Page 119 of Possession

Why leave me? The question has burned in me for months; it is imprinted in my brain.

“I had to get us out of that situation. Now, we both have bodies. We are able to truly be with one another.”

The words catch and run through my head. Truly be with one another.

His hand twitches as if he wants to reach for me but remembers himself at the last moment. Aris’ black eyes flicker, something almost sad crossing his expression. If I didn’t know any better, if I didn’t know that every action of his is rehearsed, if he hadn’t broken me for no reason, I might feel bad.

“You could control him?” I ask tightly.

“Of course.” He said that he wasn’t going to gloat, but the light-hearted tone in his voice doesn’t speak to sympathy. “Not that he knew that.”

“So you tricked him.”

Aris sighs. “Are you still defending him? He used you. Consistently. He kept tabs on you for me. How do you think he found you just now in that room?”

“But my…”

“Your little rune?” His eyes dip to my arm. “The most elementary of magics. Did you really think Cera would give you anything substantial?”

I start. “You know that I—?”

“Met with her? Learned magic to combat me? Of course. I know everything.”

I understand now, and my heart tears again, not in half but in quarters. He let me have this life. He let it feel real; he allowed me to invest. All of that, so he could enjoy it more taking it away.

I’ve been so careless. Naïve. When we were saying good-bye, I asked if he had plans for world domination, not destruction. If I’d thought of the question, would he have answered it honestly? Could I have foreseen any of this?

The shadows behind Aris stretch as Ryan steps out from behind the corner, slowly. The ceiling is large enough that he can unfurl to his true height, which doesn’t do anything to soothe my nerves. In my absence, he has acquired a weapon: a two-sided, metal ax, which has to be five times my body weight. Each blade is a meter long.

I’m too busy to feel fear and register his presence blankly. What does it mean that he’s here? I don’t know; I don’t care.

My relationship with Henry wasn’t real. The Institute is destroyed. Aris is back; he was watching me the whole time. He knows everything I’ve been planning. I was never going to get away; I was never going to be safe and on my own. Why not add a monster to the mix? What does it matter?

“Now that I’ve answered your questions, you will come with me now,” says Aris.

I glance at him and blink. “Go where?”

He shrugs, then smiles. “Wherever I choose.”

I’m almost too tired to fight, but I refuse to make this easy. “And what about what I want?”

“You’ll come to want the same things I do,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. “As of now, I have a residence with the Following.”

“Have you taken to forgiveness so easily?” I ask.

“Now it seems that you want me to hold a grudge! Weren’t you advocating to let the mages live?”

“That’s different, and you know it.”

Again, he shrugs.

“I won’t go with you,” I tell him. “All I want is to be free.”

“And I can give you that.” He spreads his arms, a host offering. “You will be free, and with me.”

“That’s not how it works. I want to be free of you.”

“That’s not how this works,” he says, and his eye twitches; I can see the novelty of our reunion is wearing off. He has obliged me, allowed for my fit, answered my questions very properly and, at least in his mind, perhaps sympathetically.

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