Ducking my head, I flipped through the delicate pages of parchment. I could see dates and names at the top, penned by different hands. I wondered which ones Xavier had written. If Obidias had changed anyone else’s page. I hoped he wasn’t the one who changed Ethan Carter Wate’s.
I thought of my namesake and shuddered, fighting to keep the bile down.
That could have been me.
Halfway through the book, I found our pages.
Ethan Carter’s was right before mine, the two pages clearly written by different hands.
I skimmed Ethan Carter’s page until I reached the part of the story I already knew. It read like a script of the vision I had witnessed with Lena, the story of the night he died and Genevieve used The Book of Moons to bring him back. The night that started it all.
I stared at the edge where the page met the binding. I almost tore it out, but I knew it wouldn’t have made a difference. It was too late for the other Ethan.
I was the only one who still had a chance to change his fate.
Finally, I turned the page to find I was staring at
Obidias’ script.
Ethan Lawson Wate
I didn’t read my page. I couldn’t risk it. I could already feel the pull of the book on my eyes, powerful enough to Bind me to my page, forever.
I looked away. I already knew what happened in the end of this revision.
Now I was changing it.
I tore the page, the edges pulling away from the binding in a flash of electricity stronger and brighter than lightning. I heard what sounded like thunder in the sky above me, but I kept tearing.
This time, I kept the candles as far from the parchment as I could.
I pulled until the words came loose, disappearing like they had been written in invisible ink.
I looked down at the page again and it was blank.
I let it drop into the water around me, watching as it fell through the milky depths, vanishing into the endless shadow of the chasm.
My page was gone.
And in that second, I knew I was, too.
I stared at my Chucks beneath me
until they were gone
and I was gone
and it didn’t matter anymore….
because
there
was
nothing
beneath