Torn Ivy (Thornfield Supernatural Academy #2)

39. Ivy

39

IVY

I stroke the smooth scales of my new companion, feeling a sense of calm wash over me. The snake coils tighter around my neck. Its presence is oddly comforting.

“Ivy, please,” Bram says, his voice tight with worry. “That thing could be dangerous.”

I tear my gaze away from the serpent to look at him. The concern in his eyes should move me, but I feel oddly detached. “It’s not dangerous,” I say softly. “Not to me.”

Torin takes a step closer, his fangs peeking out as he speaks. “You don’t know that. This snake came from Ancient Fae magick. It’s unpredictable.”

I ignore him as Cathy frowns at me, lowering her hook slightly. “Ivy, honey, I know everything feels confusing right now. But we’re just trying to help.”

“I don’t need help,” I snap, surprising myself with the vehemence in my tone. “I need you all to back off and let me figure this out.”

The snake hisses softly, as if in agreement. I stroke its head, marvelling at how its scales shimmer under the dim light of the darkened room.

I glance out of the window and see the snow falling. It’s pretty. I remember snow. I may not remember the people around me, but I remember things and places. I remember snow. Getting up unsteadily, my legs still feeling like jelly, I hobble to the window, hissing at anyone who comes near me to help me. Staring out over the pure white landscape, I shiver. I don’t know what, but something doesn’t feel right about this.

I press my hand against the cold glass, watching my breath fog the window. The snow falls silently outside, blanketing everything in white. It’s beautiful but eerie. Something about it feels off, unnatural.

“It’s never snowed this early before,” I murmur, more to myself than the others.

I can feel the tension ratchet up a notch behind me, but no one says anything. I turn back to face them, the snake tightening its coils around my neck. “What exactly did you do to bring me back?”

They exchange uneasy glances. Torin draws in a deep breath, his expression grim. “We tapped into some very dark, very old magick. It was dangerous and probably illegal.”

“Probably?” Cathy snorts. “Try definitely. We’re lucky we didn’t blow up half the realm.”

I frown, trying to piece together the fragments of memory floating in my mind. “I was scattered across different dimensions.”

Bram nods. “Your essence was torn apart. We had to pull you back together.”

“Why?”

The question hangs in the air like a noxious gas.

“Because,” Torin huffs. “We had to.”

I don’t push. They clearly don’t have a proper answer for me. “How long was I gone in your—in this—world?”

“About three and a half hours,” Cathy says.

My blood freezes. “What?” I ask, confusion flooding my already overloaded system, “ Hours ?”

Bram and Torin exchange a cautious stare before Bram shifts his gaze back to me. “How long was it for you?”

Lowering my gaze, I turn away. “An eternity.”

Silence follows that.

But then Bram asks, “Do you mean that literally, or it felt like?”

“I saw the dawn of empires. I watched them rise and eventually fall. I witnessed stars being born and then fading out, blinking their last when they died. I was everywhere and nowhere. It was one second. It was thousands of years.”

“Fuck,” Torin mutters, and I feel his presence right behind me. “Ivy.” The desperation and sorrow in his voice makes tears prick my eyes, but I blink them away.

I turn back to face them, my hand instinctively reaching up to stroke the snake coiled around my neck. Its presence grounds me and keeps the overwhelming flood of memories and sensations at bay.

“You don’t understand,” I say softly. “I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes. I’ve seen things you can’t even imagine. Now I’m back here, in this body that feels too small, too fragile to contain everything I’ve experienced.”

Bram takes a hesitant step forward. “Ivy, we had no idea. If we’d known?—”

“You’d what?” I snap. “Have left me scattered across dimensions? Maybe that would have been better.”

The moment the words leave my mouth, I regret them. Hurt flashes across their faces. But I can’t bring myself to take it back. Part of me means it.

Torin runs a hand through his hair, frustration evident in every line of his body. “We did this to save you. We risked everything.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.

Cathy sets down her hook, her expression softening. “No, you didn’t. But we couldn’t just leave you like that. We care about you, Ivy. You asked why did we do this. That’s why. We had no idea if you were suffering or being tortured or in pain. We made a decision, and now we all have to live it.”

The snake hisses softly, but it’s not angered by Cathy’s brutally truthful words. If anything, it wants me to accept them. “I need some air,” I croak eventually, turning towards the front door, opening it and slipping out. My feet sink into the snow drifts that are piling up, and it feels like something I should be excited about.

“Well, well, well. Look what your group of worshippers did.”

Scowling, I look over at the voice, and the recognition hits me like a Dragon in full flight. “Life,” I state, pursing my lips. “What do you want?”

She tilts her head, also pursing hers, as she stares at me with growing concern. “Have you forgotten your purpose?”

“What purpose?”

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Okay, first things first. You need to get your perky arse back to the proper timeline, and then you need to remember everything time made you forget.”

“What are you talking about?”

Life sighs heavily, her ethereal form shimmering in the falling snow. “This isn’t your reality, Ivy. The ritual your friends performed to bring you back tore a hole in the fabric of existence. You’ve been shunted into a fractured timeline, a distorted reflection of your true world.”

