Chapter 88

As the year-end approached, the streets of Reedblon became more festive.

Preparing for the year-end and New Year festivals, people hung colorful decorations and charms with wishes on gates and fences. Tiny heatless lamps, the size of a pinky nail, sold like crazy among the wealthy. Thanks to them, people could light up bare trees without worrying about fire.

But Sabina couldn’t enjoy any of that vibrancy.

With Helio home for the holidays, Sabina didn’t stay at Ashton’s house all the time. ‘Couldn’t’ was more accurate than ‘didn’t’.

Spending every moment with her dying lover, then focusing on her ward to heal all wounds after saying goodbye, might be the most rational choice.

But Helio wasn’t in a state to understand that. If Sabina completely neglected the boy before Ashton died, that wound would likely never heal. Just looking at Helio’s face made that clear.

In the end, she couldn’t properly focus on either her dying lover or her wounded ward. It felt like she couldn’t care for either one. Sabina felt a sense of self-reproach, yet couldn’t find the best answer.

Maybe she just didn’t have the leisure to think deeply and was driving herself into dumb choices.

Sabina blamed her indecisiveness. Then she pulled herself together, realizing that self-blame didn’t help solve anything.

Sabina visited Ashton during the day and returned before dinner, then teleported to Ashton’s bedroom late at night and returned to her own room by dawn. After breakfast, she quietly called Mitchell.

It was to ask if Helio had gone to see Reyes during the daytime when she was absent.

Mitchell shook his head every day.

“But,” he added, “He’s a child who’s learned to control his magic delicately. Even if he teleports from his room, unless I open the door, I have no way to detect it.”

Sabina, who was spending time with Ashton using exactly the method Mitchell described, had nothing to say.

Every day was like walking on thin ice.

Helio didn’t try to meet Sabina. He didn’t go to see Reyes, either it seems. He shut himself in his room and only studied—not schoolwork, but making plans to destroy Ashton and Reyes together.

In the end, everything was for Sabina.

Even if the way it showed was twisted.

On the surface, the lives of Sabina, Ashton, and Helio seemed to be stalled, stuck in a monotonous crisis.

But complacency was forbidden.

Danger could come at any time.

Three days before New Year’s Eve, Ashton had another seizure.

This time, his breathing stopped during the seizure.

Sabina couldn’t even enjoy his pain this time. As soon as the pain struck, Ashton suffered breathing difficulty, clutching his own throat, then stopped moving.

When Ashton had the seizure, Sabina was briefly outside in the winter wind. She never imagined another seizure would come in less than two weeks.

She was watching the heavy snowfall without thinking, then returned to the room to warm up, only to turn pale as soon as she opened the door.

“Ash.”

He hadn’t even managed to take out the painkiller from the desk drawer, and lay limp, his lips pale.

“Ashton!”

Her mind went blank.

Sabina rushed over and held her hand under his nose. Her hands trembled so much she couldn’t tell if he was breathing. She quickly checked his pulse.

It was faint, but there.

Sabina pressed his chest hard and breathed air into his mouth. She repeated it until his muscles twitched like last time, then finally poured painkiller into his mouth.

He started breathing again, but didn’t regain consciousness.

She felt the color drain from her body.

She didn’t want to lose him this way. It was too soon.

Helio’s judgment was wrong. Even with hatred in her heart, Sabina couldn’t happily let Ashton go.

“Ah, no. No… Open your eyes.”

People don’t open their eyes just because someone desperately wishes it. He just weakly shook. Not even his fingertips moved. What if he never woke again? Sabina hugged him, terrified.

“Ash… Ash. Can’t you hear my voice? Open your eyes…”

Her anxiety grew wild, but he didn’t respond.

Sabina, curled up and hugging Ashton as if folding herself in half, concluded that she would never be more desperate than this moment.

“No. This really won’t do anymore.”

Sabina followed her mother’s words.

She finally opened a gap in time.

White light poured down over her head.

After briefly closing her eyes and opening them, she found herself in a place that seemed unfamiliar yet familiar.

Everywhere was covered in white flowers. The sky was white. Gentle light fell from all directions. The flower field, full of unknown blossoms, had no scent.

There was no wind. So the flowers didn’t sway. Maybe these flowers would never wither. If so, new flowers would never bloom.

Sabina sat, holding the unconscious Ashton, in that strange flower field.

