Sever (The Ever Series Book 3) (18 page)

There are thousands of questions I want to ask the young girl next to me, but I’m afraid I’ll only be met with the same look of bemused curiosity. I close my eyes and try to keep the guilt from consuming me as I imagine the look on Ever’s face the moment I launched myself into the mirror’s blackness.

When Aimee jumps up with childlike glee, I look around for any sign of Alex. Following her to the edge of the water, I look down. Instead of my reflection, I see a young girl’s bedroom reflected below. Suddenly a human girl wearing pajamas appears. She would be around Aimee’s age, if Aimee were a human. The girl smiles and waves at Aimee.

“Aimee!” I whisper. She looks up at me. “Who is she?”

“My friend Madison,” Aimee says back.

When they start giggling and talking, I suddenly feel like I’m babysitting. Then the water ripples, and I see Audra.

“I don’t have much time. Once you find him, come—”

Audra’s image disappears, and Aimee frowns at me.

“Why does Audra not
have time
?” she asks, returning to her spot on the bank.

I shake my head. Clearly Aimee understands some aspects of human reality. Time, though—not so much.

“Aimee, I need to find him. Can you tell me where the traitor is?”

She points into the distance, and suddenly I see a vast ocean of what looks like fog. Rising out of it is a shimmering palace of glass. I shiver as I imagine paying the ferryman to cross the river Styx.

“Can we go there?” I ask desperately.

Aimee shakes her head when I look down at her.

“It comes to us,” she says.

“What is that place?”

Her smile fades.

“It is pain.”

Seeing the emptiness in her eyes, I feel a chill deep down.

T
he weight of my decision—of all my decisions since I first saw Ever—comes crashing down on me. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m in another world, in a reality I will never understand, searching for someone I loved in another lifetime. When I start crying, Aimee, who’s sitting on the bank next to me, looks over at me with a curious expression. Apparently having a very human meltdown is new to her, too.

“Are you hurt?”

I shake my head.

“Sad?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I mumble.

“You’ve come for the traitor,” she says, her tone cheerful.

I smile helplessly.

“Have you met him?” I ask.

“He saved me from the palace. He is the one who brought me here.”

“He … is?”

She nods again.

“He promised I would come with him.”

“When?”

I shake my head when she gives me another puzzled look. Then she turns, pointing excitedly. I flinch when I see the glass palace almost upon us. Before I can blink, it’s right in front of us.

“If they sense you, they awaken,” Aimee whispers.

Hearing the tremor of fear in her voice, I stand up. She’s already running—away from the palace and me.

“I can take you no farther. I’m sorry!” she calls back.

I nod—to myself. This is my responsibility, not anyone else’s. But as I look around, I see no indication of life. Aimee is long gone, and—apart from whatever was chasing us—I haven’t seen another living creature. There’s nothing here but a floating glass castle in a sea of mist. Aimee said Alex was coming to me, so I have to assume this is what she meant. I wait nervously for the castle to drift closer. It doesn’t.

Then I feel a strange surge of energy. Something familiar. I follow the feeling—a memory maybe.

Suddenly I feel Alex take my hand. His other hand slips around my waist, and when he pulls me in closer, my breath catches. I look up into his startlingly blue eyes, afraid to breathe or move. He pulls me closer, and his fingers brush my bottom lip. The pleasure jolts me back to my senses.

He’s here! I can
feel
him.

Walking toward the water, I tentatively test the surface.
Holy
… It isn’t water at all. It’s solid, but slick like ice. Taking a ragged breath, I bury my fears and cast myself out onto the ice, focusing all my energy on the connection with Alex. By the time I look up again, the castle appears as though it’s miles away.

Things aren’t as they appear to be here
, I remind myself. The second I have the thought, the gleaming, shimmering castle is towering above me. But there’s no way in, just like the fairy tale
Rapunzel
.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair
…” I whisper to myself. “Come on, Wren. Find a way. It’s here; you’re just not looking the right way.”

Then I see it. An entrance at the top of a far tower. I frown again. If my mind is creating my reality in this world, then I have to wonder why it’s making everything so freakishly difficult. Moving toward the castle, I almost expect a forest of thorns to appear straight out of
Sleeping Beauty
.

