Again, I opened my eyes to a new world.

Well, it wasn't technically new because I was back in the Unruly Forest. My eyes became wet as I looked around at the trees. It felt so good to be back here. The scent of pine, life, and dirt tickled my nose in all the best ways. I ended up at Originis, my favorite tree, and seeing my carvings was a comforting sight to behold.

I'm finally home.

I rubbed my belly, and a part of me that was too chicken to fully acknowledge disappeared when my baby pressed against my hand. All the chaos hadn't hurt them, and we returned to where we needed to be. It was all going to be okay.

"We're home," I spoke to my baby as happiness burst from my chest.

"Welcome home." A voice spoke right behind me, and I hiccuped in surprise.

"Adam," I said, pivoting to meet his dark eyes. At the rate I went, I would never get a break. The forced sabbatical in the space from everyone didn't count, but it started to feel like that was the only time I would achieve peace.

Adam moved to hug me, but he stopped when he saw me flinch. "Wendy, it's me."

"I know," I said with a half smile. I was trying to contain my pain and sadness, but I don't think I did it very well. Adam's face shifted into concern. I took this moment to look at him and note that he wasn't wearing a suit. Adam wore stiff, nice-looking jeans and a plain white shirt. He was in casual wear. This would make me smile any other day, but I felt tired.

Despite my woes with Rex, I relaxed in Adam's presence. It wasn't as hard as it should be. As if he were psychic and sensing my weakened resolve. Adam moved closer and grabbed my right hand to hold with both of his.

"I'm glad you two made it back." His voice was hoarse, and I could see dark circles in his eyes. I lifted a hand up to cup his cheek.

"How long has it been?" I was genuinely curious how time passed here. The sky was clear and didn't look like the meteor had struck and changed the world.

Adam let go of one of my hands to rub my belly. "Too long, Wendy." His voice had longing and pain, and my heart was moved for a split second.

I need to stay strong, though. I can't be swayed. I already had proof that Adam was like Rex.

I inhaled slowly and took a step back. Adam was still able to hold onto me, and he did so. "Wendy?" He said my name with confusion and care.

"You knew the moment I reappeared in this world, Adam," I said with an exhale. "That means you have your own way of marking and watching me like Rex."

His arms faltered, but his expression remained passive. "I can feel your presence in this world because of our baby."

"It's more than just that, isn't it," I said. I was unable to let this go. I'm sick of these secrets, and by this point, it should all be out in the open. He got the end result he wanted, and I am back here in the third timeline with him.

Something shifted in his eyes before he gave a terse nod.

"Adam, I can't be with you. I told you that secrets would pull us apart, and I've reached my limit." I said this in a rush, knowing that my resolve to do this was fading as I looked into his eyes.

There was no reaction for a long second, and it was as if I hadn't spoken. "Is this because of Rex?" Adam said finally, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Partly. He trapped me and showed no regard for my personal choices. And bringing him up lets me know you are Rex from the second timeline."

"I've grown and changed Wendy," Adam said.

"I've seen that firsthand, but that doesn't negate what the two of you did. You knew what I was walking into, and at every step of the way, you gave me what you deemed ready to know."

"I did that to ensure that it all happened to achieve our happy ending," Adam said, his expression cracked into pain. I could feel my own mirror as my resolve wobbled yet again.

Stay strong, woman. I told myself before jutting my chin at him. "I understand it." I truly do. "But I don't have to like it. It's not right to treat people like players on a chessboard. That's not how humans treat each other."

"I wasn't human until I earned your love." Adam's words made me gasp. "You said it yourself, this is a world in a book. I was a character in this world moved around for the amusement and enjoyment of my creator. I had no free will or choice, and I could only escape mere moments before I was pulled back to the scene to act. Everything changed when you appeared in my world, but it wasn't me you wanted. It was a version of myself I'd never been. It hurt Wendy, and I did everything possible to correct it."

My chin quivered and lowered as I stared into his warm, dark eyes. My heart was pounding and signaling to my brain that we were weak and the impact of Adam's words was ruining my resolve.

