Page 16 of Revert
I traced the each spiral etched into the margin, heart tightening. A symbol part of me suspected had marked my end…and now, perhaps, the beginning of something I wasn’t ready to follow to its conclusion. Something about it stirred something in my mind—not a memory from the first timeline, but something that almost felt further back, almost like a memory I shouldn’t have.
My breath caught.Does he know?I didn’t know what unsettled me more: the uncertainty of what it meant, or the fact that the prince had led me straight to it.
My gaze flicked towards the shelf he’d disappeared behind, his stillness too deliberate for me to believe he was unaware. I kept my features composed, turning the pages with practiced disinterest, even as my pulse quickened. Was this some new ploy, a trap dressed in false trust? Or was he…helpingme? But I knew better. This was no chaperoned duty—it was a test, one I intended to pass.
“Something appears to have captured your attention.” His low, steady voice emerged from somewhere behind me. “Is the ink too faded for your liking?”
I flinched but didn’t turn. “Merely admiring the calligraphy. It’s a lost art, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Some things are best left lost.” His voice came from the direction of a different shelf this time, closer. I stiffened, but I kept my eyes on the page, feigning focus while my thoughts twisted into knots.
I turned the page. More sigils, interspersed through the text like annotations. Some spiraled clockwise, others counterclockwise, interwoven like a puzzle. Words in a tongue I didn’t recognize thrummed beneath the parchment like the whisper I’d heard in the mural chamber, indiscernible sounds I couldn’t translate, except for one phrase that seemed to rise above the page.
One path unmade…
What could it mean? I traced the spiral again, as if touch alone might help me decipher the strange magic pulsing faintly against my fingertips—unfamiliar, yet not entirely new, a clue that hadn’t surfaced in the original timeline. As in my first life, I could only gather fragments, pieces I hadn’t yet learned how to fit together into something coherent.
Prince Castiel suddenly emerged from the shadows. I startled and snapped the book shut, as though I’d been caught looking at something I wasn’t supposed to. “Have youdiscovered anything useful?”
“Fascinating information about trade agreements and tax law,” I said dryly. “Riveting insight into Thorndale’s soul.”
One corner of his mouth almost quirked as he looked pointedly to the book I still held. “Then you missed the subtext entirely.”
What did that mean? Did he know about the strange sigil that adorned these pages? “Then perhaps you should include footnotes. Next time, label your riddles.”
“And ruin the fun of watching you struggle?” he said. “No, I much prefer this sharp-tongued version of you—the one who is both suspicious and potentially dangerous.”
Dangerous?“His Highness excels at the art of flattery.” But perhaps, coming from someone who had once killed me, he considered that a compliment.
His phantom smirk faded and the air shifted, charged now with something quieter, heavier. The thrill of the verbal sparring ebbed, leaving behind a silence that settled between us like dust on the forgotten tomes.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he murmured. “Strange for someone with so many opinions that always seem to require great effort for you to suppress.”
If he could already see the biting retorts I fought to keep contained, perhaps there was no point in keeping them restrained.
His gaze held mine, sharp and searching, as if I were a cipher he was desperate to solve—certain the answer would appear if he only looked long enough. “I think you want to believe you’re still playing the game.”
“I’m surviving it,” I said coldly.
His mouth twitched—not quite a smile, yet something different from the threatening smirk I’d grown to fear. “Survival requires knowing the rules, as well as who’s actually moving the pieces.”
“Is that advice...or another test?” Or perhaps a warning in disguise.
“What does it matter, so long as you pass?” A thread of regret wound through his casual tone, so subtle it barely reached the surface…yet enough to make me wonder if hedidn’twant me to fail.
Every word between us was a knife’s edge, yet there was something oddly exhilarating in the exchange. For all its subtextof peril, it awakened something in me different from the usual monotony of the court, the thrill of dancing with death itself.
As if sensing this new invigoration, he looked at me—not as a decorative fixture in the court or a pawn to be manipulated, not quite like a fiancée, but rather like a variable he couldn’t predict—almost as if he might look at someone worthy of his notice.
“You weren’t always this feisty,” he murmured after a moment of pensive silence.
Perhaps being murdered had made me bolder. The girl I’d been before had carried her strength quietly, tucked beneath obedience and smiles, but that was no longer enough for the dangers I now navigated. Dying had changed me, and this new Bernice had no interest in remaining in the shadows. Whether that change would prove an ally or a hindrance moving forward remained to be seen.
We stared at one another, tension suspended. He moved first, reaching for his sword. I jerked back instinctively, my spine colliding with the shelves, causing a cascade of books to fall to the ground.
“There’s no need to look so startled,” he said, his voice uncannily calm. “I’m the one who brought you here. Curiosity is a strength, not a weakness. Thorndale has its secrets, but none worth more than a life.” He reached up and deliberately set his sword atop a high shelf out of reach, then stepped back.
I stared at him, stunned. Everything in this timeline was unfolding—his behavior, his restraint, even these strange invitations—in stark contrast to the man who had once killed me. Navigating the shifting dynamics was proving far more difficult than the mission I still had to carry out under his frustrating surveillance, like walking a tightrope in the dark.
