NINE TIME MACHINES: Do you want to undo your entire life on planet earth?

CHAPTER 189

As soon as he speaks, the same hand erases everything and we're back on the stairway again, facing an iron throne that smells of cinnamon. He scoots past me and sits on his throne, wearing nothing but an iron ring with a yellow stone inside. I am lost for words. He, of course, is not.

"Had fun doing your chores?"

"Why'd you cheat me out of what I worked for?" I say feeling defeated.

"I wanted you to quit. I thought you'd stop wasting your time. You didn't."

"Why give me the job at all if you wanted me to quit?"

"I never told you to do anything." He crosses his leg. "You just assumed it was your job to do."

"What! But everything was set up for me. The job. The rewards. I did what you wanted me to."

"Again. Let's be clear, Mary. You took on three jobs never meant for you."

"But I did your damn jobs!"

"You should've gone for the air."

"Rewards only come after a job is done."

"Forget the reward! If you didn't focus so much on the reward, you would've done the job."

"What the hell was the god damn job?"

"What? Have I been talking to myself down here? To get the air, of course."

"I didn't need it yet. I just wanted it."

"The air was never for you. They need it. They're in a coma, remember?"

"Who? Oh, them. Dammit!"

"And your intuition's got to be more on point if you're the one who's going to wake them."

"This is never going to work," I say, slumping to the floor.

"Yes, it will. I'll help you," he promises.

"And you are?"

"Ronove," he replies. "Now come kiss my ring before I change my mind."

I crawl over to where he sits, still grossed out by his nakedness, but kiss his ring anyway. Then the yellow from it blazes to his eyes and soon to my own, until it travels down my left index finger and takes form again.