Adam lifted my chin and continued speaking. "When you left to find Adam, I knew I had to reset the world so that I could be the one you found, and I did it. Every day, I feared that the slightest deviance from the Adam you knew meant that you would never meet me as Rex. As time went on, that fear became darker and more twisted. I didn't want you to return and see what I did as Rex. I didn't want you to be kissed by that version of myself or chained to him. I feared a paradox would ruin everything and undo it all."

Adam wasn't a speech giver, but he gave his all. I thought inappropriately as part of me sought humor in this tangled mess. Yet again, I had to rely on my common sense to find the answer. I am still trying to figure out what to do. I came in with a clear plan, but all it took was Adam touching and talking to burn them to ashes.

I closed my eyes and attempted to ignore the wetness that threatened to grow. I couldn't cry right now. I wasn't entirely sure why I was crying.

"Wendy, I'm sorry for everything, but I don't regret my actions. I got you here where you belong, and we can finally be a family together."

My eyes shot open, and I blinked. I'm hardly at a loss for words, but I didn't know what to say. What's worse is the warmth I felt in my chest. That heat told me that I had already forgiven Adam for everything. It was wrong, but he had a point. Doing all this ensured we could be together…but the secrets.

"If I forgive you," I said, knowing that I was being a damn fool at this moment and already lying to him; my heart had forgiven him. My brain couldn't forget. "You have to promise to never do something like this again. You can't move me around like an inhuman object with no autonomy. I know that some secrets are necessary, but never like this. Not again. I want to be included." Adam was more of a control freak than I had realized, and some of me liked it more than I probably should. I felt safe in his presence, though, and even though Rex was batshit crazy, he also made sure nothing happened to me. Adam had never confined me like Rex. The two weren't the same.

Was I making myself accept his actions? Maybe, but for our baby, we had to come to a compromise.

"Communication is the only way we can make any kind of future work. You're not alone. You don't have to make all the choices by yourself or shelf the burden of power on your shoulders. It will hunch you over and age you prematurely." I said the last bit with a smile to sprinkle in some humor.

"I can't promise not to keep secrets," Adam said.

"That's not enough for me," I said, looking away from his hypnotic eyes.

Silence grew between us, and when I could feel my resolve weakening, I turned to talk to Adam.

"Maybe time apart will serve us," I said. We ran around in circles at the whim of higher beings. We could finally reach a proper conclusion if we had time to breathe.

Adam disappeared without another word, and my heart fell to the pit of my stomach at the sight.

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"Damn, I'm weak," I said with a scornful laugh. I should have kept to my guns. But this was Adam. We both seemed to have a twisted weakness for each other.

"No, you're a fool!" A hoarse, rude voice cut through my thoughts and stilled my feet. Gavin, the source of the madness, was floating in the air and violently shaking with annoyance. "You ruined everything!"

I shook my head. Now what?

"All I've done is come back home to where I'm happy," I said exasperatedly.

"You've destroyed my happiness in the process," Gavin said as he landed on the ground with an overactive huff.

I rubbed my belly with one hand as I sighed and rubbed my temple with the other. "Gavin, I don't have the energy to argue with you, and I know you can't harm me, so bugger off."

"There's more than one way to affect you, Gwendolyn Girru," Gavin said. I watched as the darkness of the trees seemed to eerily shade his expression from me. I could see his eyes in the dark because they started to glow silver.

"I find it strange how you can't kill me or come near even while I'm not in my true form."

"It's a highly debatable clause that protects you," Gavin said with a half-shrug. "What's worse is to destroy or attempt to destroy even your conduit sets off a fail-safe." He pulled off leaves from his person that fell on him.

"A fail-safe?" We hadn't talked about that before. I was worried about far too much back then.

"No being of divine origin is allowed to directly interfere with how you turn out," Gavin said with a sigh. "No maiming, killing, or torturing you."

My mind instantly went to Mordecai, who did nothing but torture me, and Acuzio, who seemingly disappeared after he handed me his scale. "What happens if they do?"

