The mansion was quiet, but not still. It breathed with tension—walls heavy with secrets, floors aching with footsteps that had long since passed. Allan sat on the edge of the balcony, his fingers curled around the railing. Cassodie stood beside him, arms crossed, her golden aura flickering like a dying flame.
"I don't know what's happening anymore," Allan said, voice low.
Cassodie didn't respond immediately. "You mean with Jarvis? Or everything?"
"All of it. You. Me. This... pull. This power. It's like we're being dragged into something we didn't choose."
Cassodie nodded slowly. "I feel it too. Like we're chess pieces. But I don't know who's playing."
Allan turned to her. "Do you ever wonder if we're just... dangerous?"
She smiled faintly. "I know I am."
He laughed, but it was hollow. "I'm scared. Of what I might become."
Cassodie looked at him, her eyes soft. "Then become something worth fearing."
Allan was angered by that statement it assumed too many things and he had to tell her exactly what "If we survive Jarvis' brother I don't think I can fight a person like that 6th circle."
"What if we did what we did last time?"
"Physically we can't you saw how fast Jarvis was you see how Melody appears like ghost he must be faster than what we can do."
"So what?"
"It's hard to fight a person who you can't hit but can obliterate you in a second."
Cassodie laughed hard it scared the manor it didn't dare whisper
"Are you crazy or something?"
"No just anxious."
Allan pulled out a cigar and started smoking looking at the distance unfamiliar yet comfortable.
Cassodie borrowed another he was generous and they both shared a puff to the bud.
In her room, Marrie sat in the bath, steam curling around her like ghosts. Her body ached in ways that felt permanent. Sixty-two, and already she felt like she was crumbling.
She closed her eyes—and the memories came.
She was seventeen again, kneeling beside her mother's hospital bed. The woman's hand was cold, lifeless. Marrie had cried, screamed, cursed her.
"You left me," she'd sobbed. "You left me with him, fucking bastard what the fuck is wrong with you bitch you thought that I don't need you no more huh?"
Her father had changed overnight. Before, he'd been warm, now he was distant. He'd taught her how to fix clocks, how to read maps, how to whistle through her teeth. After her mother died, he became a shadow—silent, rigid, unreachable.
She remembered confronting him once, years later.
"You don't even look at me anymore."
He'd stared at her, blank. "You remind me of her a bit too much you are dead to me. I don't talk to ghosts."
That was all, she didn't cry didn't have the right she was twenty not a sniffling little brat. Her father never made it past twenty-one.
Now, Allan was a stranger. Once, he'd been a mischievous brat—using her credit card to buy snacks for his friends, intimidating other kids with his charm and arrogance. Now, he was quiet. Confused. Haunted.
Cassodie was a storm. Esmeralda, a mystery. And she was just... fading.
She pushed them toward college, toward structure, toward legacy.
Because her parents never saw the third generation. Because she wanted to do something they never did. Because maybe, just maybe, it would fix the broken pieces of her youth.
She sank deeper into the bath, letting the heat dull the ache. She'd repress the thoughts. For now.
Esmeralda stood in the boardroom, wearing a body that wasn't hers, facing a decision that wasn't hers.
The company was poised for expansion—but the cost was steep. Millions could benefit from increased health funding if she slowed the growth. But the man she was standing in for had built everything around speed, dominance, and momentum.
The arguments between cooperate monkeys baffled her she wondered how Marrie dealt with all that. She went out of the room a man shorter that the body came by the name was Felix judging from the name tag.
Felix stood beside her, calm, composed.
"Hey Darrel you worried?"
"I'm confused." Esmeralda answered it came as Darrel's voice.
Felix sat down voiced a plan devious hopeful.
"You know what needs to be done," he said.
Esmeralda hesitated. "Is there's another way?"
Felix smiled. "There isn't."
She didn't see the trap until it was too late. She thought it was easy to clear the challenge, maybe she didn't quite understand the value of a loved one.
She was dosed in the elevator fell unconscious too volatile to move a muscle she could only feel and that confusion never left.
They dragged her to a bunker she didn't know who but Felix was definitely there beneath the city. Alex stood waiting—leader of the terrorist cell, former best friend of the man whose body she now wore.
"You came back," he said. "After everything."
'Who is this guy' She thought but judging from the intense emotion they knew the owner of the body to a boorish extent.
"I don't know why you are angry but we can talk it out."
"Talk what out you murdered my family and my country and now you want to talk." Alex screamed cocking a gun and aiming right for her cranium the shock and fear made her blurt.
"Please don't shoot I'm not him I'm from a different timeline my name is..." She tried defending.
Alex laughed bitterly. "Really playing not my body that is a bit childish I've heard better from idiots plus you should know Regrets don't fix betrayal."
She tried to argue. Tried to explain. But Alex was relentless. He laid out the voice's crimes—every bridge burned, every life sacrificed, every lie told. They were too many she gave up it was endless accepting fate she let her head fall down
"You think you're different?" he spat. "You're just another puppet. You remember when you said that go tell the devil I said hi."
She broke. Overwhelmed. Confused. Drowning in the heat of their argument.
Gunshot to the head ended everything too swift too brutal.
"I failed," she whispered.
The voice stirred.
You were meant to fix it.
"No," she snapped. "You burned too many bridges. The problem isn't the world. It's you."
Careful. I can revoke your ability.
"Then do it," she said. "I'd rather be mortal than your scapegoat."
The silence that followed was sharp, like broken glass.
Three days later, Esmeralda woke in her room.
Lily sat beside her, silver-haired, blue-eyed, alive.
She was gently stroking Esmeralda's blonde hair, her touch feather-light.
"You came back," Lily whispered.
Esmeralda broke. The tears came fast, unstoppable. She clung to her sister, sobbing into her shoulder, the weight of every choice crashing down.
She had walked through fire. And found her way back.