Page 104 of Shifters Reckoning

“No,” I said. “He won’t.”

“I can tell you now,” she said quietly, “why I closed the bond and why I ran off without you.” She laced her fingers through mine. “The path into the depths of Wolf Moon Cave only opens for me, and I couldn’t take anyone Acheron had ever touched. A marked soul is a thread he can pull, and you’ve got his premonition burned in behind your eyes, Logan.”

“You know about that?” My heart clenched.

“I had a vision, and it warned me about your premonition. I don’t think I saw it all, but I saw enough of it.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it.” I hated that she’d seen the ugliness of it without my holding her hand. “It was too awful to say aloud, and I can’t believe that’s the end.”

“I knew that anything I put in your head, I might put in his, so I kept the trip to the cave a secret, all of it, because if he saw where I was going, he’d have been waiting.”

“I know.” I’d worked most of it out. “Jasper. Dr. Wise. The only two untouched souls in the war.”

“Yeah.” She took a shuddering breath. “But the road’s walked now. The cave’s behind me. As powerful as Acheron is, he can’t unwalk what’s been walked, and he’s already committed to facing me. He wants me in there, so telling you what I found doesn’t change one move he’ll make. The secret’s worn out. The death-duel is going to happen, and the wall is breaking down on its own.” She looked at our joined hands. “I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“I have.”

“I can also finally tell you the price, the reason I’ve looked at you like I was sorry for weeks.”

The scar over my heart went cold.

“To mend the Veil,” she said, “the culmination has to give herself into it. All that gathered power found its way home to me. It has to go back where it came from, and I have to go with it. Unmade. I’ll be the mortar in the wall between two worlds. Emma Carter, spread thin across the boundary, holding it shut forever.” Her voice didn’t break. That was the worst part. She’d had time to practice not letting it break. “Not death, Logan. Death I could almost…” She swallowed. “No. Worse than death. To close the wound and save every single person we love, I have to stop being anyone at all.” She smoothed her hand over my chest. “I don’t have it all worked out, but I think that’s why the multimorph tree existed. It was a remnant from one of the other multimorphs. Maybe that’s why Acheron destroyed it.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

“But,” she continued, “Dr. Wise says the cost is removed from every page because it isn’t fixed. The one who pays it chooses it. That’s the whole secret. Not the abilities. Not the power. The choosing. I’m not walking in there to be the mortar. I’m walking in there to force a different ending. I just don’t know what it is yet.” She lifted my hand and pressed it flat between her breasts, over the warm place where her power pooled, over the steady heartbeat I’d restarted once. “I’m betting the whole world that between us, we can find a price that isn’t me.”

That was when it hit me. The reason the two truths we’d just traded were the same truth, wearing two faces. Multimorph. Anchor. Her and me. Fated.

If she paid the foretold price, if she poured herself into the Veil and stopped being Emma, then I would become exactly what I should be. I would be the anchor, left behind, with a multimorph-shaped hole torn through the middle of me and nothing left to ground. Alone. Ruined.

I knew, suddenly and completely, what an abandoned anchor became when the rot got in. I didn’t know how I knew. I just knew, the way I’d known she’d accept Acheron’s summons.

“Emma,” I started.

But a double beep sounded as the door of the gym banged open, and the video feed in the relic room flickered to life. Sophia Carter’s voice echoed through the gym.

“I know you two are back there being tragic, but you’ve been in here for days,” she called, “and I have a casserole for a late supper. Tragedy is easier with cheese. Also, Eleanor and I found something, and Emma Carter, you are going to want to be sitting down when you see this. Put some clothes on, both of you. Modesty may have no place among shifters, but it has a place at my table. I’ll be in the manor.”

Six-Mile Manor

Sophia marched into the dining room with a foil-covered dish balanced on a cardboard box that had DIOCESAN—WATER DAMAGE stamped on the side in fading ink. She placed the casserole halfway down the long table.

Dr. Wise came in behind her, her spectacles flashing, her satchel slung over her shoulder.

Two place settings had been deposited on the table, and we sat in front of them, both of us in T-shirts, plus sweatpants for me, shorts for Emma, per Sophia’s request.

“Been a minute since I’ve had clothes on, Mom,” Emma said. “They’re itchy. Might have to take them off.”

Sophia sniffed. “Don’t you dare, young lady. I feel like I can look at you both now.”

I covered my smile but said nothing for or against. Getting on Sophia’s good side was still on my to-do list as her daughter’s mate.

“Have you checked the news lately?” I directed the question to Dr. Wise.

“It’s not good.”

“Why would it be good?” I snapped.