It all happened so fast. One moment, I was standing, catching my breath after teleporting, my legs tensing to sprint again, and then —
Pain, splintering through me like nails in my flesh.
Then darkness.
Nothingness.
I didn’t feel afraid; I felt nothing at all. I could have stayed like that forever. Cold. Content. Unfeeling.
Slowly, a feeling of urgency grew inside me. Uncomfortable, clawing in my chest, blaring in my head like an alarm.
Get up, get up, get up.
I remembered who I was.
Lurching to my feet in panic, I spun around in confusion, trying to determine where I was. This wasn’t the mine. There were no walls around me, there was no dirt beneath my feet. It was just dark, like it had been when Callum guided me beyond the Veil. The scent of damp dirt and mildew was gone, the stench of rot and seawater had vanished.
“Callum?” My voice didn’t echo. It sounded muffled, as if I was surrounded by an invisible buffer that swallowed my words the moment they left my lips. “Callum!”
With a sudden gasp, I clutched my chest as searing pain seized me. When I dared to look down, there was a growing red stain on my shirt. Blood covered my palm when I pulled it away from my side, revealing a gaping wound ripped deep into my flesh.
But I still felt strange — detached, like a balloon cut loose from its string. My body was injured. I was still alive enough to feel the pain; but I was beyond the Veil, my soul ripped loose from my body.
I sat, cross-legged on the floor, and closed my eyes. Envisioning the cavern I had stood in, I reached for the familiar warmth and weight of my body…but I couldn’t find it.
My breath came faster. Was I bleeding out? Was my body dying? Callum was alone against the God, and if he…
If he died…
No, no. I couldn’t think of that. I couldn’t consider the possibility of the Deep One consuming him, severing our bond.
It wasn’t too late. That was the only hope I could cling to. I was alive, I could move, I could feel my magic still close at hand.
I needed to find a way back to my body.
Getting to my feet, I started walking. I held my intentions firmly in my mind: return to the mine, return to my body. Find Callum.
I had to find Callum.
My sense of time was warped. Only seconds may have passed, but it felt like hours of darkness. Hours of walking without any visible progress.
My heartbeat was growing weaker, my breathing more labored.
With growing horror, I realized I could feel myself dying.
Then, I became aware of vague shapes moving around me. Swaying, like long stalks of kelp in a gentle ocean current. There was dampness on my skin, and the air was cool. There were no stars overhead, there was no whisper of a breeze. It was so eerily silent.
Swallowing around the lump in my throat, I looked down to see the silvery thread dangling from my chest. It wound away from me through the strange grass, disappearing into the darkness. With no other choice, I followed it.
With every step I took, my heartbeat grew weaker. It became increasingly difficult to remember what I was doing, why I was doing it, who I was looking for.
Who was I looking for?
I stopped.
There were faint lights around me, glittering gold as they floated in the darkness like dozens of fireflies. The scent here was so familiar. Patchouli and vanilla, freshly ground coffee.
“Mama?” My voice was so tired, so small. Like I was a tiny child again, lost in the dark. “Are you there? Please…” I stumbled, falling to my hands and knees. The ground was damp beneath my palms, and I realized I was kneeling beside a small, very still pool.
It was one of dozens. Glass-like pools dotted the landscape, partially hidden by the swaying grass. The glittering lights were reflected in them, and I leaned forward, peering into the water.
“I don’t know what to do,” I choked out. “I’m so lost.” Tears dripped into the pool, sending ripples cascading across the pristine surface. “I’m not strong enough, Mama.”
There was a sensation like a hand resting gently on my shoulder, and I looked back in alarm. But I was still alone. Turning back to the water, I stared at my own reflection, but I barely recognized myself. I looked faint and hazy, a mere ghost in the fog.
“Show me what I have to do,” I whispered desperately. “Show me the way.”
