Torn Ivy (Thornfield Supernatural Academy #2)

38. Tate

38

TATE

I stand in the kitchen, staring blankly out the window as the others fuss over Ivy and that strange snake. I know I should care. I know this situation is dangerous and disturbing. But I feel nothing about anything. Apathetic is the word.

It’s like looking at the world through foggy glass. Everything is muted, distant. The panic in Torin and Bram’s voices as they try to reason with Ivy in the other room about the snake barely registers.

Torin and Bram seem to think I loved Ivy once and gave that up, but I can’t remember. It’s not just a feeling of love lost… it’s totally gone, as if it never existed in the first place. Right now, I just don’t feel much of anything at all.

A small part of me understands that this should be terrifying. The Tate I was before, knowing all of this, would systematically try to remember, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. But that Tate is gone, leaving behind this hollow shell.

My gaze drifts to the scorched ritual circle, and I wonder absently what will happen to us. What we did was probably illegal. Even though we succeeded in bringing Ivy back, at what cost was it? To her, to all of us?

The others are still arguing with Ivy in the living room. I should go in there and try to help. But what could I possibly offer? Who I am now is different. I know that. I may not remember loving her, but I remember being more proactive and on the front foot. As much as I try to force myself to move, to think, to act. I still just stand there staring.

I huff out a breath and take a step back. Standing around here isn’t going to accomplish anything. I need to leave and give myself some space from this situation. Give Ivy space while she tries to figure stuff out.

Moving towards the back door, I slip out without a word and head around the side of the house. Crossing over the road, I walk. We are a few miles from the Thornfield campus, which is good. I can use this time, this walk, to clear my head. I look up at the dull grey sky and blink as snow hits my face. It’s early. It normally never snows this early. Is it a result of what we did? Have we fucked with everything by doing what we did? Does it matter even if we did?

Even that is something I can’t bring myself to care about.

As I get closer to Thornfield, the snow falls heavier, blanketing the world in white. The silence is oppressive, broken only by the crunch of my boots on fresh powder. I don’t even feel the cold right now.

My mind drifts to Ivy and the others back at Cathy’s house. I know I should be worried about that snake, about Ivy’s lost memories, about what we’ve all sacrificed. But it’s like trying to grasp smoke. The concern slips away before I can fully form it.

I reach the edge of campus, the familiar buildings looming ahead. Classes will be starting soon for the day. Normal life goes on, oblivious to the chaos we’ve unleashed. For a moment, I consider just going to class, pretending nothing has happened. It would be easy to slip back into a routine, to let the mundane details of student life distract me from the hollowness inside.

But even as I think it, I know I can’t. Whatever I’ve lost, whatever’s been taken from me, I still have some sense of duty. Of obligation, if not care. I need to go back, to face whatever consequences are coming.

But I need a minute.

Crossing over the quad, I frown. The place is deserted. There is no sign of life at all. No students, no staff members. It’s a ghost town. I know I should care what the fuck has happened here, but I don’t.

Making my way to where there is a large wall with painted targets for the students to practice hitting with their magick, I take a step back on the concrete slab that stretches out in front of it and stare at the wall. There are circles of all sizes on the wall painted in red paint. The smaller the circle, the more difficult the target. I coil my magick in my palm and glance down at it. It looks more sinister than it did before, but it might just be me, projecting things that aren’t there.

I stare at the crackling energy in my palm, trying to summon some emotion. Fear, excitement, anything. But there’s just nothing. The magick feels foreign, almost malevolent. Not the warm, familiar power I vaguely remember wielding before.

With a flick of my wrist, I hurl a bolt of energy at the smallest target. It misses wildly, scorching the wall several feet away. I frown. My aim used to be dead on.

I try again and again. Each attempt goes wide, my magick is erratic and unpredictable. Frustration should be building, but I just feel numb detachment as I watch my failures accumulate on the wall.

After the tenth miss, I lower my hand. What’s the point of this? I can’t even remember why I cared about honing these skills in the first place.

A cold wind whips across the empty quad, stirring the fresh snow. The eerie silence of the abandoned campus presses in around me. I should be unnerved by the total absence of life here. But like everything else, it barely registers.

I turn away from the scorched wall, unsure of what to do next. Go back to Cathy’s? Try to help with Ivy and that snake? The thought holds no appeal. Stay here on campus and wait for... something? Equally unappealing.

I start to walk away, but then I turn and fire an orb of power at the wall. It misses every target, bouncing harmlessly off the breeze block.

“Fuck!” I roar, feeling a familiar anger rise up. “Fuck you!” I throw another and another. “Fuck!” I roar, hurling bolt after bolt of useless energy at the wall. My aim is wild, the magick recoils off the targets, leaving no sign of damage.

The rage feels good, though. It’s the first real emotion I’ve felt since waking up after the ritual. I lean into it, screaming obscenities as I unleash my power.

Snow swirls around me, kicked up by the force of my attacks. The air snaps with ozone and residual magick.

I keep going until my arms ache, and I’m panting for breath. The wall is pristine and unblemished. Not a single target was hit.

Exhausted, I slump to my knees in the snow. The anger drains away, leaving me hollow again. But for a moment there, I felt something. It wasn’t love or happiness, but it was an emotion. Proof that I’m not completely dead inside.

I stare at my hands, still crackling faintly with power. My magick feels wrong, tainted somehow. But it’s all I have left.

“What am I supposed to do now?” I ask the empty air.

“You fight.”

The voice comes out of nowhere, and I look up. Seeing Death standing there, his skeletal face and hands the only parts visible underneath that flowing black robe, I rise quickly. “Fight what?” I sneer.

Death’s hollow eye sockets seem to bore into me. “Fight for what you’ve lost, Tate Blackwell. Fight to reclaim your soul.”

