Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“Now get back to your feet and slowly back away...”
My legs threaten to fold as I force myself to do as he asks.
“Let both of them go.” Devyn’s voice is flat as he addresses Amos. “Whatever it is you’re planning—they’re only going to slow you—”
“Shut up!”
My heart nearly leaps out of my chest at the sudden violence that sharpens Amos’ words. He looked so...in control earlier. But now it’s as if he’s just one tantrum away from pulling the trigger and killing all of us.
“Do you think you’re still in the position to issue commands?”
As Amos starts yelling at Devyn, I notice Abigail trying to catch my eye—
“You’re no king now! Don’t you see that?”
I follow the direction of the gaze.
An alcove carved into the stone wall to her left, deep in shadow, and something in it catches the thin light. A faint sparkle. Hewhay’s shimmer. And beneath it, half-buried in dust and cobwebs—
A rusty pair of scissors.
I start to bend down.
“Stop right there!” Amos swings the gun toward me.
Abigail wrenches free and runs.
Amos howls, turning to aim at her—
Devyn kicks.
Even cuffed, even on his knees, his leg sweeps out and catches Amos in the head. The gun goes off—the sound is deafening in the narrow space, ricocheting off stone—
I grab the scissors as Amos staggers.
I turn to Amos just as he bumps into me, and somehow—
He stares at me in shock. “YOU—”
The scissors in my hands ends up buried deep in his stomach.
“Y-YOU—”
The blood gushing out of his middle is...
I don’t even know how to describe it.
I don’t even know how this happened.
And as Amos crumples to the stone floor, blood spreading beneath him like a dark halo, and a rusty pair of scissors sticking out of his stomach like a grotesque version of Excalibur waiting to return to its master—
Which is not me!
Because I...
I didn’t mean—
I wasn’t planning to—
“Bailey?”
I think...I think that’s my king’s voice.
“Bailey, look at me.”
I think that’s him walking toward me—
But I can’t be sure.
My vision is going blurry again.
Because I’m not really...
I’ve never been good with blood, and so...
I close my eyes in relief as the world goes blessedly dark.
WELL DONE, FAITHFUL one.
The gently spoken words are what slowly draw me out of my slumber, and I find myself warmly cocooned in a velvet armchair, and my nose tickled by the cozy scent of old books, peppermint...and garlic cream cheese buns.
Yum.
That’s...the English translation for the nth growl that my stomach releases as I sit up, now wide awake, mostly confused, and absolutely starving.
I’m back in Hewhay’s reading nook, with a blanket draped over my legs that I don’t remember pulling on. My mind plays back the words I heard earlier—
Well done, faithful one.
Because I did hear them. Right?
I look around, trying to determine where that voice could have come from...and that’s when I see it.
A book on the windowside table. Ancient-looking. Covers that look as if it were made of jade.
But most importantly of all, it’s sparkling, and so I nearly trip over my own feet in my haste to get it.
I open the book, and words scribbled in gold ink—I’m thinking fountain pen, with a really fine nib—start appearing, one letter at a time.
You defeated one of the others.
“You’re talking about Amos?” I ask shakily.
Yes.
“Why did he kill Abigail the first time? In...my world, he was only conning people out of money—”
Because that is how evil works.
It makes the darkness grow darker.
You do not even realize what is happening until it is too late.
You become evil, and evil has become you.
There is no longer rhyme or reason to what the others do.
I remember Amos touching me and his various attempts to seduce me. It didn’t make sense at that time. But now I get it. The fact that it didn’t make sense...now explains it all.
They destroy for the sake of destroying.
They cannot help it.
And if there is nothing left to destroy—
Then they will destroy themselves.
A silver arrow in the bottom right corner shows up, and I take that as my cue to turn to the next page.
For your courage, you are offered a reward. Choose one:
A) A magical talent of your own
B) A surprise
I stare at the options.
No mention of Devyn.
No mention of Abigail.
No mention of what happens next, of whether the timeline resets, of whether I’ll wake up back in my tiny apartment in Providence with nothing but memories of a man who looked at me like I was worth keeping.
I want to ask. The question burns in my throat—what about him, what about us, what about—
But I’m too scared.
Too scared that the answer will be nothing. He marries Abigail. You go home. The end.
Trust the process, Bailey.
Hewhay hasn’t ever failed me, and the chance to have a magical talent is, like, a one-in-a-million offer. So, really...this is a no-brainer.
Run your fingers over the words of the choice you have selected.