Page 63 of The Unseelie War
Even when that knowledge felt like it was tearing her soul apart.
Even when that knowledge meant saying goodbye to the only man she had ever loved.
When they returnedto the opera house, everyone was gathered in the main theater. The space felt different now—charged with tension and the weight of approaching doom. Abigail sat on the front lip of the center of the stage. Nos and Ibin sat in the front row, their expressions grim. Bitty hovered near Lysander, who was pacing back and forth like a caged animal, his tail swishing with nervous energy.
All conversation stopped when Ava and Serrik entered.
“Well?” Abigail's voice carried across the theater. “What did you learn?”
Yeah. The Queen already knew. Ava would bet dollars to donuts that the Morrigan had shown Abigail the same fucking thing. Maybe just not so dramatically. But Abigail probably hadn’t cussed her out, so…y’know. There wasthat.
Ava walked slowly down the aisle, Book clutched to her chest. Every step felt like walking to her own execution. When she reached the stage, she climbed the steps and stood facing the others, feeling the weight of their expectations pressing down on her.
Nos groaned. “Notthatthing again.”
“I can separate the worlds now.” Ava’s jaw ticked. “I know how.”
Relief flickered across several faces, but Ava held up a hand before anyone could speak. “But the price is expensive. And it isn’t just mine to pay.” She swallowed hard. “Or Abigail’s.”
She opened Book, its pages now filled with diagrams and text that seemed to writhe with their own life. The knowledge burned in her mind as she began to explain. “Three anchorpoints. One for each reality. Alex for Tir n'Aill, Abigail for the Web, and me for Earth.” She did her best to keep her voice steady, trying to mirror Serrik’s coldness as if she were reading from a textbook rather than describingthe end of their lives. “We become the living foundations that hold the worlds apart.”
“That doesn't sound so terrible,” Bitty said hopefully. “Like—like guardians, right?”
Ava's heart broke a little at the hope in the tiny Seelie’s voice. “Not guardians, Bitty. Anchors. We don't guard the worlds—we becomepartof them. Permanently.”
She looked directly at Abigail as she continued. “The process is gradual. Over months, then years, then centuries, we’d…lose pieces of ourselves. Our memories would fade. Our personalities will dissolve. Our sentience will bleed away until there's nothing left but our function. We’ll become forces without thought or feeling. Alex will become the eternal forest, her consciousness scattered among every tree and root until there's no ‘Alex’ left to remember what it was like to be ‘Alex.’ Abigail will become part of the prison of the Web itself, her essence woven into its structure until she's nothing more than the space between dreams.”
Abigail's face had gone pale, but she nodded slowly. “And you?”
“I become the void between worlds that holds up Earth like it’s a marble, I guess. The negative space between the silver threads you shall become. The empty space that keeps them from touching, from destroying each other.” Ava's voice broke. “I—” She had to stop to breathe through the tears. “I become nothing that defines the everything, watching over realities I can no longer truly comprehend, protecting people I can no longer remember caring about.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
It was Lysander who spoke first, his voice small and lost. “How long?”
She shrugged helplessly. “Different for each of us. The process varies based on the nature of what we're anchoring. But the Morrigan showed me…” Ava closed her eyes, remembering the visions that had burned themselves into her mind. “Centuries. Maybe millennia. A slow erosion of everything that makes us who we are.”
“This is bloodyfuckingmadness,” Ibin said, standing abruptly. “I do not accept this! This is surrender, and we don’t accept surrender! There has to be another way.”
“There isn’t.” Ava looked down at the tome. “I saw what happens if we don't separate the worlds. The realities tear each other apart, creating a cascade failure that consumes not just our three worlds, but every realm, every dimension, everything that exists. Total entropy. Complete void.”
Nos and Ibin exchanged a look, then turned to Ava with expressions of growing suspicion.
“This isn't like you,” Ibin said, crossing her arms. “Since when do you just accept what the gods tell you to do? Since when do you accept whatanybodytells you? Since when do you give up without a fight?”
Ava blinked. “I’m not giving up?—”
“You are!” Ibin's voice rose as she jabbed a finger at her and the tome in her hands. “You're accepting a solution that destroys you and your friends without even looking for alternatives. The Ava I know would be plotting some impossible scheme to save everyone, not calmly planning her own cosmic suicide.”
Nos nodded grimly. “She's right. This surrender…how do we know this isn't just more lies planted in your head by the Morrigan?”
The accusation stung because it was exactly what Ava had been trying desperately not to think about. How could she trust anything she'd learned from a goddess who had spent centuries manipulating everyone around her? She shut her eyes.
And gave up.
Just gave up.
“I can’t keep doing this. I just can’t. Maybe you’re right.” She sighed. “But what am I supposed to do if you are? Just to go around again? More suspicion, more lies, more maybes, more games? No. I’m done. Let it be over.”
