Page 12 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

I nodded, doing my best not to let my thoughts twist into fear and paranoia.

“Your magic isn’t abiding by the limitations of your body, and if this continues, you’ll die.”

“Unless?” I asked, waiting for the offer. It practically danced on his tongue in the whispers of the shadows from other personas. All this led to an offer he really believed me foolish enough to accept.

“You need to summon a manifestation.”

“Not happening. Not on your life.”

“I don’t really have a life—haven’t you been listening?” He rolled his eyes. “All the same, I enjoy the current arrangement surrounding my existence. You dying hinders that.”

I channeled my magic, attempting to reel back my telepathy so I’d have enough psychic power to drag myself out of the subconscious.

“Kind of hard to do when you decided to hurl your magic across the country.”

“I didn’t decide anything.”

He tsked. “Don’t remind me of your utter incompetence. I was trying to give you some credit for your failures.”

Ouch. That felt excessive and unnecessary.

“You need a manifestation to serve as a proxy, an extension to the distance you’ve stretched your magic. Let us help you.”

“I’m not giving you a foothold outside my body,” I said. “You can claim not to be like the other manifestation, but you could be lying like he lied. You could be deceiving me, manipulating me, attempting to—”

“I’m gonna stop you there, sweetheart,” he said with raised hands, gesturing his offense. “No one is trying to take over your life. We’ve all seen it. It’s pretty shitty, and you do your damnedest to keep it that way.”

Goddamn.

“Here’s how a manifestation is supposed to work,” the persona said. “You summon us for an extension of magic, and we provide it. From there, the magic travels and performs whatever service you require. Usually stalking the mind of some random person for some inconsequential thing.”

That was putting it lightly. The last time I harnessed a manifestation, it was to follow my students, which, to be fair, was probably creepier than delving into the mind of some random stranger, but it certainly wasn’t for something inconsequential. I was attempting to stop a murder. That was far from trivial curiosity.

“Wait. Earlier, you said the Doppler took my magic.”

“He took a piece, pieces to add to his own, which was how he untethered himself from you to begin with. We all have our own magic.”

“What?” I couldn’t hide the confusion in my voice or thoughts. “How?”

“You,” he said bluntly. “You poured your branch magic into your subconscious, breaking off countless pieces.”

“Why?” I didn’t remember doing any of that. Ever. I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t even know how.

“Too much power. The mind of a child can sometimes be easily overwhelmed.” His expression shifted to something soft, somber. “Hearing an entire city all at once when you’re still too young to properly spell the word city can be excruciating. So, as a simple toddler, all you wanted was to make it go away. And you did.”

“No. A toddler?” I shook my head. I remembered when my branch was triggered. I was much older when that happened.

“When you stopped talking to your imaginary friend? When you started looking outward to the world instead of inward?”

I stared at him, at his accusatory face, at his irritating surface thoughts that drifted between us and whispered more secrets about more things I’d never known about myself.

“Oh, yes. Dorian Frost definitely has a handle on his memories. It’s not like he spends all his time evading them, dodging them, pushing them away at all costs.”

Fucking hell. This guy. This persona. My manifestations were always shoving memories back at me in the form of my dreams. I supposed it gave them all a good laugh down here.

“You really just have no fucking clue how any of this works, do you?” He moved his hand, whirling his finger in a circular motion. “We can circle back to all this, but for now, let’s return to how manifestations work.” He pointed to himself. “We don’t leave the subconscious. When you summon a manifestation, you’re calling forth the magic you’ve loaned us.”

I focused on his thoughts, completely transparent and synced with what he explained out loud. He twisted his hand, conjuring the illusion of light in the form of a purple flame. It flickered in the darkness but revealed nothing in the shadows. And I knew there were things in the shadows. I could hear their whispers, feel their presence. Other personas kept distant, studying me.

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