THE QUEEN'S CROWN [2]

23 : START THE FIRE

        "I can't do it."

"Can't you at least try?"

"I have!"

"Try again!"

"I don't know how to force it, Lily. I can't just see whoever I want." Louis huffed, even if he understood where her desperation was coming from.

She shook her head. "Have you tried to talk to Asher?"

"Of course I have! But I can't!"

Seeing how upset he was getting, Lily looked away from him, tears in her eyes, her arms wrapped around her knees from where she was sitting on his bed. "I'm sorry."

"It's...well, it's not okay, but it's not your fault." Louis reached over to wrap his arm around her waist, pulling her to his side, leaning back against the headboard with the pillows. He was still wearing the sweats and baggy shirt he'd slept in, but he felt like he could be himself around his best friend anyway. "I wish I could talk to Kol for you, Lils."

"Me, too." She whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I don't know what to do."

"Me neither."

Louis had told Lily more than once that he spoke to her mother regularly, but she and Alaric seemed to be the only ghosts that he saw often enough, and he couldn't 'force' a visit with anyone else, which meant that she couldn't talk to Kol like she had hoped. And dreamt about, knowing he was on The Other Side, alone like he had felt he was his entire immortal life. He had felt isolated and had told her more than once that being with her had changed things for him, but now he was alone again and she hated Elena and even the deceased Jeremy for it. It hadn't even occurred to her until now, which is why she had come running from her house to his. He hadn't been able to see Asher after his death either, and Lily hated that she hadn't even thought about that, so focused on Kol and Silas that she hadn't even asked. Asher had died only two weeks ago and it felt so much longer, because of everything that had happened between what happened between then and now. She hated that she hadn't been a good friend to him, that she had let herself be so selfish. She could blame it on her boyfriend's death all she wanted, but she had been like that for a while, and his boyfriend had died too. She never thought she'd have as much in common with her best friend as she did now.

Everything felt different than it did just a few weeks earlier. She never thought that this was how it was all going to play out. Lily hadn't considered the very real possibility of falling in love with Kol, but she had, and in such a short amount of time, she had managed to hold onto that feeling, until it was ripped away from her so suddenly. It was strange to think that only a few months ago, she had been so sure that she hated him, or as close to hate as she could towards her own soulmate. All because of someone she had considered to be one of her best friends. Now said best friend was dead too. Louis was mourning Asher, Charlie was back from New Orleans after months away, Elena had her humanity switch off and they had an immortal psychopath running around, killing people just because he felt like it. She kept thinking about everything Kol told her about Silas and the sinking feeling in her gut only worsened as she clutched onto the front of Louis's t-shirt, simply soaking in the warmth offered to her.

Lily wasn't sure how much time passed.

"I have to do something," she finally said, staring at the poster of Harry Potter on the wall; he never confirmed it, but she believed Daniel Radcliffe might have been Louis's first boy crush.

"What do you mean?"

"I just said, 'I don't know', but that doesn't mean I can just sit around doing nothing." She sighed. "Apart of me wants to kill Elena, but I'm not stupid enough to think that'll solve anything."