Before I’ve even finished thinking it, a gnarled mass of thorns rises out of the ice, blocking my view of the castle. I let out a strangled cry. That is
it
! I’m so done with this place. I refuse to have one more thought that this twisted world can use against me.

When a piece of gnarled blackness slices my arm, I reach down and draw my blade, slashing my way through the bramble. Thorns dig into my arms and legs, but as soon as I feel the pain, the wounds begin to heal. Fighting my way to the wall of impenetrable glass, I look up at its sheer face. Last year in Tierra del Fuego, when I asked Alex if we were going to climb a massive glacier—and he looked at me like I was crazy for even thinking it. Because, apparently, teleportation had been the more logical option

I decide to test the bounds of this world’s reality. Looking up, I focus on the entrance and then gasp with shock and triumph when I find myself standing at the entrance to a glimmering palace. Every surface I look at shimmers like diamonds. As I take a step forward, I remember what Aimee told me.

…
if they sense you, they will awaken
.

Walling off my thoughts, I study my surroundings and begin to see forms emerge. They’re frozen like the
Sleeping Beauty
fairy tale—pair after pair of frozen eyes staring at me but not seeing. Shivering, I carefully guard my thoughts as I walk through a dazzling hall that’s been ripped straight out of the fairy tale. From my childhood, I remember in the animated classic my mom had played for me over and over that the prince had fought his way to the tower to rescue her.

Only now the prince is …
me
. I’m the hero on a quest. Walking past frozen tableaus of what my brain assumes this world and its inhabitants look like, I feel like I’m taking a tour of a wax museum after hours.

Alex
, I think.
Where are you?

Then I feel a weight tugging me like gravity. Suddenly I’m falling again. I fall and fall before landing—upright and unhurt—in front of a large, transparent door. Looking up, I feel myself weaken when I see Alex’s unmoving form, his head bowed. His back is to me, and he’s suspended upright by invisible forces, the skin of his back marred with lacerations. I also see a perfect set of bite marks on his right shoulder. Pressing my hands against the transparent surface separating us, I push, hoping I’m not too late.

Backing up, I get a running start before colliding with the surface. Apart from a searing pain in my shoulder, I achieve nothing. I study the door. There’s no handle, no lock—no way in. Raising the blade that I’ve kept lowered at my side, I plunge it into the clear surface. My weapon instantly sticks, and I can’t pull it back. Frowning, I decide to try another strategy.

This time, I continue to push instead of pulling. With all my force, I jam the blade into the surface, and when my weapon pierces through to the other side, I feel it pulling me with it. Suddenly I’m standing on the other side, staring at Alex.

Finally I see it—a blade, much like mine, straight through his back. For a few terrible seconds, I’m afraid. I’m afraid that, despite what Ever has told me, Alex actually is dead. My eyes sting. Then a blood-red tear hits the floor. Without thinking, I hurry toward Alex and pull the hilt of the blade from his flesh, watching as he falls to the ground. I drop the weapon and fall to my knees next to him. Brushing Alex’s forehead, I touch his unruly copper hair.

“Alex? Can you hear me?” I whisper gently.

His eyes open instantly, but the look on his face is filled with pure hatred and revulsion. Suddenly he’s standing over me, and that’s when I realize that the blade I just dropped is being held against my neck.

“Does your cruelty know no bounds, highness?” he spits with venomous loathing.

Alex doesn’t recognize me. I came here to save him, and now Alex is going to end my existence. I take a moment to appreciate the irony—that the one who saved me is going to be the one to kill me.

“Alex?” I whisper. “Please.”

I feel the knife cut deeper into my skin as his features cloud over in confusion. Closing my eyes, I wait for the end.

“Wren?” he utters in disbelief.

I open my eyes, but I can’t nod—or I’ll decapitate myself.

“Yes,” I gasp, my voice barely audible.

“No.” He shakes his head. “It’s not possible.”

He’s not talking to me—he’s talking to himself. And he called me
highness
. Slowly I begin to understand that he might be totally and completely bonkers by now. Or, worse—he thinks that Victor’s crazy witch of a princess is imitating me.

“Alex, do you remember that night in Tierra del Fuego? When I said I could love you … in another lifetime?”