I snort derisively. “My soul? I didn’t lose my soul. Just my feelings for some girl.”

“Is that what you think?” Death’s voice is cold, echoing strangely in the empty quad. “You gave up far more than you realise. Your love for Ivy was the core of who you were. Without it, you’re barely more than a shell.”

His words should sting and make me angry, but I just feel numb. “So, what if I am? Maybe this is better. No messy emotions getting in the way.”

Death takes a step closer, snow swirling around his robed form. “Is it better? Look at yourself, Tate. You can barely control your magick. You feel nothing for the woman you once would have died for. Is this truly the existence you want?”

I shrug, averting my gaze. “It doesn’t matter what I want. What’s done is done.”

“Nothing is ever truly done,” Death says, gesturing around him. “There are always choices to be made, paths to take. The question is, are you willing to fight for what you’ve lost?”

I stare at him. “How? How do I fight for something I can’t even remember?”

Death’s skeletal hand points at me, and I shiver despite myself. “This reality is wrong—all of it. The three of you, in your desire and haste to bring back the woman you love, have altered perception. This is not the world you were in before you did the ritual. Don’t you see it?” He waves his fingers, and an orb appears, shining bright red but with a fleck of darkness in it. I recognise it instantly even though I’ve never seen it before. “Your soul, young Blackwell.”

I blink, processing that. “Why do you have it?”

Death laughs. “Why do you think?”

“I’m dead?”

“In the reality you are supposed to be in, yes, you died during the ritual. Ripping your love out of your soul for Ivy Hammond killed you.”

“So why am I still here?”

“You aren’t. At least, you are, but in this world where things are… different.”

“Are you saying we created a new dimension or that we were transported to one?”

Death closes his hand over the orb, and it vanishes. “Neither. And both. The ritual you performed tore at the fabric of reality itself. It created ripples. Distortions. This world you find yourself in now is a fractured reflection of your own, warped by the chaos you unleashed.”

I struggle to process this information. “We’re in some kind of alternate timeline?”

“In a sense,” Death says. “But it’s unstable. Incomplete. Look around you, Tate. An empty campus in the middle of term? Snow falling months too early? Your own magick, wild and unpredictable? These are symptoms of a reality that’s coming apart at the seams.”

A chill runs down my spine, and it has nothing to do with the snow drifting down the collar of my shirt. “What happens if it falls apart completely?”

Death’s voice grows grim. “Oblivion. For you, for Ivy, for everyone in this fractured world. Unless you find a way to set things right.”

“How?” I demand. “How do I fix something I don’t even fully understand?”

“You start by reclaiming what you’ve lost,” Death says, gesturing to where my soul had been moments before. “Your love for Ivy wasn’t just an emotion, Tate. It was the core of who you were. Without it, you’re adrift in a sea of chaos, unable to anchor yourself or anyone else.”

I shake my head, frustration building. “But if we uncreate this timeline, am I not just going to be dead?”

Death regards me silently for a long moment. Finally, he speaks. “Death is not always the end, Tate Blackwell. Especially not in a reality as fractured as this one.”

I frown, trying to make sense of his cryptic words. “What does that mean?”

“It means that the lines between life and death, between one reality and another, have been blurred by what you and your companions did,” Death explains. “Your physical form may have perished in the original timeline, but your essence—your soul—persists.”

“So what, I’m some kind of ghost?” I ask sceptically.

Death shakes his head. “No. You are very much alive in this distorted reality. But you are incomplete, unanchored. By reclaiming your soul, by fighting to restore what was lost, you may be able to bridge the gap between what was and what is.”

“This is insane. How am I supposed to fight for something I can’t even remember? How do I reclaim a love I don’t feel?”

“By choosing to,” Death says simply. “By acknowledging that this emptiness inside you is wrong, that there should be more. By being willing to face the pain and grief that comes with loving someone, rather than hiding in this numbed state and by seeking out what you are really after.”

“Which is?” I ask, but he’s gone. “Oh, fuck you, you complete bony, arsehole.”

Death’s laughter cackles all around me, and I shudder. If what he says is true, and I died during the ritual, was it my death that did this, or was it the ritual? Was it Ivy being whole again? Was she supposed to stay scattered?

Chaos is never meant to be in one place, Tate Blackwell. It cannot be contained.

I roll my eyes as Death’s voice resounds in my head. “Right. Fine. This has to be a combination of things, then. All of the things we did made this timeline. So we have to undo it all. I have to die; Ivy has to stay torn apart…” I shake my head. “It’s not an option!” I coil my magick again and throw it with the feeling of utter rage that has descended over me.

The magick bolt flies from my hand, crackling with uncontrolled power. For a moment, I think it will miss the wall entirely. But at the last second, it curves impossibly, slamming into the smallest target dead centre.

The impact is explosive. The entire wall shatters, and chunks of concrete fly in all directions. I quickly throw up a hasty shield to deflect the debris.

As the dust settles, I stare in shock at the destruction. That single bolt held more power than anything I’ve ever channelled before.

“What the fuck?” I mutter.

My magick isn’t weaker or unpredictable. It’s raw, untamed. Without the emotional core I sacrificed, there’s nothing holding it back.

I look down at my hands, still crackling with energy. For the first time since waking up after the ritual, I feel a flicker of real fear.

This power, unchecked by conscience, as morally grey as that was, is dangerous. I’m dangerous.

Death’s words echo in my mind. Fight for what you’ve lost. Reclaim your soul.

I clench my fists, extinguishing the magick. As much as I hate to admit it, the bony bastard is right. I can’t go on like this; a hollow shell with more power than control.

I need to find a way back to who I was. For my own sake, and for Ivy’s. Even if that means I have to die, I know I can’t live like this.