"It depends. There have only been a handful of cases such as yourself. It's rare to have a mortal descendent of a God or Goddess. Your case is even more unique because the plague Flying Rat is your ancestor. That one broke the mold in several dozen ways, along with countless worlds. She's known for destruction, and yet she's now one of the divine Goddesses of Destiny. Ha, if only you knew the irony given her history."

"I know her story," I said quietly. How much can I milk out of Gavin? For some reason, he was particularly talkative, and there were holes in what I knew.

"Some of it, I'm sure. The cliche tale of a power-obsessed parent who manipulates their child is a tale as old as time. The juicier bits came after. Plague Rat should never have become a goddess. Yet here we are."

That was the part of the story I didn't know. All I knew was that Mordecai accomplished it. "How does one become a God?"

"There are only three ways you can ascend properly. You have to kill your relative that is one or be really lucky and able to grab power."

"Grab power?" I questioned him. That was a rather vague way of putting it. He said there were three but only mentioned two.

"It's impossible for you to do it like others have. Since that route is lost to her direct bloodline, given her condition." Gavin said with a shrug. "But others without divine blood can become divine by burning through worlds for resources. Of course, she didn't need to do that. She burned herself over and over until she lost her mind, but those lives gave her untold power."

"Because her mother cursed her out of her true name and her true form." All that was left of Mordecai, Aphra, Girru, and whatever else she went by was the different life forms.

"Her mother did more than that. She cursed her to never truly die. Its incredible magic cursing, twisting, and burning to a crisp one's true name and destiny and warping it so it could never be the same. Only one of the old kin can accomplish that."

"That's how my family became the Phoenix Witches. Because our ancestor became the first phoenix."

"Over time, you guys lost your wings. Flying Rat Drum's final straw to lunacy was her true love. Her mother didn't go down without a fight and took her daughter's true love with her." Gavin said with a cackle, and I felt my heart pinch.

"Her true love?"

"The only one she'll willingly stay a woman for. She hasn't been the same since she lost him. Rumor has it that she hardly takes the female form because she's still looking for him. It's been over a thousand years, so I doubt that. Regardless, his soul is the one that will forever remain elusive to her, too. Serves her right." Gavin started cackling, and I glared at him; several tree roots whipped to knock him to the ground.

"That's not funny," I said, glaring down at Gavin.

Gavin lay sprawled on the ground without moving far longer than he should have. The seconds ticked off into minutes, and just as I was getting worried, he suddenly screamed a blood-curdling cry. "She fucking drugged my tea!"

My eyebrows shot up as I took a few steps away from Gavin. "Who?" I was curious who could do such a thing. I couldn't see Mordecai drinking tea with Gavin.

He said a random combination of syllabi that didn't make a lick of sense to me. "Gavin, are you having a seizure?" I wasn't joking because he sounded like his brain was being ravaged.

"I've said too much due to an unjust truth spiking," Gavin said in a grave voice. He sat up and looked about as dignified as a man who threw a hissy fit complete with spasms just a few seconds ago could. "I must finish what I came to tell you, and then I have to go."

I started walking back home. I felt like I was going to pass out, and honestly, after everything I had just been through, Gavin had wasted enough of my time. After months of wandering, I was finally back where I should be. I should have ignored him from the start.

"Gwendolyn, if it's the last thing I do, I must impart this upon you." Gavin's voice was the most serious I've heard, and I gave him a look and stared at him. The theatrics were wiped clean from his expression, and he appeared solemn.

"Okay, I'll bite. What did you come to say?"

"You have to leave this world," Gavin said in what was his attempt at a spooky voice. It sounded like the narrator of a low-budget miscast horror film.

"Dude, really?" I said.

"It's not safe. The very fabric of this world is knotted and cut off in the wrong places." Gavin's expression shifted to panic as he saw me start walking off.

"That makes no sense." I sighed. When was life going to just be normal and calm?

"Adam stopped time." Gavin finally said this part, and I felt my heart stop. "Ah, figures that would get your attention. He stopped the world from moving forward. Thanks to you, he seems to have the motivation to grow his powers past what they were meant for."

"Adam can't do that…" I started to speak, but I ended up in a sharp hiccup. My own voice was unconvincing even to myself. At this rate, I was willing to bet that Adam Rexford III was capable of anything.

