Laughter bubbles up through my chest and I double over in hysterics, gasping for breath. “Ohmygod, rapscallion! It’s like you’re from some eighties fantasy cult classic or something! Ohmygod, my spleen. Where did you get that—your mother’s regency novel? ‘Hark, you dastardly rapscallion!’ What do you say when you’re really pissed?” I straighten enough to twist my voice into that of a crotchety old man: “‘Oy, you rascally kids, get off my lawn!’ Oh, you and Pretzel Henry would get along so well!”

And then I bend over into another gasp of laughter.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he mumbles, but there’s definitely a red tinge to his cheeks. He folds his arms over his chest and looks away. “And who’s Pretzel Henry?”

When I’m finally able to calm down, I wipe the tears from my eyes and blink at the ceiling. “Oh my God, I haven’t laughed that hard in ages. My mascara isn’t running, is it?” I ask, batting my lashes at him.

He looks into my eyes, and oh—he is blushing. He quickly looks away. “No, it’s fine. Come on. We should get lunch.”

“But shouldn’t you text Jess about this first?”

He pauses midturn. “I already did. She’d want to know about Vance—”

“No, I meant about you secretly being an old man in a young body,” I say, at which he frowns again.

+10 Disapproval.

“Ha ha. Come on.” He turns abruptly and marches out of the stairwell, and I feel a grin tugging at my lips before I can stop it.

“Whatever you say, old man.”

He tosses over his shoulder in a startingly awful Yoda impersonation, “Master Ethan it is to you, young Jedi.”

Five minutes later, he peels me up off the floor because I’ve died and become one with the Force.

And then it hits me—

If the script is real, then Amara is truly, truly dead. And that means I’ve failed. I failed, like I always fail, and our princess is never coming back—

No.

Just because there’s a script doesn’t mean the fate of the character can’t change. Like Agent Coulson in the MCU! Darth Maul in Star Wars! Spike in Buffy! Freaking angel Castiel in Supernatural! Axel in Kingdom Hearts! I can go on. It’s not unheard of, and I still have time.

I have to.

Jess

“HERE,” SAYS THE MUSCULAR GUY WITH the gray lock of hair, handing me a rag full of ice he got from a nearby vendor selling water bottles and shaved ice. I’m sitting against a wall, close to where I bit the ground. “You hit your head pretty hard.”