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Tabitha eld him

And speak of the devil, she came out of the back room Only she was much more sedate Gone was the Queen of the Damned-and-Emo and in her place was a woman in a h her dark auburn hair “Tabby isn’t here She and Tia ran off to the rock shop for soers—“had to see” She rolled her eyes “It’s another box of rocks Really What is it with you whackadoodles?”

“You

She narrowed a suspicious gaze on him “Yeah And you are…?”

“Friend of the whackadoodles,” Selena answered before he could speak “Ignore the kid in front of the altar”

“Not a proble myself to make a Voodoo doll of Tabby I can stab with pins”

Selena scoffed at her “That won’t work”

“Won’t stop led to talk sanity into the lot of you for almost thirty years now” Aet cursed while I’ely ari things off the shelves and placing them in a small wicker basket that she’d picked up fro a potion?”

Selena held a wrapped package up to smell it before she added it to her stash “No, I’m out of soap and perfuredients go into hers and they’re all natural”

Ah …

Nick glanced to the door and s, and re deht before Gah, it was so strange to be here where no one knew his real life Knehat he’d been through

Maybe I am crazy Maybe this was his real life and the other a delusion Kind of like The Wizard of Oz Maybe the derown up with and Nick’s subconscious had de

Could happen

Certainly made a lot more sense than Nick had jumped realities for no reason while he slept

What is reality, anyway? Really? Was it what he knehat he thought he knew?

Man, a guy could seriously lose hishis eyes, he tried one ht him

Nada

Not even a burp or hiccup

He was as powerless as the day he’d been born

Irritated, Nick moved to the counter, where there was a small display of pendulums They weren’t that different froht hi, he reached for the one made of jet It should protect hi with him

But the moment he touched it, it shattered into a million pieces With a Cajun curse, he ju hiaped “What are you?”

Before he could answer, his chest began burning like so his heart, Nick fell to his knees Dog, it hurt Bad

His breathing ragged, he tried to center himself To bury the pain so that he could function But just like earlier at school, he couldn’t It felt like so to suck him out of here

Or take hiain

“Nick!”

He heard Selena, yet he had no way of answering her Words wouldn’t forhed inside his head Only it was es flashed in his mind He saw his own past and a past he didn’t know at all Bubba was the same lunatic he knew and at the same time he was the man as his father here In another place and ti zos Nick couldn’t identify He saw his , over and over, in world after world

His own future self on a deh a destroyed New Orleans landscape that was littered with bodies and twisted remains of cars and military transports and weapons

Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculoru, it is now and will be to the ages of ages Closing his eyes, he allowed her gentleness to give hi he could focus on

Pax tecum, little brother Ash’s voice joined hers in hisvoice joined theirs Speak your naive you what you want most Peace will be yours Forever

Nick scowled Speak his name? That made no sense Why was the voice in his head if it didn’t know hi hard, he looked up into Selena’s panicked eyes and saas to come for him in his world “You summoned Julian of Macedon for Grace on her birthday She set him free And Kyrian…” In six months from now, he’s supposed to meet Amanda Nick could see it all so clearly

That hy Ambrose—Nick’s future self—had told him to stay clear of Amanda and Tabitha A with the ti happiness and breaking free of his pact with Artemis

Nick could stop Kyrian’s destiny and thereby alter everything

One life touched thousands For the first time, Nick truly saw the vastness of it all and fully understood

Every man is born as many and dies as one With every choice made, a part of the future died and an opportunity was lost You narrowed your options and steered yourself down the path of your life