I looked over the amalgamation before me as it shuffled through a dozen forms, grasping the fragments of past souls who had dared to step foot here. Whisper and Bay blinked by before it was me again. But the not-quite-me. Dull hair. Bland eyes. Weak and afraid.
I floated in the black space, staring at her. There were so many flaws. So many doubts. But that didn’t make her worthless. That didn’t make me worthless.
“I accept you,” I said. “We are enough.”
When I blinked again, the blackness had disappeared. Before me, was a temple chamber outlined with eerie blue torches. I looked down to find my feet above the ground and grinned. I lifted one leg, then the other, and pressed my lips together to hold back my smile. A tingle of pixie dust wasn’t anywhere to be found. This was me.
All those years I’d spent collecting something I already had within me… If only I’d known sooner. The feather marks on my arm burned with purpose. They were from my wings; I had always been able to fly.
Skye groaned, and I found him hovering beside me, his face twisted with twinges of discomfort. He blinked out of something unseen and set a hand against his face. “Why do these places have to hate people…?” His eyes widened after he squinted at my dangling feet. “What the… But I haven’t…”
I landed softly. “I think I figured some part of this demigod thing out.”
He blew a laugh out his nose. “Atta girl. So we can get the hell through this now?” He returned to my shoulder, sitting this time and rubbing his temple.
“As quickly as possible.” I lifted off the ground, skimming forward down the tunnel path, embracing the sensation of magic-fueled weightlessness. “Have I ever told you that you curse an awful lot for ‘darling incarnate’?”
He scoffed. “Who says darling incarnate doesn’t curse?”
After several minutes—or hours—of flying, the scene before me changed in a blink. I was somewhere else. Somewhere I hadn’t ever been before. My brows furrowed, and I put up my guard, keeping from touching anything.
“Are you with me?” I asked Skye.
“Yep.” He glanced over the flowering fields with similar apprehension. It was so bright. I knew we had to have walked into either Whisper’s or Bay’s nightmare, but whose nightmare would be so…
A swarm of brilliantly colored butterflies filled the air as a girl ran through the flowers. Her dark skin and bouncing hair told me exactly who it was, but she was far younger than she had been for a long time, and only panic filled her eyes.
“No!” she screeched.
My immediate instinct was to make sure nothing chased her, but Skye tugged on my hair and pointed the other direction. Walking away, but somehow moving faster than she could run, was her father. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her little arm outstretched.
She tripped, smashing face-first into the plants. She curled in on herself there and didn’t bother to get up.
I blinked, and the whole scene rewound.
Butterflies burst off every painted petal. “Papa!” She fell, sobbing.
And again.
Butterflies. “Please!” She collapsed. Her tiny arms covered her head, and wracking breaths filled her chest. I had never seen her like this concerning her father. By the time I found out what had happened, she only smiled sadly and said that sometimes that was how the tide was: giving and taking without emotion.
My heart ached for the little girl lying in the grass, and determination lit a fire in my stomach. I had to break the cycle. This time when the world reset, I floated to the spot where she always tripped. She ran toward me, staring directly through me, her plea on her lips. “Don’t leave!” Her foot snagged on something invisible, but this time, I caught her.
The pleasant meadow broke with an ear-splitting crash. Stone walls replaced the flowers, the blue sky, and the hundreds of butterflies. We stood in a tiny, towering room of thick grey, only the ceiling open to display a starry night. Whisper, her correct age now, sobbed, gasped, and realized things had changed.
Darting away from me, she took in her surroundings, then steeled, wiping her cheeks. They were splotched beneath her red eyes. “I’m sick and tired of this,” she hissed. “Let me out of here already.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that’s exactly what I planned to do, though I wasn’t exactly sure how, but her voice replied behind me, “No. This is where we’re safe.”
I turned, coming face-to-face with a pristine Whisper. A cold, hardness held her brown eyes in a state of unshakeable charm. The real Whisper huffed, folding her arms and facing the wall, trying to find a place to grasp; the fake Whisper took the moment her back was turned to glare at me.
Whisper grumbled, “I’m not safe in here. I have to get through this, find the answers we need about the Fountain, and get back to Lyric.”
“Lyric?” her other questioned, her voice lilting with humor. “Sweet, sweet, little Lyly? She’s practically helpless without you, isn’t she?”
“Hush your ugly face,” Whisper snapped, but my heart had already clenched. Were those her real inner thoughts? Was that how this worked?
“What an,”the other chuckled—“interesting insult to choose, all things considered.”
Damn . I swallowed, watching the other Whisper sashay to her side and drape herself against the wall. Whisper’s inner voice was sassy as shit.
“Back to Lyly,” the other glanced my way, “you really have to protect her, don’t you?”
“Of course! I mean, she is younger than me.” Whisper gripped the stone, and I realized her fingers were bloody.
“Yes, well, not by too much, though you’d think there were eons between you.”
Whisper planted her feet against the wall, managing to hold on. “So she’s a little immature. Like I’m any different; all I want to do is marry my ‘moth prince,’ whom I call ‘moth prince. ’”
“At least, you know better when it comes to important things.” The other checked her prim nails. “I mean, she knew that Bay kid a week before running off with him to airwoman knew where. He’s Hook’s son. He might be using us to get to the Fountain. Pirates are conniving like Mom has said. I wouldn’t put any faith in a single one of them.”
Whisper sucked in a breath as her grip faltered, and she skidded back to the ground. “Listen,” she spat, “you aren’t going to get in my head about my friends. Lyric is Lyric. I love her to death, no matter what you say.”
“I never said we didn’t love her. Just that sometimes she can be a bit of an ignorant child.”
Whisper bared her teeth and growled. “She fell in love . That’s a thing that happens, and it can be blinding.”
Her other set a finger against her cheek and pursed her lips. “Yes, right, you never would have been pushed off Skyla at your birthday party had you not been blinded by your own little love .”
