I opened my eyes after trying to travel to the eclipse and found myself lying on a white floor, suffocated by plain white walls with my arms tied behind my back.

Flare’s face blinked in and out of view.

“Flare…?” Her hair was a few inches longer than it had been.

“There you are." She tilted her head. "I thought it would be harder to bring you here, but you weren't responsive. It feels even worse when you don't fight back."

“I slipped to this time. I must have been unconscious."

She pushed my hair back. "You're burning up. Did you really just slip? Or are you toying with time?" She chuckled softly. "In your last life when you tried to learn to control it, you failed miserably. At least you're making some kind of progress."

"Why are we in the white room?"

"I took back control, just recently, actually. You must have been drawn to this event."

I squeezed my eyes shut. “How did you get control back?”

“I’m not going to explain myself to you. You showed me the error of such mercy. We should say goodbye for good this time, dear girl. You've caused too many problems. It’s too dangerous to wait as you grow stronger."

I couldn't let her suspect I'd traveled here on purpose or she might figure out my plan. “Don’t do this.”

“Be a good girl and sleep this time.”

"Don't hurt anyone else. Please. Be satisfied with me."

Flare tilted her head, the smoldering of her eyes bright against the all-white room. "You knew this would happen. Why did you never stop fighting me? The Prophet is waiting. The eclipse is waiting." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The after-life is not. I can't release you, not yet. You may not believe me, but I am sorry. I've never been more sorry for anything."

Flare rose and faded into the image of Dr. Henderson.

She smiled sadly. “Sweet dreams, Max. I'll send you and the Prophet to an eclipse that happened long ago. Like I did in your other lives. Only this time, you won't come back.”

“Dr. Henderson.” I strained against my bonds. “Dr. Henderson!”

She slid her hand over my eyes and then I opened them to countless snarling faces in a crowd. Screaming and cursing.

Ropes bit into my skin.

This was it.

I stared into the inky black eyes that had haunted me as long as I could remember. I was on the stage, bound to a tall post, like I had been so many times before, but this time, I wouldn’t slip back to reality. This was my reality.

Above me, the moon had nearly consumed the sun. A crowd spilled into the courtyard in front of me. And surrounding me stood ten figures wearing Prophet cloaks.

There would be no escaping if I changed my mind. Flare had convinced them all to join forces and kill me.

I focused on my arms to break my bonds anyway. Couldn't help it. I hated being unable to move. But my wrists only tugged uselessly at them. Power came at me from all angles. They were holding me down.

Fear sliced through me. It didn't matter that I'd chosen this. I couldn't shake it.

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What kind of deal had Flare made?

“Kill her!” A woman shrieked and threw her shoe at the stage. “Kill the demon! Kill the bitch!”

The Prophet hypnotized the people with a speech so full of lies it made me sick.

And then he turned on me. Turned his spear in his hand as he stared into my eyes. Plunged the tip into my stomach.

Red hot fire seared my midsection.

The Prophet pushed the spear in deeper. I screamed and slammed my head back against the post.

“Vile demon.” He stepped back and raised his staff to my face. Its sharp tip gleamed with blood. “Go back. Back to the pits of hell.” Pain bit my neck. He pressed his staff carefully against my throat. “Spew another curse and I’ll sever the head from your body.”

“Kill her!” A man threw his mug of ale at me. It landed on the ground and splashed my ankles “Kill the demon!”

“Kill her!” Another shouted. “Drain her power! Bleed her and burn what remains! Hurry, before she devours our souls!”

“Kill! Kill! Kill!”

The voices swirled about me. Growing. I’d lived this so many times already and I was determined to do it one final time, but it felt different now. It felt so real.

The Prophet spat on my face. I grimaced in disgust. “We will show you no mercy.” Blood beaded on my neck.

He slashed his staff and ripped my flesh open from my shoulder down my arm. Blood spilled onto the ground below. The crowd’s roar swallowed my screams.

Stepping back, he raised up his bloodied spear of a staff against the dark sky. Black dripped from its tip.

“Oh gods, bleed this demon dry of the innocent.”

He jabbed his blade deep into my thigh. My voice cracked as I cried out. The Prophet struck me again, and stabbed his staff straight through my shoulder, skewering me to the post behind me.

The pain consumed me. My head fell and I opened my eyes to my bound ankles. Strands of blood rushing down my legs. I would die here. I would die during the eclipse. I had so many times before but this time felt different. Felt final.

How could I leave Nash and Elsie?

“I’m human,” I whispered. Tears poured down my face. My body trembled. It hurt so bad. Sobs shook my shoulders. Terror suffocated me. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to stay with them. I wanted to stay with Nash. Not slip away for good this time. What if I didn't make it through the door to the after-life?

“I’m not a demon!” I managed to raise my voice to a shout but no one could hear me. They’d deafened themselves by repeating the Prophet’s lies.

He danced and chanted and kicked my blood up into the air from his feet.

Men and women and children fought to get close to the stage where they smeared their fingers in my blood and painted it in messy streaks along their face. Some licked at their fingers, desperate for a taste of my power.

“He's fooling you!” My cry was lost in the chaos.

Coldness spread over me. My teeth chattered.

“I’m human! Just like you!” I didn’t hide my weeping. “The gods are too. They’re humans sitting above, watching us burn. No better than the rest of us!”

“Blasphemy!” The Prophet spun his staff and raised his voice in chant. But he couldn’t come near me.

The burning I’d felt as a girl beneath the eclipse filled me again. If my power had been rendered impotent before, it had come rushing back down at full force.

My father screamed in my ear. “Do you feel it?”

Both eclipses fully materialized now. Interwoven. I was myself in both places, both times. The child and the girl. The power that had once exploded from my body unraveled from me now, a long thread that twisted and turned between these two same moments. These two same moments in a very different time and place.

The force swept my blood from the stage and cast it over the people who cried in pain on the ground. It was only then I realized the power bursting from me was hurting them. A wave of it knocked everyone from their feet like it had back then. I was helpless to stop it.

“No!” I ripped at my restraints. Blood squirted from my wounds, flying into the force that was quickly killing them. It fueled it. It was my lifeblood, so close to being spent.

Like a star collapsing in on itself and exploding without control, death opened me up to the world, unleashing everything they’d put inside me.

I couldn’t do it again, though. I couldn’t slaughter these people.

“Live…” Despite the power, my words were only a whisper that rippled over the people. Soft and final. “Live…” I gave myself over to the power, funneling it not into the people, but into my effort to break into the after-life and to save my memories. It took all my effort to contain myself and not accidentally hurt those surrounding me as my power swelled nearly out of control. They had to live. I wouldn’t kill any other innocent people.

I was slipping away. Far, far away.

Live.

It was my last word. My last thought. And it carried out my last instinct, to reach my fingers into the seams of my world, and to pry it apart. There wasn't enough time for me to know if it had worked. If I could still open the door now that Henderson was back in control.

Beneath the eclipse, I died with the prayer on my lips. I died with nothing left to give. Died with no idea if I’d really go on to what came next.

Not until I opened my eyes to the face of a woman I’d never seen before. A face that looked kind and concerned. The pain was hardly more than a memory.

But it was a memory.

I’d escaped death and I’d kept my life for myself. I was in the after-life.