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I reach up slowly and touch his cheek, waiting for the blade to dig deeper into my neck. As I touch his cheek, some of the scars begin to fade and then disappear. Suddenly the blade drops from his hand, and he touches my lips with his thumb. For the first time in this dimension, I feel a spark of heat.

“You’re here,” he whispers. “I’ve imagined it over and over, but … it’s you. You’re truly here.”

I can’t tell if this is the best—or worst—news possible in his mind. Reaching out, he brushes the tears from my cheeks.

“Ms. Sullivan, does this mean you’ve forgiven me?”

I laugh shakily.

“No way. I’m never forgiving you.”

My heart sinks as I say this. I told myself that all I wanted was closure, but right now, as he smiles in that wry smile that I both hated and loved so much, all I want is to kiss him.

“I thought the prince was supposed to kiss the sleeping beauty to break the curse,” he says with a sly grin.

When he arches his eyebrow, I blush.

“Well, there are a couple of things wrong with that,” I point out. “First, I’m not a prince, or even a princess. Second, you held a blade to my throat the second you woke up. So—”

He pulls back and looks me over, clearly amused.

“I must say I respect your wardrobe choice. Very fashion forward.”

“Hey! I thought I was going to show up to rescue you in pink pajamas. I say this is an improvement.”

He touches my cheek, his eyes instantly serious again.

“I thought I would never see you again,” Alex says quietly.

“You saved me. I figured I’d return the favor,” I shrug, trying to sound indifferent.

The expression in his eyes changes.

“You said you could love me in another lifetime.” He pauses as he stares down at me. “
This
is another lifetime, Wren. … And you’re all I’ve wished for during an eternity of pain.”

His words shatter me into a million tiny pieces, but before I can start crying again, his arms slip around me. I don’t fight it. I don’t question it. And when I finally meet his eyes, he bends toward me. I don’t have time to regret my decision as his lips come down on mine, causing a rush of relief and electricity to course through me.

My hands slip into his hair as he lifts me into his arms. If I had doubts about my physical form in this dimension, they’re gone. I can feel every inch of my body, which is burning against his. And in this moment, I give up everything else.

In this moment, there is only Alex.

Then I hear the sound from my nightmares. Clapping. The same as the night Alex took Ashley, when I still knew him as Iago, the traitor. My eyes fly open and my muscles tense as Alex sets me down. Turning to face my nightmare, I’m stunned by how beautiful she is. Her flowing red hair is a striking, unnatural shade of crimson. And her eyes. Glowing with blue fury, they reveal her madness.

“You’ve brought me another toy,” she says sweetly to Alex.

The floor-length gown she’s wearing is black, iridescent, and mostly sheer—the evil stepsister version of Cinderella’s gown for the ball. When she begins to glide toward us, I put my hand on the blade at my side. She just smiles and keeps walking.

“We could have so much fun,” she says with revolting seductiveness. “With both of them.”

My lip curls as I realize that she’s A) talking to me, and B) referring to torturing Alex … and Ever.

“Join us,” she purrs.

“Give me one good reason.”

“Because I shall allow you to keep your toys … and I will teach you how to be
much
more creative. After all, two is better than one.”

Her blue eyes sparkle with mad glee as her gaze shifts to Alex.

“Or how about I trap you here with no toys at all?” I hiss.

Taking the blade from my side, I plunge it into her chest without hesitation, watching in horror and fascination as she freezes into an ice statue. Then, for several seconds all I can think is: That was way too easy. By the time I turn back to Alex, he’s immobile again, his eyes locked onto the ice princess.

“Which way? How do we get out of here?
Alex
!”

He tears his attention from her and stares at me blankly. I shiver.
What did she do to him
? Reaching up, I slap his face hard and wince as pain shudders through my hand. When he blinks, I take his hand and begin yanking him toward the tower window that has suddenly appeared straight out of the
Rapunzel
fairy tale. At the edge, I look at Alex again.

“Do you trust me?” I ask.

He smiles, suddenly his old self again.

“I would follow you anywhere, Ms. Sullivan.”

Good
, I think to myself,
because I have no idea what I’m doing
.

“First …” Alex leaves my side, and I watch as he wrenches the blade free of her chest. He walks back to me and holds out the blade. “We’re going to need it.”