Page 113 of The Last De Loughrey Dynasty

“Now, let me explain. The game tells the story about Abigail, resembling a star in the game, and Malakai, resembling the man in the moon. Two powerful beings ruling the night, while all other cards are rather nature–and light–based. Both are traitors, choosing power over their friendship with Gaia—I believe she’s there to resemble Hecate. The goddesses who blessed them with said powers, making them beings able to wander on Earth instead of resting in the night sky. After she discovered the betrayal, she cursed the two lovers to experience her pain over and over again. Bounding them to walk upon Earth and taking away their immortality they once owned. She explained that they could easily break this curse and return to their bodies up in the night sky, or own the power she did not offer them in the first place. Gaia told them that they had simply to end the other’s life with their own hands causing their soul to be destroyed and spend a lifetime grieving the other. Sacrifice the love your soul was entangled in for power. And if you don’t, you’ll become powerless for the rest of your life and your bloodlines will forever be cursed to carry your fate until someone dares to break it.”

“And how did the story end?” Nathaniel questioned.

Jesse shrugged unknowingly. “That’s where the story ends. But since their descendants are standing in a room with us right now, I assume that Malakai and Abigail did not choose power over love.”

Something in my chest tightened painfully as I asked the following question. “So the connection Doe and I feel, this ribbon wrapped around our souls binding us to the other, is all a part of this curse?”

Our eyes met and grief crossed hers for a moment. I couldn’t imagine not feeling this longing anymore. This feeling was the solid reason why I hadn’t given up just yet. It kept me steady and hopeful for a life worth living with her, even when I knew that wasn’t possible. Deep down, I built a new future, a new life, and it fully centred around Dorothee De Loughrey.

“Perhaps, but I’m very sure that whatever you might feel for another in this very moment is very real to you. My theory is that the string binding you was just for the solid purpose of bringing you close, to start longing for the other in the first place,” Jesse assured me as believably as he could.

And maybe he was right, but what if he wasn’t?

It would destroy me.

But at least, one thing was for sure. “I won’t choose power over Doe.”

“You won’t, but if Kane finds the book before us, he’ll have the power to make you,” Mai’s voice was so weak and trembling that every fibre of my being signalled me that this fate had already been sealed.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

DOROTHEE

I’ve seendeath all throughout my life. People’s bloody bodies and blurry eyes that have seen everything they’ll ever be able to see. Death followed me every step since I was an innocent child. It has always been scary, but I didn’t know a single one of these people.

Their death traumatised me because I was aware that their life had ended, and adults teach you that that’s a sad thing.

Grieve their loss.

Cassandra was the first person I lost that I knew. She was the first real death I saw. And it was so difficult to grasp that this was it. She died at the age of sixteen.

This, all of it, is everything she will ever experience in life.

Cassandra will never wear the emerald dress she was so excited about at the Ball of Aquila.

Cassandra will never finish school, get rewarded for her hard work and go to college.

Cassandra will never grow up. And for the sole purpose of power, her parents have to bury their daughter.

Hands brushed my arms from behind. The touch was gentle and, in some form, comforting, which caused my body to leaninto the person behind me. I inhaled his cologne, which had a sweet edge to the herbal note of the smell. My back was against Archer’s chest, and confused, I took in the none personalised room we were in. His bedroom.

I don’t remember coming here.

In the common hall, Chadwick had excused our absence with my friends searching for me in worry after they heard there had been an accident while I had just searched for my psychologist in his office.

We were told that there had been a student involved in an accident in the south dorms and that the girls having their bedrooms there should be sheltered in the north dorms, where the boys had theirs, for the night until everything had been clarified.

Somehow, I had landed in Archer’s room.

My mind is hazy, and I felt dizzy with grief over a girl I barely knew.

Was I even allowed to grieve her?

Because if I looked at her death from a different angle, her death served the purpose of breakingmycurse. She had nothing to do with any of this. But it didn’t matter, in the end, she was still dead.

“Talk to me, Doe,” he mumbled against my ear, and his voice soothed this chaos in my mind a little.

But I didn’t know what I should–couldsay to make me or him feel any better. Nothing was going to be okay from now on; perhaps it had never been okay in the first place. We had gone sloppy over the last couple of months, accepting whatever was coming for us because we couldn’t find any more riddles of Mairead that could help us… no more diary entries from Dottie…

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