Great. This was the last thing I needed right now. An annoying faerie ghost haunting me. “Okay, so why are you here?”

“Because you changed everything,” he said simply, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You brought me back.”

I gaped at him. “How?”

“By changing the vision.”

“But I was supposed to change it…It’s what it was supposed to be.”

He took another step toward me and I suddenly felt threatened. “Not that vision. The other one; the one where I was supposed to take you to Stephan.”

My jaw nearly dropped to the floor and I sat down on the bed because my legs would no longer hold me up. “But I…” I was speechless. Never did it occur to me that my father erasing my past would shift future events. Had he known that it would happen?

“So what?” I asked. “Now I’m stuck with you.”

His grin darkened. “Well, you are responsible for my death, aren’t you? I mean, if it wasn’t for you changing things, I would never have been in that car to begin with.”

A guilty knot wove its way into my stomach. “I’m sorry…I didn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He shrugged.“Regardless, you’re still stuck with me.”

I sank down on the bed, staring at the chains which once held my mom. And now she was gone. Where did she go?

“Don’t worry,” Nicholas said. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help you.”

“You left the note on my bed, didn’t you?” I said. “And you were that annoying talk-show host voice, weren’t you?”

He nodded. “It was the only way I could communicate with you.”

“But, I can see you now.”

“Yes, but you weren’t wearing that thing.” He pointed to the ring on my finger.

I raised my hand in front of me, staring at the violet gemmed ring enclosed around my finger. “This is why I can suddenly see you?”

He tapped the ring on my finger. “It’s the orbis of silent or ring of the dead…it gives you the sight of seeing the dead.”

“Why would he give this to me?” I stared down at the ring. “How is seeing the dead my loophole?”

He shrugged, sitting down next to me and I tried not to cringe from his closeness. I mean, the alive Nicholas freaked me out enough, but the dead Nicholas…well, it was beyond creepy.

I had a feeling there was more to his story—that he knew more about the ring then he was letting on. Too bad Blood Promises didn’t last after death because now getting the truth out of him was going to be like pulling teeth.

Nicholas suddenly smirked at the empty chains that once held my mom. “You have such a bumpy road ahead, and you don’t even know it.”

I pointed at the chains. “Do you know where she went?”

His golden eyes twinkled in the low light of the room. “Perhaps.”

I tried to keep my cool. “Can you please tell me?”

He gestured at the window. “The answer is out there.”

I stared at the window, not wanting to look, frightened about what I would see.

“Go ahead.” He was enjoying this way too much. “Go see the damage you’ve caused.”

I took a deep breath and slowly walked toward the window, my knees knocking together with each step. My palms covered with sweat as I pulled back the curtain.

Garbage cans burned wildly in the streets. A fire lit up the sky. In the next door neighbor’s yard, a vampire was feeding off a human, right out in the open, as if it didn’t matter, as if all the rules had changed.

I whirled back to Nicholas. “What is this?”

“What did you think was going to happen? That you could change the events of your life and everything would be okay? That you could mess around with visions and everything would be fine.”

My father knew this was going to happen. My father had seen it coming. He tried to show me that there were going to be rough times ahead.

You need to prepare yourself.

“But, why would this happen just from me changing one event of my life?” I asked, motioning at the window were fires blazed vibrantly just outside it.“How could it lead to all this.”

“Don’t you remember the butterfly effect?” he asked. “This all happened because I never handed you over to Stephan that day, therefore he had to work harder to try and capture you.So he has been igniting the Mark of Malefiscus on the followers of Malefiscus—something he was going to originally do when the portal opened. He did it so they can help him capture you…And thanks to Stephan and his memory tampering abilities, they think they’ve been born with the mark.” He gestured at the window. “They think this is the way things are supposed to be.”

“But this witch, Medea, she said they were waiting for Stephan to perfect the Mark of Immortality before they started hurting people.” I glanced at the window, out at the chaos. “Does that mean he’s perfected it?”

Nicholas smiled, but didn’t answer.

“So can we fix it?” I asked in a panic stricken voice. “Can we make all the madness out there stop?”

He grinned. “Perhaps...” He glanced at the ring on my finger, and again I assumed he knew more than he was letting on. “But as of now every single creature marked with the Mark of Malefiscus—which is quite a lot thanks to you shifting everything—is roaming the streets.” He brushed his finger across the mark on his skin. “My mark is useless, though, since I am dead.”

Shaking my head, I sank to the floor, wishing desperately that Alex was here.

“And what if we can’t?” I asked, hugging my knees to my chest.

The only answer I got was the fire crackling in the streets.