Page 21 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

I’d share my truth with Milo soon, so for now, I would observe him silently and help where I could. Let him speculate. Let him wonder. Milo was always happiest when he could do both. He had a mission, a goal, and I wouldn’t interfere.

“I love you,” I whispered so silently I couldn’t be sure my voice even formed sound.

“I love you, too.” Milo spun around to address Enchanter Wadsworth and Gladiatrix. “I’ve traced her threads, but her future’s still pretty murky. It’ll take time to unravel the potential outcomes, but hopefully, I’ll have a location or potential location soon.”

Enchanter Wadsworth tsked. “Useless. Told you there was no point in adding more damn psychics to our guild. Never understood why the Global Guild insisted on adding such magics to our ranks. In my day, we kept them on retainers.” He ranted loudly, not talking to Gladiatrix or the medical staff nearby, but merely himself and every unsaid argument he’d never finished with fallen friends—hard to believe he ever had any. This was his way, bitching about the next generation of guild witches to the ghosts of former guild members. “Occasionally, they had useful leads. The psychics. Most of the time, it was ‘maybe’ and ‘we’ll see,’ which is just a psychic way of saying they—”

Benjamin coughed and gasped, spurting out the water buried in his chest. He fell forward, gasping, choking, and unable to breathe out the last drops of the ocean embedded in his chest because the water was a lie. It was never there, and it wasn’t there now.

“You…” Gladiatrix rushed to the kid’s side, helping to steady his shaky body that quivered and shook as the reality of what had happened sank in. “Enchanter Evergreen, how’d you do that?”

“Just useless psychic nonsense.” Milo smirked.

Enchanter Wadsworth crossed his arms, hiding his shame for not removing the damage done by Oceanic Collapse, unable to fathom how such a thing was possible. He’d studied the way the arcane magic had attached itself to the nervous system, the psyche, and threatened to implode if deactivated.

Well, goddamn. I stared with wide eyes. I wouldn’t have dived in if I knew that.

This was why I needed to think before I acted. I sighed while Enchanter Wadsworth continued his rant on how useless psychic witches were, but not nearly as useless as some branches. Then he went on a tangent of listing and explaining how much each branch sucked while Milo read through the illuminated potential futures of The True Witch. He was determined to find her fates, track her locations, and prevent her from ever locking another soul in their mind to drown in a death of isolation.

I was also determined to stop this witch, maybe only as a phantom at Milo’s side, but I’d use my understanding to help him and the Global Guild unravel her magic once and for all.

Chapter Seven

I spent an hour channeling my branch magic in the confines of my bedroom. Charlie chirped and cried and stuck his paws under the door for about ten minutes before finally giving up. I’d make time for him after I properly established a connection to my manifestation so our memories would sync up. Normally, drawing upon the observations of what my manifestation had seen didn’t require so much effort. But normally, I didn’t hurl a manifestation halfway across the country, so here I sat in my bedroom, on my floor, crisscrossed with my eyes shut in a meditative state.

Over the years, I’d learned lots of techniques from telepaths, from psychics. Things that helped when I first inherited my branch. And if I was being truthful, I’d become lax in these meditative trainings, traditions, since I was no longer a rookie witch. I shrugged off a lot of the suggestions as advice meant for a novice, an inexperienced fool with no understanding of their magic. It turned out I might’ve fit more in those categories than I cared to admit.

Slowly, patiently, I crawled along the thread of the tether that connected me to the manifestation I’d summoned. I wanted to see what he’d seen, to understand how Milo’s mission went, and then reach out to him so we could discuss how truly invasive mybranch had become. Seriously, poor baby couldn’t even catch a break from my telepathy, no matter how far he went for work.

“This is taking so long.” I ground my teeth, growing agitated instead of staying in a state of calm.

Calm took work. Calm was fucking annoying. But I needed my emotional state level if I wanted to follow the thread and reach my manifestation. It was too far to simply reel back and retrieve the intel, the memories. I mean, it wasn’t. I kept a solid hook in my manifestation to ensure none would ever disappear to their own accord like the unruly one who’d tried to kill me for his own happy ending. And yes, I believed my personas weren’t out for me…mostly. It was a weird sensation to hold trust and deceit in equal measure.

But if I reeled my manifestation into my mind, that’d leave my telepathy attached to Milo without an anchor for the magic, which would put me right back to step one, where my head felt like it was going to explode into a million pieces.

Carefully and calmly, I focused the tether until my connection with the manifestation had been established. Suddenly, memories collided together, filling in the gaps of what I’d missed from Milo’s trip.

Images flashed like a collage of photo stills, filling the darkness of my mind with memories that became mine.

An exhausting flight.Arriving in California.

Meeting Global Gladiatrix.

Onlookers, adoring fans, and everyone captivated by her gracefulness.

Meeting Enchanter Wadsworth.

Elation met with devastation. Proof to never meet your idols.

A town of over twelve hundred dead.

Oceanic Collapse.

An arcane branch that merged together primal, cosmic, and psychic energy to drown a person inside their own mind.

The True Witch who eluded the Global Guild, arguably the most powerful organization in the world.

A drowning boy hidden in a blue box meant to shield him from a terrible ocean that sought to kill him.

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