I blink, trying to process her words. “So none of this is real?” Weirdly, this makes more sense than anything else I’ve experienced since being returned to my body.

“Yes and no,” Life says, waving a hand and showing me a vision in the snow.

I move closer, curiosity getting the better of me, and peer into the swirling snow, watching as images form and shift. I see flashes of another reality. This one is where I’ve been brought back but it is complete devastation. I rear back and shake my head.

“That’s your true timeline,” Life explains. “The one you were torn from when you were scattered across dimensions.”

I frown, recoiling from the images with my fragmented memories. “But if that’s real, then what is this?” I gesture to the empty, snow-covered world around us.

“This is a fractured reality, created by the chaos of the ritual that brought you back,” Life says. “It’s unstable, incomplete, and if left unchecked, it could unravel completely with all of you in it.”

The snake around my neck tightens, as if sensing my unease. I stroke its scales absently. “What am I supposed to do? How do I get us back?”

Life’s expression grows serious. “You need to remember who you truly are, Ivy. Not just the scattered fragments of yourself, but your whole being. Your purpose.”

“You keep mentioning this purpose,” I say, frustration creeping into my voice. “What purpose? I have no memories of anything except things. It’s probably why I remember you .”

She grimaces at my insult but pushes it aside. “You are Chaos incarnate, Ivy. The embodiment of change, of transformation. You’re meant to bring balance to the realms, to shake things up when they grow stagnant.”

And?

She’s not saying everything. What can’t I remember? It seems important that I do.

“What else aren’t you telling me?”

Life sighs, her form shimmering in the falling snow. “You’re not just Chaos, Ivy. You’re the Nexus. The focal point where all realms intersect. Your existence holds reality together.”

I blink, stunned by this revelation. “That’s why I ended up everywhere when I?—”

“Died.”

I splutter. “Died? I died?”

“Mm-hm.”

“And you want me to go back to that reality where I’m dead? How will that help anything?”

“It will bring your lover back.”

I stumble back, my eyes going back to the vision, to the part where I avoided looking earlier.

Tate.

“And then?” I croak, wondering why I believe this creature, but I do. For the first time since I came back, I actually know what she says is real.

Life’s expression hardens slightly. “And then you’ll have a choice to make. One that could reshape reality as you know it.”

I stare at her, my mind reeling. “What kind of choice?”

“Whether to remain as you are—scattered across dimensions, holding reality together but unable to truly live—or to become something new. Something that can exist in one place without tearing the fabric of existence apart.”

The snake around my neck hisses softly, its scales rippling in agitation. I stroke it absently, finding comfort in its presence. “If I choose to become something new? What happens then? Tate lives?”

Life shrugs, her form flickering like a candle flame. “I don’t know. That’s the nature of true change, Ivy. It’s unpredictable. But it’s necessary. The realms have grown stagnant, calcified. They need the spark of chaos to evolve.”

I roll my eyes as there’s that word again. But this time, it hits something deep inside me, and I start to grasp fragments of the life I lost. “You wanted to use me to create eternal life,” I mutter. “If I go back, what happens then?”

She smiles, and I see the ominous presence rippling under the surface of her smooth skin. “Only one way to find out.”

And then she’s gone.

“Don’t trust her,” Bram says from the doorway. “You can’t trust a word she says. This is all because of her.”

“Maybe,” I agree. “But she also isn’t wrong. If she says this isn’t our real timeline, that the ritual you performed to bring me back tore a hole in reality, then we’re in some kind of fractured dimension.”

Bram’s expression darkens, and he closes his eyes and breathes out, rubbing a hand over his face. “I was afraid of something like that.”

“You knew this could happen?” I ask, anger flaring inside me.

He holds up his hands defensively. “Not exactly. But messing with that level of magick... we knew there could be consequences. We just didn’t know how severe.”

I shake my head, frustration building. “So you risked tearing apart reality just to bring me back? Why? What could possibly be worth that?”

Bram’s eyes flash with an emotion I can’t quite place. “You. You are worth it, Ivy. We couldn’t just leave you scattered across dimensions. We’d do it again and again?—”

“And again,” Torin interrupts.

Their words should touch me, should make me feel something. But I just feel hollow. “Now what? We’re stuck in some broken version of reality, and if we go back to the real world, Tate is dead.”

“Not necessarily,” Bram says, taking a step closer. “There might be a way to fix this. To get back to our proper timeline before Tate dies.”

“Before you bring me back, you mean,” I state bitterly.

Bram grimaces at my less-than-positive attitude. “No. If we can find a way back to the precise moment you returned, the precise moment Tate dies, we might be able to prevent all of this.”

“And how the fuck do we do that?” I growl.

“By asking the one creature who knows all about death.”

I blink and shrug.

He rolls his eyes. “Death, Ivy. Death.”

Right. Because we have Life, so, we have to have Death as well. Of course. This all makes sense now. It all makes sense. Not.