I would be dead by the end of the year, no matter which Realm I chose.
95
“Emma, what is it? What’s wrong?” Lachlan asked anxiously.
“What did that evil thing say to you?” Bran growled.
I covered my face with my hands and began to sob.
“The Apple,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. “The Wicked Apple—that was what I dreamed about last night. Only it wasn’t a dream. Mab came to me—she came through the door in the picture and she made me take a bite! And now I’m going to die, just like my real parents did! She said I’d die before…” I sobbed. “Before the end of the year.”
“She was lying!” Bran exclaimed, his face red with anger. “She was trying to scare you, Emma.”
But Lachlan’s face was pale and drawn. He shook his head slowly.
“No, I don’t think she was. Emma—do you have a bitter taste in the back of your throat?”
“Y-yes…” I nodded, my tears overflowing again. “She made me bite it—she forced it in my mouth. I thought it was a d-dream!”
I dissolved into sobs again. Was this really the end of my short life? I felt like it had barely begun—I wasn’t even out of high school yet! And now all I could do was go home and say goodbye to my coven—say goodbye to Avery and Megan and Kaitlyn—the best friends I had ever had in my life. I would die and leave them and never see them or Bran and Lachlan again.
And what about Griffin and Ari and Saint and little Jalli? What about my mom? What would it do to her to lose her daughter like this? It was like Mab had given me a terminal illness and there was nothing anyone I loved could do but watch me waste away, just like Lady Isella had been forced to watch my real mother, Lorella, waste away.
At that moment, the huge clock on the far wall of the banquet hall made a deep bong.
I looked up, my eyes blurry with tears.
“The first stroke of twelve,” Bran said numbly. “The time of decision.”
I shook my head.
“It doesn’t matter who I choose—in fact, I don’t want to choose either of you. What if choosing you drags you down with me? I can’t do that—I love you both too much.”
“And we love you, Emma,” Lachlan said as the clock continued to chime. “Which is why you need to choose both of us.”
“What?” I looked up at him uncertainly. “What are you talking about?”
“You need to choose both of us,” he repeated. He looked at Bran. “Together, we can help Emma bear this burden—dissipate this poison—the same way we did with the black widow’s poison.”
“But that won’t work!” I protested. “My father tried to save my mother that way and they both died!”
“Because there were only two of them!” Lachlan exclaimed. “Don’t you see—they Blood-Bonded too late and there were only the two of them to bear the poison. But you only took a bite of the Wicked Apple last night, little one. The poison hasn’t been in your system very long. The three of us ought to be able to handle it.”
“What if we can’t? What if it just kills you and Bran too? No…” I shook my head. “I don’t want to do that—I love both of you too much to risk your lives like that.”
“Have you considered that if you die, Lachlan and I don’t want to go on living?” Bran asked softly. “We love you, Emma—both of us do.” Raising his sword, he found a clean spot on the blade, near the hilt, and sliced the pad of his pointer finger. He held it out to me. “Here—drink.”
“But…” I started to protest. But before I could, Lachlan had sliced his own finger on the needle-sharp point of the crystal at the end of his staff. He, too, held out his bleeding finger to me.
“Drink, little one,” he said. “Drink from both of us and then let us drink from you.”
All this time the clock was still chiming but it seemed as though time had slowed down somehow. It was like Bran and Lachlan and I were locked in a reality of our own.
I looked at both of them and felt my heart overflowing with love. My Dark Mage and my White Knight—both of them wanted to save me and neither wanted to live if I died. I knew I shouldn’t do this—shouldn’t let them risk themselves for me. But I knew in my heart I would do the same for either of them.
The three of us belonged together, whether we lived or died, that was just the way it was.
Carefully, I licked the drop of blood from Bran’s finger and then from Lachlan’s. Then I reached back and pulled the hat pin with the red pearl at one end, from the collar of my dress, where I had put it for safe keeping.