My reflection disappeared. The water grew dark, shadows swirling beneath the surface like slithering eels. A vision appeared within the water, and at first, I had no idea what I was looking at. Grotesque writhing flesh, numerous blinking eyes, a gaping maw. My stomach lurched as I realized I was looking at the God. It had someone in Its tentacles, flailing and screaming.
“Raelynn!” I gasped, as the small woman struggled to free herself from the Deep One’s hold. Suddenly, she lifted her hand, a dagger clutched in her fingers. The blade shimmered with familiar magic; the design of the weapon was different, but it carried the same enchantment as the one I’d created. Raelynn plunged the knife down, spearing one of the God’s numerous eyes. She swung back, and stabbed the knife down again, ripping it deeply into the tentacle that gripped her.
The God loosened Its hold, and she squirmed free. But her lips were turning blue from lack of air.
The vision faded.
“No, no, no.” I leaned desperately over the water. “Please! I need to go home, I need to know the way!” I focused all my concentration on what I could remember of the cavern: the large pool in the center, the craggy rock walls, dilapidated mining equipment.
And Callum. My demon, my love. I held his face in my mind, willing all my magic toward him.
The water swirled, and a new vision appeared. But it wasn’t the mine, and it wasn’t Callum. It was me.
I was sitting in the garden behind the coven house, a paintbrush in my fingers. The scene was calm, serene. I turned my head, smiling as I opened my arms and a little blonde-haired child rushed toward me, embracing me. The girl lifted her head, smiling at me, and her pupils were golden.
That…that wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. I’d dutifully taken the tea my grandmother made every day, which was supposed to prevent…
But that night in the forest, when Callum and I came together to call to the fae king. I hadn’t drunk the tea that day, or the next morning, or any day since. I’d felt a little strange since then, but I’d been stressed, working myself hard.
A sudden sharp feeling in my abdomen made me gasp. It felt almost like…a kick? But that couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It had been only days. I was showing no physical signs at all.
But this wasn’t a human child. Not entirely.
My body shook violently. Why had I seen our child in that vision but not Callum? I searched the water, my eyes straining to see anything in the shadowy depths.
“I know you’re still out there,” I whispered. “It can’t be too late, please, it can’t.”
The water remained still. The shadows within stopped moving. In fury, I slammed my fist down, splashing cold water everywhere. “No! Show him to me! He’s still alive, I know he’s still alive, he —” My words caught, shuddering on a sob. “He’s still fighting. I know he’s still fighting. Please, Callum.”
Shuddering, I doubled over until my forehead lay against the ground, my eyes burning with tears. Beneath me, the silver thread that bound my soul to my demon still shimmered faintly. Clutching it, I climbed to my feet. My limbs were numb with cold, but I forced myself to trudge forward, one painful step at a time.
“Keep fighting, Callum. Please. I’m coming back. I’ll find you again.”
The mist was so thick it was impossible to see my own hand in front of my face. Fog swirled around my feet, cold and damp on my skin as I trudged onward, following the shimmering trail of the thread.
My strength was fading. Despite my attempts to ignore it, that numb feeling was spreading up my legs and arms. When I looked closely at my fingers, I could see a blackness under my nails.
Death was taking me slowly, one piece at a time.
It was impossible to tell if I was walking in a straight line or going in circles. Everything looked the same. The same white mist, the same dull gray light, the same damp cold. The injury in my side was throbbing in time with my weakly-beating heart.
“We’re going to get back, little one,” I said. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to address the little spark of potential life inside me. I hadn’t even been aware of it an hour ago, or was it a day? How long had I been wandering in the mist?
Why was I wandering at all? I was so tired. Everything hurt. Perhaps I could lie down. Just for a little while. Just a little rest.
I stopped abruptly, shaking my head as if to cast off flies and cobwebs. Holding tight to the silver thread in my hands, I pulled it through my fingers as I kept walking. Clinging to that semi-solid reminder of what I was searching for helped my focus, but confusion still battered me. My thoughts were like startled birds, fluttering away from their roost with nowhere to land.
