that made the most time for it. Each eager to share something with their members or each other, each buzzing with facts, each teeming with a desire to finally share their feelings.
Admittedly, I learned a lot about the queer community in the industry I had taken for granted when eavesdropping on Carter and Jennifer, awaiting the day one of them would confess their crush.
“You ready?” Gladiatrix asked Milo, stepping away from the thinning crowd.
“I’ll pull the car around.” Ronald snapped his fingers to instruct one of his nearby assistants to pull the car around.
Gladiatrix kept her gaze fixed on Milo, awaiting his answer. He stared at the stack of papers in his hands, then at Gladiatrix, then solemnly back to the papers, and then back to the young enchanter whose smile lightened Milo’s mood. She curled her fingers, balling a fist, and sent a sturdy wave of telekinesis through the air that stole away the files and tossed them into the hands of several representatives at Ronald’s side.
“Well, ready?” Gladiatrix asked.
“Always.” He grinned.
“Let’s go,” she said, hovering in the air. “Traffic in this city is a bitch and a half.”
With that, Milo took off alongside Gladiatrix, and both snickered and smirked as Ronald shouted at them to come back.
I kept close to Milo, enjoying the warm buzz radiating throughout him. Emotions were high, filled with excitement and energy. He focused on his casting, hoping to impress Gladiatrix. I hadn’t realized, but her flight movement was absolutely flawless. Milo studied her long, sleek hair with a perfectly tied high bun and side part that didn’t move a bit through their flight. She kept focused telekinesis around her body, basically bubbling herself with magic as a barrier that left her unaffected by the wind of flying. It also likely shielded her from surprise attacks.
“So, why didn’t your agent come?” Gladiatrix asked, pulling Milo from his observations.
“I don’t think my guild master wanted to send our PR team on a mission that’d last this long.”
“No, not your guild rep, your rep?”
Milo didn’t know how to answer. He’d never had personal representation. Guilds did all of that for their witches, helping them navigate their public image and careers.
“As a Global Guild member, you’re gonna want your own representation.”
He thought about how Ronald Macdonald and all those serving at his behest awaited Milo’s arrival, but in actuality, it dawned on him that they worked for Gladiatrix, preparing every place to serve as a stage for her arrival.
“Look, guilds are lovely, but they’re out for their best interest. You’re a potentially high commodity. Ranked one hundred in the whole world, which means everyone should know your name by now.”
Milo sheepishly smiled, honored and embarrassed that Gladiatrix knew his global ranking offhand. It paled in comparison to hers. He hadn’t felt this small and young since working as an intern while still attending Gemini Academy. It was a bizarre and humbling feeling to realize how much room he still had to grow.
“Yet not one person glanced in your direction during my photo op,” Gladiatrix continued.
Milo hadn’t taken offense to that. He actually enjoyed the break that came from not being in the spotlight, not being the biggest name in the room, not being the one whose every breath was studied.
“You should be a household name, and with the right agent, you will be.”
“Your agent taking clients?” he joked.
“Sure, if you’re looking to relocate to DC.” She spun in the air, posing, the wind blowing on her back, ruffling her golden cape, but careful not to touch a single hair on her head. “He doesn’t usually travel with his enchanters, but I am his…”
“Biggest client.”
“First client.” She smiled. “And the biggest, but a girl’s gotta stay humble.”
Milo didn’t want to relocate, though. He didn’t want to grow so big that he’d outgrow his home. Chicago was the grandest stage he’d ever stepped onto, and the idea of walking away from it… No. The only reason he even agreed to this mission, to leave the city, was to protect his home. There were unknown pieces moving in ways he’d never seen, which happened because of my magic. That damn rogue manifestation—persona, whatever—had shifted fates Milo delicately balanced, making potential futures he couldn’t account for, and he believed that the only way to save everyone, to offer the happiest ever after that aftered for everyone, was with the assistance of the Global Guild. The best witches in the world could guarantee Milo’s home remained safe and sound. But the best witches in the world didn’t hand out favors.
