See How She Awakens (The Chronicles of Izzy #4)(7)

Why couldn’t he believe me? Why wouldn’t anyone believe me? I wasn’t crazy. The darkness was there, waiting, preparing to consume me completely.

“I fear I did not reach you in time, Izzy. Perhaps the void has gotten to your mind. I believe the best course of action is to pull you back to the reality of the mortal plane. In time, your friends will be able to bring you back to yourself.” Aberto’s quick dismissal of my very real problem did nothing to comfort me.

“I’ll never be myself again.” My voice was nothing more than a broken sob. I would never be myself again, not when Kennan was gone. He’d taken with him a piece of me, leaving a hole that could never be patched.

“You will be marked by your loss, but that loss does not have to define you. You can recover, if you choose to do so.” Aberto longed for me to move forward. To him? Or to the task at hand? I wasn’t quite sure which.

“If you say so.” There was no point in trying to argue with him. He didn’t believe a word I said. And like all things with Aberto, if he didn’t believe it, it was ignored.

“Perhaps we should confer with the others now that you’ve rested.” Aberto rose from the bed and opened the door, holding it in such a manner I had no choice but do as he asked.





I slipped past Aberto and made my way into the main house. The promise I’d made to Aberto lingered in my mind. If I came back and found Molly changed, I would stay and help. My own demons aside, I couldn’t let Molly die. Not like that. Not when she’d been getting worse by trying to save me.

I’d thought I’d lost everything. That there was nothing left for me on this plane, but I’d been wrong. I’d known that the moment my eyes befell Molly in her current state. I love her almost as fiercely as I loved Kennan. She was my family, the only person that had taken me for what I was without question. Molly held no expectations of me, didn’t look to me as the one that would save the universe. Instead, she offered me friendship, and a reprieve from the world of Seers and Guardians.

I would do everything in my power to save her.

“Holy hell! Don’t they have mirrors in the void?” Sena’s shocked voice called from across the room. I turned to look at her, and her face shifted between surprise and disbelief. Her eyes filled with fear as the steps she’d been taking toward me suddenly became backwards strides. “Never mind. I think I have somewhere I need to be,” she muttered before disappearing into the house.

“What is her problem?” I hadn’t even given a thought to my appearance since I’d been back. I wasn’t even sure I’d mustered clothing for myself when I shifted into a corporeal form. Looking down at my body, I saw a white box of fabric encasing my body. At least I wasn’t naked; it could’ve been worse.

“You have been through a great deal,” Aberto replied, leading me toward Molly’s room.

“That wasn’t an answer,” I groused as I followed.

He doesn’t love you anymore. He thinks you are unworthy, the darkness murmured.

“Fine by me,” I replied, causing Aberto to stare at me strangely. “What?” I snapped.

“You keep uttering strange things. Why?” Aberto paused, concern in his eyes.

“I’m not talking to myself.” Moving past him, I opened the door to Molly’s room.

The room went quiet as I stepped through the doorway. Ian looked down upon a seemingly sleeping Molly while Conall lingered in the corner. Off to the side, Eleanor and Mona had their heads close together, pouring over manuscripts. None of them mattered at this moment. Only Molly mattered.

She wasn’t asleep as I’d first thought, she was floating. She hovered just above the bed, encased in blankets tightly wrapped around her. The image reminded me of the mummy exhibitions I’d seen at The Field Museum. The blank expression on her face betrayed no emotions. There was nothing to convey life still lingered—no twitch of skin, no flick of a dreaming eyelash, not a single movement manifested upon her still form.

“What did you do to her?” I longed to reach out and touch her; to brush the stray strand of hair from her face. She’d done this trying to find me. I was the reason she lay broken and unmoving.

“She is in stasis.” Ian’s strained response drew my attention to him more closely. He sat wringing his hands, as if he longed to do the very same thing I’d wanted to do. Just to touch her, to know that she still existed.

“I didn’t know, Ian. If I’d known…” I couldn’t finish the thought; I wasn’t sure I would’ve come back, even if I had known. I didn’t want to lie. I knew the risk leaving the void, and it was proving to be true.

“What would you have done, Izzy? Would you have stopped mourning Kennan in solitude? Rejoined the rest of us that grieve for him? Would you, Izzy?” Pain laced every word that poured from his mouth.

He blames you. He will never forgive you, never trust you again. The voice gave me no reprieve.

“He will. I will make this right,” I muttered.

Ian looked at me as though I’d grown a second head before going back to staring at Molly.

“What caused this? How did she end up like this?” I asked.

“The Revenants came for her. She is an empath, and as such, things affect her more forcefully.” Eleanor stated, looking up briefly from the tome in front of her.