“No… You can’t die. I have to send you where you belong.”

She muttered, as if talking to herself, dragging Ashton along. Sending him beyond death was worse than sending him beyond the timeline. If they had to part, it was better for both to be alive.

She feared death.

Whether for herself or for her loved ones.

Goodbye, Sabina.

Someone’s voice echoed from all directions. Or did it? It felt as if the voice flowed from inside Sabina’s body. It was impossible to tell gender or age. It was both male and female, both child and elder.

Sabina ignored the voice.

She searched for the ‘second timeline.’

The flower field was vast. With a near-mad determination, she pushed through the identical-looking flowers.

If others came, they would get lost, but time was under her control. The path appeared before her eyes.

A field of red flowers unfolded.

Among the white flowers, red petals appeared like stains, then soon all the flowers turned red. In the air, there was a long, thin gap only Sabina could see.

Sabina decided this must be her second death.

She gently opened the gap. It was her bedroom. This was the place. Now, here, she could send Ashton sixteen years into the future.

She gripped the man’s coat and pulled him closer.

But then, the mysterious voice spoke again.

You mustn’t do that, Sabina.

“Why not?”

Sabina answered the voice fiercely.

“I’ll send him back. Why can’t I send him back to where he belongs?”

The voice replied.

To be precise, you can’t do that, Sabina.

As Sabina wandered through the flower field of time to send Ashton back, she realized what the voice meant.

She sat down, dazed.

She couldn’t find the time ‘after that.’

Every scene was pitch black.

The moment Sabina died, all the remaining time of that timeline was sucked into her heart. Naturally, nothing was left in the universe.

The voice kindly explained.

After that, it’s empty.

After her death, it was a void.

When you rewound time, that timeline died.

“What…”

If you hadn’t rewound time, the future after your death would have existed… But the moment you turned the world back, it disappeared.

Sabina stared speechless at the endlessly unfolding black space.

It resembled the night sky. But if it were the night sky, there should be a moon and stars. Nothing could be seen.

It was a space where Sabina’s death had stolen all possibilities.

She grasped at straws and asked,

“Then, then… what if I don’t die there? If someone intervenes and saves me?”

You die there. Among the branched timelines, that event is fixed.

If the voice had a form, it would have shaken its head.

“No… That means…”

She looked down at Ashton in her arms.

“There’s nowhere this man can return to live.”

As a lost soul in time, eaten away by a distorted timeline. In the end, he had to suffer and die like this.

“No… This can’t be. No.”

Even a mage who could manipulate time couldn’t defy certain laws.

He will wake up.

The voice said.

“Who are you?”

Sabina asked in a tearful voice.

You already know.

Sabina fell silent.

From everywhere, inside and outside her, a voice whispered, ageless and genderless—clearly, it was time itself.

“I want to fix him.”

She pleaded with time.

Time’s answer was gentle.

No. He’s already walking an irreversible path.

“What if I rewind his body’s time? Make him the same age as Helio…”

Could he accept such magic now? It wouldn’t be a solution anyway.

“Then tell me the answer!”

All I can tell you is, even when you first met him that summer, he was already beyond saving.

Everything time said was a devastating truth. Sabina could only be powerless before this great disaster. She hugged Ashton and sobbed.

She even thought about staying here to delay Ashton’s death. Time didn’t pass here. But only she could move in the gap of time. If she left Ashton here, it would be no different from death.

Or, maybe, if she left him here and went out to find a way…

Time quickly crushed that hope.

Go back. This isn’t a space allowed for him. He might be devoured. Dead time is always seeking a chance to revive itself… It’ll try anything. Just like you.

Hearing that, it felt like the barely closed gap was watching her.

Sabina hugged Ashton and closed time.

The man was pulled back to reality and woke within five minutes. The first thing he saw was Sabina crying.

“Sabina.”

He whispered.

“You stopped breathing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault!”

“Don’t cry.”

Sabina curled up in his arms.

“They say I can’t send you back. You have to die here. I… I can’t do anything.”

Ashton silently hugged Sabina.

That’s actually perfect, it’s what I wanted.

He didn’t say that.

But he was happy that Sabina couldn’t forcibly send him beyond time.

Ashton kissed Sabina’s hair and stroked her back.

Come to think of it, he needed to meet Helio.

At least once more.

Death was truly just around the corner.