He wouldn’t whore out Chicago’s independence, making them reliant on the Global Guild, on the government’s whims. But a favor for a favor… That was something the greatest guild did for their members, and as a member, an official member helping them solve a difficult case, he could rely on the same if and when the time came.
“You mentioned the magic at use earlier,” Milo said, drawing his attention back to the case at hand. “I’ve never known of a branch that could kill so many people at once.”
“I’m unsure of the full extent of the magic myself,” Gladiatrix explained. “I merely know the name and basics thanks to the case files.”
“Oceanic Collapse.” Milo nodded with a serious expression, recalling the name Gladiatrix mentioned upon her arrival. Then Milo’s face fell into an awkward grin, and he rubbed the back of his head playfully to add some boyish charm. Feigned embarrassment which, dammit , looked really cute on him. “I didn’t get that far in the case files.”
“No worries. You’re better off. It was mostly an accounting of the fatalities since this witch landed in the country.”
Milo’s chest tightened, heart pounding harder, and he wondered how heavy the burden of pinpointing a witch so lethal would be. He worried he couldn’t handle the weight, the pressure of standing alongside some of the top-ranked witches. The burden and fear and stress ate away at me, too. Partly because I couldn’t fathom a threat so imposing that the best enchanters were tasked with finding and ending it, and partly because I couldn’t imagine life without Milo or a foe this strong.
I took a deep breath. Even as the air didn’t fill my lungs, the false sensation helped center my focus. Milo would be fine. He’d taken down countless warlocks and demons that stalked the streets of Chicago. He’d taken down a devil, not once but twice. He’d survived the pain of losing Finn and never wavered from it. He was the strongest person I knew, and he walked alongside champions for this case.
“Milo will be fine,” I whispered to myself.
“ I will be fine. ” His bright blue eyes widened. “ I need to stop worrying. ”
I loosened my attachment to Milo. Not by much. I didn’t have the energy to untether my telepathy, but enough to where my worries wouldn’t pass to him. I didn’t want him to have my doubts in the back of his head. I loved him far too much to burden him in that way.
The pair continued their flight, passing over an abandoned town. An empty suburb—no lights, no life. Milo’s psychic energy and mine noted as much. He didn’t sense an inkling of possible futures in the air, and the only thoughts I heard came from Milo and Gladiatrix.
“This is where it happened,” Milo said, catching sight of a few nearby threads, fates not snuffed out by the recent massacre.
They flew toward the building where Milo’s clairvoyance glimpsed people. One fate a fading ember of reds and yellows, the other a gnarled purplish blue that almost faded to a deep gray. Not quite, though.
Hmmm. I’d never noticed how the threads of potential futures weaved around people, around the area they stood, and interacted with other threads. As Milo approached, his silver thread spun around the fading ember-colored future, accompanied by a bright pink thread that came from Gladiatrix. Already, the brief interaction had created potential shifts in the futures Milo had long since foretold. I couldn’t see them. Well, perhaps if I delved deeper into his mind as our bond had grown and I’d seen many of the potentials he’d predicted, but I didn’t want to see all these maybe fates. I barely had the energy to contend with the thousands of visions neatly stacked and stuck in my head.
“So, this is the clairvoyant?” a gruff, wheezing voice asked, and an old man stepped from the building.
Milo’s eyes widened as he realized another top-ranked enchanter from the Global Guild stood before him.
“You think you can predict The True Witch’s next target before she slaughters another town in one fell swoop?”
Milo’s pulse thrummed against the back of his ear, and he swallowed the lump of insecurity in his throat. Here stood another legendary enchanter who expected The Inevitable Future’s help in stopping a threat before she struck again. A witch who already skirted the Global Guild. A witch who killed an entire town without fear of repercussion. A witch who held a frightening moniker.
The True Witch.