I study Lotus, wondering how long it’s been since she last drank the elixir. I’ve never seen anyone as old as her, especially an immortal. All of the immortals I know are young, beautiful, glowing with health and vitality, physically perfect in every imaginable way.

Whereas she’s just the opposite—old, weathered, her skin so paper-thin, body so frail, it seems as though the slightest hint of a breeze could tip her right over, break her into a million sharp little pieces.

Damen and I are so lost in thought we’re both caught by surprise when Lotus springs forward and grabs hold of our hands, her ancient eyes beaming brightly as her mind connects with ours, projecting a slew of images I never would’ve expected—images that leave me questioning everything.

Chapter twenty-six

Lotus’s fingers entwine with ours, the feel of them dry, cool, but surprisingly strong, as her mind projects a series of portraits, like individual sepia prints, one after another, eventually streaming and blending into a moving-picture format. Showing a quick glimpse of the orphans, all lined up in a row, looking as they did back then. Damen and Drina flanking one end, Lotus and Roman on the other, the rest gathered in the middle.

Long before she became Lotus, she was a dark-haired, bright-eyed child named Pia, who, not long after drinking the elixir, fled the orphanage with all the others only to be taken in by a family of modest means who, mourning the child they lost to the plague, were eager for a replacement.

She lived normally at first, having no idea what she’d become. She grew up, married, but it wasn’t long before she realized she was different. Not only could she not bear children, but she couldn’t figure out why everyone around her aged while she stayed the same. A realization that soon forced her to do what all immortals must eventually do once the subtle questions and curious inquiries begin to grow into rising suspicion, hysteria, and irrational crowd-driven fear—under the cover of night, she grabbed a few belongings and ran, never to return, or at least not for several centuries.

She wandered. Remarried—more than once. Determined to stay in each place, with each husband, for as long as she could until the constant need to flee became so unbearable she determined it emotionally easier to live on her own. Eventually growing to abhor her immortality, seek ways to reverse it, wanting only to rejoin the natural order of being, to live like everyone else.

She traveled. First to India then on to Tibet, where she studied with mystics, shamans, gurus, a whole host of spiritual seekers and guides who showed her how to purify her body and cleanse her soul, but couldn’t help her reverse the choice she made all those years ago when she was too young to understand the consequences. The irony of her studies being that she’d unknowingly succeeded in strengthening her chakras to the point where she’d rendered herself completely invulnerable, immune to the one thing she sought above everything else—the release that only death can bring about.

Ultimately growing so advanced in her studies, she became known as a celebrated miracle worker, the most sought-after healer. The name she now goes by, Lotus, stemming from her ability to make that beautiful flower bloom right from the center of her palms, simply by closing her eyes and wishing it to be so. An act she was capable of not just in Summerland, but also on the earth plane back home.

Determined to settle into a celibate, solitary existence, but fate had other ideas, and it wasn’t long before she met someone and fell in love. Real love. True love. The kind of love which, despite several husbands, she’d never experienced before.

The kind where she built enough trust to confide the truth of her existence, tried to convince her lover to go to Roman, to drink too, to become like her, so they’d never suffer the pain of losing each other.

But he refused. Chose to grow old. And when the day finally came that she knelt beside his deathbed, fretting at the simple gold band he’d placed on her finger, he promised to do everything within his power to not reincarnate. To not return to the earth plane. Stating he’d much rather wait for her to find a way to reverse her immortality, so that she cold someday join him in the great hereafter.

He left her on her own to grow older, then older still. Her body eventually becoming so decrepit, she prayed the sheer exhaustion of keeping it going would ultimately convince her breath to stop coming, her heart to stop beating, so she could meet up with her lover again—but still, she lives on.

She continued her studies, continued to search for a way out, ultimately discovering the solution only after she’d grown too old to make the trip.

Though she refused to give up. With the long-held wish of her reunion finally within reach, she spent the last century tracking down all of the remaining orphans, revealing the truth of what she’d learned, hoping to convince one of them to make the journey—to bring back the chance at a new lease on life.

Life as it was intended to be.

To provide them all with a sort of do-over—a second chance to make a fully informed decision as to whether or not to keep going like they are. Unlike the time when they were too young and scared to realize the consequences—when they all rushed to drink without a second thought.

Drina refused her flat out. Roman laughed in her face. While the others simply shook their heads, gazed upon her with great pity, and told her to go away.

Damen was the last on her list—her last hope.

Until she saw me.

“I thought it was enough that I found a way to release the souls and reverse the Shadowland, but, as it turns out, there’s still more you want me to do.” I glare, shake my head, and yank free of her grip. My fingers slipping past the thin gold band she wears on her left hand, feeling remorse for the loss of her loved one, but unsure what I’m supposed to do. “You put me through all that hell, when all along that wasn’t even the journey you had in mind—you had something else planned for me that whole entire time!”