Page 111 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

“It’s time for you both to fulfill your destiny, my love.” Amara brushed the back of her hand against Theodore’s cheek as if meant to wipe away tears, but he hadn’t shed any—he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “You are the vanguard of the new world order, the return of gods. You will be the commander of an army. You will be the right hand, the vigilant knight, to your sister who will reign as queen goddess over everything.”

When she said everything, it sent a shiver through my spine, through Theodore’s too, because she didn’t mean everything here. She meant everything everywhere. The True Witch sought to tear down the walls of every plane and rule over them with her children: Theodore and Tara Whitlock.

“But first, you can stay here until you learn to appreciate and respect all I have given you.” Amara slammed the door closed and left Theodore to rot in this cell with the corpses for months now.

I sprang loose from the memory as it continued playing in Theodore’s mind, resetting to the very beginning and looping through the deaths of the three most important people in his life.

“Well, well, well.” The metal door that sealed Theodore inside his cell was flung open with Amara bathed in the light outside. “If it isn’t the psychic that struck down one of my pillars. Naughty, naughty.”

She could see me, even as a ghostly manifestation.

“Know this, witch. The next time we face each other, I will have the full force of my Celestial Coven and an army.” She hurled an ocean, enough to shatter my fragmented being away from her secluded hiding spot and sent my broken being back to the whole of my body, my other half.

I gasped, taking in another manifestation. A few had returned over the summer empty-handed and mostly depleted of the magic I’d loaned their form. Nearly a month and nothing learned. But this new one carried answers. Not the location, not yet, but so much worse.

I had to find Milo, had to share this information. Most of all, I had to figure out how to protect Tara from her mother. Protectthe city from Theodore. I had to protect everyone from witches who sought to unleash gods and demons onto the world.

THE END

…until the fall semester of the third and final year.

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