Snag

I’ve awakened to find bits of my missing past — memories and bonds that I didn’t know had been torn from me — captured within photographs arrayed across the walls of the caretaker suite. Displayed for me to find them, to discover everything my aunt has actively hidden from me for over thirteen years. Secrets she’s taken with her into the After, leaving me all the power but none of the foundation I need to be the Conduit.

Then I discover that my aunt’s secrets go beyond her betrayal, creating a systemic rot, an unraveling, that began before I was even born. The resulting ramifications weave together to unsettle, to overwrite, any attempt I could make to fortify the connection between me and my universe-promised mates.

Without them, I’m unmoored. And unmoored, I cannot possibly wield all the power the world needs me to wield. That the universe needs me to wield.

Jealousy, envy, grief … love?

Only choice matters above all else.

Just not for me.

I move as the universe wills.

Or I suffer the consequences.