Chapter Forty-One ▏The Window

This has to be a dream.

I force myself to get over my frozen state and give my arm a good pinch. I feel the sting of my fingernails digging into my skin. I count mentally from one to three, expecting everything and everyone to vanish, but after I blink rapidly, the scene is still in place. The flowers, the velvet bed, the chapel. Madame Mara, Simeon, and of course, Uncle Osman.

And he’s walking towards me, his arms open for a hug. His face is slack with surprise and warm with affection. “Elora! I can’t believe this—”

“How are you alive?” I blurt out, and immediately, hysteria starts to climb up my throat. “How are you alive? What’s happening? Why am I here?”

Fake. This has to be all fake. I refuse to believe that this is not a hallucination that my brain is coming up with to maybe give me a good feeling before I truly pass away. This is too surreal.

In a panicked daze, I start to touch the