Everlasting (The Immortals #6)(53)

My eyes narrow, my lips part, I’d forgotten al about the little silk pouch she handed me at the beginning of the journey, and after al that I’ve been through, I doubt it’s stil with me.

I snake my fingers into each of my pockets, eventual y finding it wedged deep into the corner of the righthand back one, the last one I check. It’s crumpled, total y squashed and crinkly, but stil I retrieve it and dangle it before me.

Her face lifting into a smile as she says, “Do you remember my words when I gave it to you?”

I squint, searching through the cluttered contents of my mind. “You said, ‘Everything you think you need is in here. You decide what that means.’ Or something like that.”

something like that.”

She nods. Grins. My attention claimed by the large gaps in her teeth when she says, “And so, with that in mind, what is the one thing you desire most—

above everything else? Right now, at this very moment, what is it you want?”

I hesitate. Stare at a smal patch of grass at my feet. Aware of Damen’s gaze weighing heavily upon me, wondering why I won’t say it, why the delay. The same thing I wonder as wel .

I wonder why the word won’t come—why it feels like such a struggle, when it’s the one thing, the only thing, we’ve sought al this time.

Lifting my gaze to meet Lotus’s, I fight to push the words past my tongue. My voice wooden, perfunctory, devoid of emotion, when I say, “The antidote. I—rather we, have the recipe, but we stil need to col ect the ingredients, attend to al the moon phases, and… whatnot…” I al ow the words to trail off. My heart hammering, my stomach jumbled in knots, my fingers twitching wildly as Lotus’s eyes travel between Damen and me.

“And so it is.” She nods, as though it is done, and when the gesture is met with two skeptical stares, she adds, “Please. Look inside.

You wil find it contains everything you need to make this antidote of yours. Including a very rare herb that wil be difficult to find back on the earth plane. And yes, al of the moon phases have been accounted for.”

Content to leave it at that, she starts to shuffle away, stopping only when I cal her back to me and say, “You’re joking, right?” I dangle the tiny pouch, knowing there’s no possible way it could ever contain al the items Roman included in that long grocery list of his. It’s too smal . A list like that would require a completely stuffed duffle bag, or two. Lotus stops, steeples her hands at her chest, and says, “Why don’t you empty the contents and see?”

I frown, kneel onto the grass, pul ing the strings as I tilt the tiny bag on its side. Unable to do anything but gasp when a slew of herbs, crystals, and tiny glass vials of liquids tumble out. Having no idea where they could possibly be coming from—the bag contains far more items than it could ever logical y hold.

“It is al there. Everything you need to proceed. Just fol ow Roman’s instructions and the life that you dream of is yours.” She stops, looking at me when she adds, “Or is it?”

I gulp. Struggle to breathe. Staring at the bounty al spread out before me—a generous heap of hardto-find, complex ingredients I’ve been searching for al of this time—the answer to al of our problems right here for the taking.

And yet, even though I know I should be happy, if not completely ecstatic, I can’t seem to stop her words from repeating in my head, can’t dampen the doubt she raised when she said: Or is it?

“Something wrong?” Her rheumy gaze moves over me. “Have you changed your mind? Is there something else you’d rather have?”

“Ever—” Damen drops to his knees right beside me, wil ing me to face him, to say something, to offer some sort of explanation.

But I can’t.

How can I explain it to him when I can barely make sense of it myself?

He’l only get angry.

Won’t understand.

And, on the surface at least, I can’t say I blame him.

But this goes so much deeper than that. This harks back to the journey—my destiny—the very reason I keep reincarnating.

And suddenly I know. Suddenly, I’m thoroughly convinced that drinking from the antidote is just another distraction—it’s not the answer we’ve truly been seeking.

In the end, it won’t solve a thing.

Won’t solve the one thing that needs to be solved more than anything else.

Sure it wil al ow us to be together in the way that we want—but that’s al it al ows. It’s like slapping a Band-Aid on a big gaping wound—it does nothing to heal the damage of what’s already been done.

It does nothing to change the fact that we’re on the wrong course.

Once we realize how we’ve cheated ourselves out of the lives we’re meant to live by choosing physical immortality over the immortality of our souls

—the antidote is no longer the issue.

If Damen and I are truly going to be together then we’l have to reach far, far deeper than that. We’l have to admit that our problems didn’t start the We’l have to admit that our problems didn’t start the day Roman tricked me—they started several centuries earlier when Alrik couldn’t bear to lose Adelina—then culminated when he reincarnated as Damen, perfected the elixir, and changed the course of our souls forever.

If Damen and I are truly going to be together then we’l have to release ourselves from that path, we’l have to reverse the choices he made in the past, we’l have to pay off that huge karmic debt by making this journey to the Tree of Life, obtaining its fruit, and offering al the others a chance to release themselves too.