Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Of course, there were no babies. Not in the room I knew.
But this is not the room I knew.
Because there is a baby in that crib and it is cooing softly. Like it is content, and happy, and every need has been filled.
In this same moment, there is a flash in the center of the room, then a doorway appears and out steps Eros. He looks… good. Shirtless. His wings are golden, his body tanned brown and strong. His hair is lighter than I remember it being, like he’s been in the sun a lot.
He lets out a sigh. Then looks over his shoulder. Like he’s checking to make sure the door is still there. Then he turns back and looks at the baby as he walks over to the crib. He has pulled a knife out by the time he arrives at the railing and seconds later the cooing has stopped and his knife is covered in blood.
He smiles, looking down at his work. Then turns, walks back through the door, and it disappears. Like he was never there.
I’m shaking my head the whole time. “Nope. He didn’t do that.”
“You just saw him do it, Callistina.”
“It’s magic.” I turn and face her. “Your magic. It didn’t happen, obviously, because you’re still here.”
She looks a little bit surprised that I figured it out so quick, but who else could this baby be but her? It’s the same room I knew as a queen.
Her face changes again, this time becoming hard. “It will happen. He will find a door, he will come here, and he will do that.” She points at the crib. “We just watched it happen. It’s not magic, Callistina. I’m not making this up. We came through the fog, not a door. But it is the same thing. What he just did was real. What he just did was his future.”
It’s starting to make sense, I think. Why she hates him so much. She has been traveling for nearly twenty years now. She has seen many things. Many things she should not know. So I guess she’s right. That was Eros.
But there is a flaw in her logic. “You’re still wrong.”
“OK.” She laughs. “Tell me how I’m wrong, my queen.”
I narrow my eyes at her, because it’s an insult to call me that now. But I put aside my annoyance and tip up my chin. “The future isn’t set in stone. It’s set in sand. And it can shift.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “That’s not how it works. Trust me, I’ve watched it all play out. I’ve checked and double-checked. That’s why it took me so long to decide to end him. I needed to make sure that time was truth. Everything that has happened, I have seen. I saw Pie kidnapped. I saw her grow up, and meet Pell, and break the curse, and go back, and make her choice again. I saw you, confused, become princess, become queen, become monster, become prisoner. I saw your punishment in the Bottoms prison and I saw your crazy costume. I saw Tarq, and his wood nymphs, and how he became the Skull King. I saw the destruction of Vinca by the dragon Madeline. I even saw Tomas’s unhappy ending.” She pauses to stare straight into my eyes. “Eros does this, Callistina. He finds a door, he goes back in time, he comes into this room, and he kills me. It’s weeks away from happening. And not only that, but he will kill you to get your power. So.” She stands up straighter and sucks in a breath. “He did deserve this.”
I don’t know what to say because the truth is, Eros is kind of ruthless. I can actually see him killing baby Pressia. And I can see him killing me to steal my bloodhorn. And cutting off Ire’s wings.
He’s capable of all of it. He is, I know this.
But in the past, though. Not in the present. Not in the near future. That’s not who Eros was when we went through the door.
“You set him up.”
“I revealed him.”
“He didn’t kill me. I’m still alive. You worked magic on us. It was a delusion.”
“To make you see the truth.”
“I don’t want to see the truth. I don’t want to force him into a future. I want him to choose. I want him to look me in the eye and do it on his own.”
“You want to die?”
I throw up my hands, scoffing. “I’m no better than him. I was a terrible queen. I mean, terrible doesn’t even come close to what I was. I was an evil queen. So what I want to know is this. Why didn’t you stop me?”
She scoffs too. “You, dear girl, are not the problem here—”
“Oh, really?” My laugh is loud. “I’m not the problem? I’m not the problem? I’m the entire problem, Pressia. I’m the catalyst for all of it. It is my obsession with Pie’s last words that causes the entire chain of events.”