Lux (The Nocte Trilogy, #3)(68)

“One for one for one,” Sabine tells me. “You are of Judas, and you must betray your brother in order to set things right. There are sacrifices to be made, girl. You must be strong enough to do it.”

My mother’s words in the book she left come back to me come back to me come back.

May you always have the courage to live free, and the strength to do what is right.

My breath hitches and hitches and hitches, because it seems that my mother was saying to sacrifice Finn, to choose to live free with Dare. But that can’t be right. She told me that I couldn’t be with Dare.

But then things changed,

Again

And again. And who knows anymore?

“You’re the crazy one,” I tell Sabine as I study the look in her eyes, the unsettling, unbalanced gleam. She doesn’t deny it.

The door bursts open and Dare is here, thank God, and he grabs me.

“We’ve got to go, Calla.”

I look at him, and his eyes are wide and full of pain and guilt, and I pull away.

“It’s true?” I ask softly.

“You came to get us? You were going to kill us for Sabine? You were going to kill Finn?”

His dark eyelashes are inky against his cheeks as he closes his eyes and he sighs, so loud. “I was so small when I agreed. She was my mother, and I just wanted her back. Sabine told me that if I participated, my mother would come back. I didn’t know all of this would happen. I didn’t know.”

“But you knew that Finn or I would die,” I press, and his fingers are cold against my own.

He opens his eyes and stares into mine, and I want to dive into his, to swim in them, to float.

“When you’re a child, you don’t understand mortality,” he offers simply. “Not really. And once we started, I couldn’t stop. It was a bullet out of a gun, and I couldn’t put it back. I’d already agreed, and a Roma’s word is a bond.”

He’s part Roma, and I know that now.

“When I realized, as I got older, what it all really meant, I’d already fallen for you. I can’t let it be you. I’ll do anything to stop it.”

“But we’re cursed,” I say quietly, and it feels like the only answer. “You’re Finn’s brother, and I’m Finn’s sister, and I’m a child of incest. Everything has been orchestrated because of some grand belief in Roma magic.”

“It’s not just a belief,” Dare sighs. “I wish it were, but it’s not. Cal… you change things. You’ve changed them over and over your whole life, without even knowing it. You loved your brother so much that you’ve literally changed time to bring him back. It’s because you’re descended from Abel. God made him the Judge of Souls and so are you. You know what is right. You know.”

Sabine watches us and she’s serious and silent.

“I don’t believe you,” I say and it sounds like a whimper.

“You don’t understand anything yet, do you?” Sabine is snide. “Time is fluid and malleable, and you yourself wield the power to change it. It’s a tapestry and we’re the pieces.”

I’m confused and I’m stunned, and Dare is silent and strong and he stares at me.

“This is real,” he tells me. “All along, you’ve known it, but you were afraid you were crazy.”

“The déjà vu, the memories…” I whisper.

“Real,” he nods, and he’s sad and his eyes are stormy. “The déjà vu was real. Everyone gets it because everyone has the extent to change things with their dreams, but not like you. You’re stronger than most because of your blood.”

“This is impossible,” I say, but I know I’m wrong. It’s possible. I feel it in my bones in my bones in my bones.

I hesitate, but something Sabine said comes back to me. “It has to be me or Finn in order to bring things to a close.”

Dare’s silence is his agreement.

“And you chose Finn,” my words are slow. “You chose Finn, you let him die. Over and over and over.”

“Finn chose to die over and over and over,” Dare insists. “He chose things to be the sacrifice, but you kept changing things back. You’re like Castor and Pollux. You love each other to a fault, and the universe will make everyone pay for it. You have to let the cycle end.”

Dare’s face is tortured, pained, and it looks like my heart, it’s shattered, it’s broken.

“But my brother….” I whisper. “You were willing to let Finn die. You love Finn.”

“I do,” he agrees. “But it couldn’t be you,” he says simply and he reaches for me, but I shirk away.

“And somehow, I changed it, I kept bringing him back because I love him, I love him more than life, and every time, you somehow managed to undo it and kill him again.”

“I didn’t,” Dare protests. “Finn did. Because he knows that Fate is real. Kismet is real. That is his fate.”

Sabine’s eyes are knowing and dark.

“You must let it happen, girl,” she says. “When you change it, you just prolong the torment.”

“I don’t care,” I say coldly. “I don’t care if you are tormented forever and the entire universe burns. Nothing matters but Finn.”