Page 100 of The Wicked Lies of Habren Faire
I consider that warning and shrug. “I’ve never really fit anywhere, so it’s a small price to pay.”
“As for your ability to move through mortal ages—there’s a caveat.”
My heart stills, and Mam’s face swims before my eyes. A thousand schemes pop into my head: ways to save her, Dad, even Gran. I wait for him to continue.
“You can only go forward,” he tells me, “never back. You can jump around your time and the years to come as much as you like, but anything before your current year, that is beyond you.”
A lump swells in my throat. “Why?”
“The past is dead,” Delyth says in his place, her eyes holding mine with a weight I almost buckle under. “Only ghosts can go there.”
I shake my head. “But it isn’t dead. You’ve all said all along that time happens here at once, why—”
“Because you’re human,” says Emrys, softer than I would expect from him, “and you will only ever be human. With true sight you’ll be able to pluck the strings of time when you leave here and always find your way back, but you cannot break and mend them as we can.”
No matter how badly I may want it, the past is the one thing I can never have. I must carry all that grief still, like a useless limb that I can’t bear to cut free. The life we had a year ago is dead, buried. The girls we were then lie alongside it in the grave.
Ceridwen touches my back. “Please, think about what you’re doing. Immortality would be easier, better.”
I shake my head. “I know what I want.”
I expect her hand to fall away, but her fingers just cling tighter to my dress.
Emrys rubs a hand over his forehead. “I suppose there’s one more consequence of this.”
“Duw, what else?”
Emrys sighs. “The consequence is for me. If you can come and go as you please, I assume you’ll continue following my brother around, so I’ll have to see youagain.”
I bite back a laugh, which is probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done. There’s no need to anger Emrys if we are doomed to spend the rest of our lives running into each other occasionally. I hope it’s very occasional indeed.
“I don’t follow him around; it’s quite the opposite actually,” I assure him. Neirin tenses at my side. “But I… have things to fix at home first.”
I think of Dad. I may not be able to go back and save him from the police, but he still has the rest of his life to lead, and Australiasuddenly doesn’t seem so far away. I could bring him here, to the place his stories came from—but there’s someone else I need to see, too.
“Fine,” I say. “I accept the gift.”
Emrys’s nostrils flare. My skin prickles and my eyes start to water, itching almost painfully. I squeeze them shut, but there’s a bright, burning light behind my lids that pounds like a heart, then disappears. When I open my eyes again, there are colors I haven’t seen before and still, to this day, cannot describe. There’s a knot in my chest. Slowly, it starts to unwind.
Emrys waves me off. “Go humor my brother and get out of my sight.”
I want to saygladly, but the word dies when Neirin and Ceridwen grab my arms in unison and force me to face them.
“What have you done?” Neirin demands.
“You should have taken immortality,” Ceridwen snaps, then she softens. “I can’t watch you die.”
“You won’t,” I tell her, then turn to Neirin. “And neither will you.”
“I don’t understand,” he admits.
“I have plenty of time. I’ve won immortality once, haven’t I?” I beam at them. “I can do it again. For now, there’s a whole world out there—two, in fact—and I’m going to see it all.”
“You’re insane.” Ceridwen shakes her head. “That’s a stupid risk—”
“And if I can’t win immortality when I’m ready”—I grab at her hand—“then I’m not afraid to fade away, so long as I do it on my terms. I want to travel. I want to find new places to call my own, to change and become someone I like.”
What I don’t tell them is that I think I might be halfway there already.