"No, not without help. I suspect this is a collaboration of sorts. What matters is that this world starts ticking again, but it can't happen with you in it."

"So you want me to leave?" I said as my annoyance came back in full swing. This schtick again.

Silence was my answer, and I looked behind me to see if Gavin had parted with those supposedly final words to me. I discovered that Gavin wasn't looking at me anymore but digging through a bag that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

He produced two bowls and filled them with liquid from a bright lavender vial. "This is the world as it was meant to be," Gavin said with a flourish of his hand over one bowl.

Unable to stop my curiosity but keeping a healthy distance, the last thing I want is to be sucked into the damn bowl, I peeked. It was a utopian-looking civilization, but it was set far into the future. The technology was above and beyond anything I had encountered in my OG world or Adam's world. People were using their powers alongside those that didn't have any. It was vividly curious and peaceful looking. What was even more startling was the memorabilia that survived Adam and Evie. They were a golden couple that had statues, t-shirts, and celebrations. I felt like I was witnessing a year of events in just the blink of an eye.

"This is the future that will happen thanks to Adam stopping the world's clock." Gavin gestured to the second bowl with a flick of his wrist. Somehow, the man expressed a lot of rage and annoyance with that one swish. The world was the same as today. Nothing had changed. In fact, it looked like the people had stayed the same, just collecting dust.

"I don't understand," I said this barely above a whisper.

"You're smart enough to," Gavin said ruthlessly. "You ruined Adam, and he ruined my perfect world plans!"

I snorted, "Free will tends to change the best-laid plans." My right eyebrow quirked.

"You're a damn selfish fool! You're choosing to be with him while allowing for the destruction of a perfect future for this world!"

My mouth was dry, and I could feel my body sway from the impact of his words. I didn't want to think he was right. My eyes looked at the two bowls with very different futures.

I've always said I was selfish, mostly in jest, because my cookie crumble nature always fell into a soggy mess. I'm not narcissistic enough to ignore the plight of a whole world. "I'll talk to Adam, and maybe we can fix this."

Gavin tossed the purple vial at my head, but it was blocked by Orignis' tree branch. I reached out to touch the bark of the branch and thanked her.

"You idiot!" Gavin wasn't done screeching. "If it were as simple as that, then I wouldn't be here doing damage control. Obviously, I can't kick you out of this world, but Adam can keep time as it is. All you have to do is leave this world and take your family's magic with you. The failsafe will reset the world as it should be."

I could feel helplessness override my control as I stared at the perfect utopia. A sharp pain in my stomach cut me off from the fascination, and I rubbed my belly. "This has been bugging me for a while, but who are you? How do you know so much about my family?" He knew the failsafe method for my family's spell and Aphra. How strange for so many deities or those connected to them to come to this one world. All these relatives left the woodwork, giving advice, bad gifts, and more.

That strange niggling feeling, one of several I have ignored, I might add, grew into apprehension. "The stakes are much bigger than what you're saying, aren't they?" All at once, several questions came crashing into my head. My brain struggled to stop the torrent of thoughts but the flimsy wall had had enough.

Why was I the last mortal of my family? Gus had the same parents as I did. That meant he was mortal at some point, too. One doesn't just become immortal or a variation of a creature; something happens to them.

Mordecai said he had a gift package to be delivered to any of his descendants who left the library. That meant he could track us once we did. What if he wasn't the only one? Is this just a game for the immortals to play? The games that Mordecai and even Acuzio made me play ran through my head. Those were on a small scale, but what if this game in front of me was for my mortal soul? Would I become something more if I kept going down this path?

I must have said some of this out loud because Gavin gave a horrific grin that made the hairs on my neck rise and my feet back up a few more steps. Worst of all, there wasn't a hint of malice, yet sheer blood-curdling fear froze my heart.

"There is one last future. The one that will happen if Adam doesn't end up with his Eve." Gavin said. The second bowl shifted, and it was a true apocalypse. The ground was scorched, the air rotten, and the people all dead.

I used my baby's powers to take us far away from that.