“We’re coming back, Callum,” I said. “We’re coming. Keep fighting. Please keep fighting. We’ll find you.”
I stopped again, staring down in disbelief. Because there, at my feet, vaguely visible through the mist, was long stalks of dry brown grass.
It was a vast field. The grass rippled slowly around me, a churning sea that rattled as the dry stalks brushed together. The thread’s silvery light was brighter now, and it felt heavier in my hands. Emboldened, I walked faster, then ran. Although I had no idea where I was, I felt like Callum was close. Far closer than he’d been before.
I nearly tripped face-first into a massive dark lump that appeared before me out of the mist. Stumbling, I caught myself with my hands planted against the massive thing, only to immediately recoil in horror.
It was a mass of quivering, rotting, blackened flesh. It was slashed open in places, revealing muscle that was pink and coiled, like the outside of a brain. The muscle seemed to be crawling, quivering, twitching. As if it were made up of thousands of squirming pink maggots. The body was the size of a whale, and smelled so repulsive I had to cover my mouth and nose with my shirt before I gagged.
But then, in the cold and confusion and the awful stench, I felt him. Callum was here.
He stepped out of the mist as I looked up. He was about fifty yards away from me, and the moment his eyes fell on me, he froze. His wings were limp, dragging on the ground. They were ripped and bleeding; his body bruised and torn.
“Callum!” I tried to call out to him, but my voice was so weak, my mouth so dry. It hurt to speak. “Help me…” The pain flared, sharper and deeper than before. “Help me, please!”
But he didn’t take a single step toward me. He stared at me as if I were a stranger, as if…as if I was an enemy.
Stepping around the massive dead thing, I stumbled toward him. “I don’t know what happened. Where are we? Where is the —”
He leapt back, fangs bared, wings flared back, claws out and ready. A vicious snarl roared out of him. “Stay back, witch! Don’t come a step closer!”
His words slapped me in the face. I stared at him, unable to understand. “Callum? It’s me, it’s…”
“How do you know my name?” he hissed. “Answer me truthfully, human, or I’ll strike you dead where you stand. How the fuck do you know my name?”
His words dripped with venom, with an undeniable hatred. My weakly beating heart throbbed, while the pain in my side grew worse. This had to be a nightmare. Why didn’t he know me?
“Callum, you claimed me.” I didn’t dare take another step closer. “Please, we marked each other! We’ve slept together, we’ve fought alongside each other!”
His eyes widened, and I was stunned to realize his irises weren’t black. They were glittering gold, so bright and intense it was like staring into the sun. But black veins were shot through the gold, like burned cracks in a gilded surface.
I looked at the lump of rotting flesh beside me, the monstrosity that had only recently been killed. And suddenly, I knew where I was.
Not only where. But when.
“Callum, please listen to me…” He flinched as I reached for the laces on my shirt, loosening it slowly, painfully. It peeled away from my side, sticky with blood, and the demon’s eyes fixated on the injury. His nostrils flared, and I wondered if he could smell the truth of what I’d told him. Could he smell himself on me?
“I’m not supposed to be here,” I said. “I’m in the wrong place, the wrong…time. I found you too soon. But I know your name because you gave it to me. You carved it into me.” I shrugged off my shirt, baring myself to him. Even now, even here, centuries before he knew me, I trusted him not to hurt me. He gave no vocal reaction as I showed him the scars on my stomach, but I saw the conflicting emotions on his face.
Horror, confusion, suspicion.
“How is this possible?” he whispered. The silence in this vast field felt so heavy, so full of grief. He’d lost everything here. Here, in this field soaked in blood, he had watched countless die. And there, beside me, rotting in the open air, was a dead God.
One of dozens. One of hundreds scattered around us. Yet somehow, in the midst of all this death, my frantic search for life had led me here.
