Page 72 of Touched By Darkness

Dari readjusts the bag on her shoulder. “The truth. She wasn’t lying.”

“So you’re saying she knew us in a different timeline?” Alaric sounds as skeptical as I feel, but unlike me, he’s considering the possibility of such a statement.

Me? I can’t wrap my mind around it.

“I don’t know what I believe,” Dariana concedes, “but she was scared of me.”

I snort. “Everyone is scared of you.”

“You don’t get it.” She follows after me when I set off walking. “She wasn’t scared of me like that. It was almost as if…”

I pull to a stop outside the library doors and blow out a tired sigh while Alaric studies her intently. “As if what?”

Dari hesitates. “As if she’s in love with me.”

This time I laugh, throwing open the library doors. “She can’t be in love with you; she doesn’t know you.”

“That’s exactly it. The way she looked at me… it was as if she knew me.”

“Let’s just see what we can find first,” Alaric breathes out, entering the library, and we follow behind.

“This notion of yours is crazy,” I tell Dari, keeping my voice low.

“Is it? Is it really? We all know Amenadiel is crazy. Would it really surprise you if he went to these far-reaching lengths to topple Lucifer?”

Alaric disappears down one of the aisles as I turn and rub a hand down my face. “Amenadiel is crazy. I’ll admit that, but he’s not crazy enough to chase the crown in more timelines than one.”

“That’s not what the little witch said, though.” Alaric’s voice drifts over to us.

After exchanging a look, we follow after him.

“What did she say then?” Dari inquires while Alaric pulls out a book.

Dissatisfied, he puts it back and continues perusing the spines. “She never actually said she found herself in a different timeline. She simply said she wants to believe it’s a different timeline, so the experience she had—the connection with each of us—is still out there, somewhere. What she did, in fact, say is that we don’t remember her anymore.”

“So?”

“So, what we’re looking at is time travel.”

“Time travel?” I huff a disbelieving laugh as I stare at his neck. “Do you hear yourself?”

Alaric straightens and turns around, leaning back against the shelf. “It’s no weirder than separate timelines. Instead of calling it time travel, since that would suggest the white-winged version of her is about to stroll down the hallways any day now, let’s think of it… Let’s say we go back ten minutes in time, right? Like a videotape that you rewind. You with me?”

“Not really,” I say at the same time Dari says, “Sure.”

“It’s like that. She rewound time, which in turn erased the events that occurred.”

“I’m so confused,” I admit.

“Why? If someone came along with a remote control and rewound time until we’re all back upstairs, setting fire to crates, did this conversation right now happen?”

“Duh. Yes.”

“No. Not to us, it wouldn’t have.”

“You need to get laid. Use that enormous brain of yours for better purposes than the vile act of thinking.” I throw my hands up. “Let’s just find the information we need and leave.

Dariana pats my shoulder as she walks past me to help Alaric hunt. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’ll all make sense to you soon enough.”

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