Page 243 of Carousel

His look tells me he will never forgive me for any of my mistakes, whether I meant to make them or not.

As he comes towards me, he mutters, “I didn’t want you to do this.”

“I know,” I say. “But there it is.”

I step down the ladder to let him pass. He climbs up awkwardly, without looking at me. I stay still. Just breathing.

The magic was complex. Maybe even more complex than freezing the ships.

But I know, with certainty, that it will hold.

Because I used the last of the love left in me for it.

I’m empty now.

And a funny thought fills me.

I can’t cheat the stars. But I can beat them, at their own game, fairly. Because Old Mother predicted it, didn’t she?

There were only two options for me.

Be the counterbalance to a tyrant.

Or be the tyrant.

And that’s what I will be.

I make a final choice.

Because osimidite would dull my pain.

But there is someone who can remove it completely.

Drake knows I’m coming. He’s waiting for me outside his cabin.

I charge towards him. I must look like something escaped from hell, my eyes flaring, and my hair flying out behind me. It seemed pointless to continue wearing my ribbon.

He says one word to me, and one word alone. “No.”

My pulse spikes. “You already offered to erase my pain. So, erase it. I no longer want to feel anything.”

Because these emotions are weakening me. Shackling me.

Drake was right. I’ve been thinking with my heart, not my head.

And it’s my head that is repeating,

I will be the tyrant.

I will be the tyrant.

He glowers at me. “A lot has changed since I made you that offer. And,” he says slowly, darkly, “you don’t mean this.”

My voice sounds off-key. “I do. This is the only choice I can make now.”

Now right in front of him, I feel new emotions coursing through my body. His.

I’d thought, at one point, since I could never read anything he was thinking, that he had none.