“Witches wander where they will,” I said. “And I’ve wandered very far. I need…I need your strength, Callum. To keep going. To get back to you. Please.”
“Back to me…” He stepped closer, his entire body coiled as if to leap away at any moment. It was truly strange to realize he was afraid of me. “And where, exactly, do you think you will find me, if not here?”
“In the future,” I said, desperately hoping he would understand. “Please, Callum, you need to remember this, please. I’m coming back. I promise you, I’m coming back. Don’t stop fighting, don’t…don’t give up.” I reached for him, and he didn’t flinch away when my fingers brushed against his chest. “Please don’t give up. I’m coming back to you. It’s not over, please…”
God, I wanted him to hold me. I wanted to sink into his arms, I wanted to feel safe with him and know he was safe with me too. I wanted to tell him the truth, that the future we had together was already better than either of us could have imagined.
I stepped closer, and he flinched but something made him stay. He sniffed the air, his expression morphing from anger, to confusion, to shock.
He was staring at me now as if I’d revealed to him the secrets of the universe. But he didn’t truly understand, not yet. It would be centuries before he understood.
For so long, you haunted me. The familiar face of a stranger in a hundred lifetimes. As if we were always circling each other, two planets in cosmic alignment, thrown into a continuous loop by the power of one another. I waited for you, before I even knew it was you I was waiting for.
His eyes softened. Tears poured down my face, but I couldn’t reach for him, I couldn’t stay.
I backed away.
“Wait.” He reached out for me, his viciousness gone. “What’s your name?”
“Everly,” I said. “Everly Laverne. You’ll find me someday, Callum. And I’ll find you again. Please don’t forget. I’m coming back to you. I will get up. I will. Please…” I didn’t want to leave him. It hurt; it was terrifying. It felt like ripping myself away from the one being I wanted most, with no idea if I would ever find my way to him again.
But I had to. No matter how far or how long I had to wander, I would find him again.
He called my name as I stepped back into the mist. But I had to keep following that thread, pulsing and pale as it snaked ahead of me.
I would find my way back to him again.
The mist was never-ending. I had been walking for an eternity. Time and space meant nothing.
Was I already dead? My heartbeat, erratic as it had been, had stopped. Or become so weak I could no longer feel it.
Now and then, my surroundings would change. Cities would loom around me, ancient and strange, full of shadowy faces. But one face was always clear: Callum. I would spot him in a crowd, a brief glimpse before I walked on. I walked across decades, across centuries, and I found him again and again.
But it wasn’t right. Dipping back and forth between the Veil, in and out of time, my brain felt continuously more unhinged. The vision of the cavern that I tried so hard to hold in my mind was fading. My memories of who I was and where I was trying to get to were so tangled, so weak.
But the throbbing pain in my side reminded me I was alive. I didn’t belong here; I wasn’t merely another blank face in the mist.
“We’ll find him, little one.” My voice was faint; it sounded so unfamiliar. “Your papa is fighting for us. He won’t give up. I know he won’t. He’ll wait for us. He’ll be so excited to meet you. He’ll protect you, always, like he protected me.”
My vision blurred.
“He’ll be so kind to you, little one. He won’t be like my father at all. He’ll love you endlessly; we both will.”
There was no more mist. No more light. Only the darkness, and my faint silver thread.
“You’ll get to see so much. You’ll have so much to learn. Don’t…don’t be afraid of your father. He’s kind. He’s gentle. He would never…never hurt you…”
The air stunk of mold and rotten fish.
The pain was so bad I swayed on my feet, and there was a strange, faint thrumming in my ears. I was tired. So very tired. I needed to rest, only for a little while. Just close my eyes.
Lying down, I let my cheek rest against the cold, muddy earth.
“He’ll protect us, little one,” I whispered. “Until we get back…until we find him…he’ll protect us. So that when…when we find him…we can protect him too…”
Everything hurt. I felt sick and faint and so, so heavy.
I opened my eyes.
