I had slept for two months in total.

I wasn't necessarily shocked to learn that information when I woke up the day after Edward and I had spoken. My body and spirit had been through a trauma—obviously, it took time to recover. Still, it was disorienting to find that so much time had passed. I allowed Edward and the others to talk me into staying in the hospital for two days after I regained consciousness even though I felt fine. It gave me time to adjust to the feeling of missing time. More importantly, it gave me time with Aunt Isolde.

She was still in a coma. No matter how many times I scanned her with my magic, no matter what spell I tried, Isolde remained asleep. There was nothing physically wrong with her other than the fact that she was unconscious. Whatever was wrong with her, it was a magical issue that was currently beyond my means to fix.

For now, anyway.

"Are you sure you want to do this tonight?" Alice asked hesitantly as she finished braiding my hair half up.

My eyes rested on Isolde's sleeping form. I took comfort in the steadiness of her breathing. Alice was moved to the hook on the back of the door and grabbed the garment bag, draping it over her slender arm.

I shrugged. "It needs to be done sooner rather than later. Waiting won't make it any easier. Plus I don't want her spirit to suffer more than it already has."

Alice's lips pressed together in a firm line. Her eyes momentarily unfocused as she saw future events that I couldn't. She handed me the garment bag with a sigh. "I suppose you're right. Edward will be here soon. Is it really okay if we go with you? Neither one of us is magical."

I smiled gently at her as I took the bag. "You sound like Edward. A vampire with premonitions, yet you think you aren't magical?"

Alice let out a light, tinkling laugh. "Okay, you make a fair point. I'll let you get dressed. See you in a bit." She stepped out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.

I unzipped the bag in my arms and pulled out the dress I'd asked her to receive from my house. It was long and black with black lace sleeves—pretty yet simple. I hadn't worn it in about two years, but I also hadn't grown much in that time. It still fitted me just fine. I slipped into my black ankle boots.

Now that I was dressed, I was ready to go. I still had some time before Edward arrived, though.

I grabbed the crinkled paper on Isolde's nightstand. My eyes eagerly devoured the words written in my aunt's neat cursive for what seemed like the hundredth time.

Emerine,

I'm sure you have questions and finding me like this most likely adds to them. I wish I could answer them for you, but for now, this is the only information I can give you.

Blair is gone, and this was the only way to keep me from following her. Both Blair and I have known this day would come since the moment you were born. Even though we won't be with you for this next part, you must continue your studies. Never stop searching for answers. Remember: being different isn't wrong. Trust isn't a weakness. Most importantly, we are all children of the same magic. Potestas est sanuis. Magicae est sanguis.

We see much of Cadoc in you. Don't blame yourself for anything that's happened. Please trust that everything will turn out exactly the way it was meant to.

Aunt Isolde

I had no idea what any of it meant, of course, other than that I needed to do my best to learn as much magic as I could. It would be difficult without my aunts, but not impossible. I wasn't about to let them down any more than I already had.

There was a quiet knock at the door. I opened the door with magic, unwilling to part with Isolde quite yet. Edward walked in with Alice following close behind. They had both changed into black clothes as well, though they looked much more glamorous than I did. I supposed it came with the inhumanly good looks that vampirism bestowed upon them.

I had certainly seen better days myself. I might have finally been out of the hospital gown and feeling better, but between Blair's death and Isolde's coma, I was stressed and… upset, to say the least. My hair had become dull and limp while I'd been unconscious. There were constant purple shadows beneath my eyes. I had always been pale, but now I was sallow and almost sickly looking.

Carlisle assured me I'd be back to myself in no time, but we both knew that it would be entirely dependent on how well I took care of myself over the next few months.

"Is everything ready?" I asked Edward, finally tearing my eyes away from Isolde.

His entire family had been overly helpful in arranging everything for the funeral. Alice and Esme had recovered Blair's body. Jasper and Emmett had hunted Victoria across Canada to make sure she wouldn't come back to hurt anyone else. Carlisle had secretly kept Blair's body in the hospital morgue until I woke up. He had been incredibly thoughtful by waiting for me, rightfully assuming that witches had funeral rituals just like the humans did.

Edward's cold, hard hand entwined itself with mine. He nodded in affirmation, mouth tight but eyes warm. "Are you sure you are?"

I rolled my eyes. "Alice asked the same thing. It's already been two months. It's time."

"It's been two months for us, but you've only been awake for two days. It's a lot to process in so short of a time." His light, topaz eyes flashed to Isolde's bed and back to me.

Alice had informed me that Edward had spent almost every second at my bedside while I'd been asleep, leaving only to hunt enough to keep himself alive. After I learned that particularly horrifying piece of information, I lovingly informed Edward I didn't want to see again until my discharge from the hospital. He put up a fight at first but realized that I was well enough to berate him for practically starving himself. He'd just gotten back this morning when I'd asked him to help with Aunt Blair's funeral.

"I need to do this, Edward." My voice was quiet but confident. I was sure that this was something that needed to be done.

Neither one of them said anything else on the subject.

We drove towards the clearing in silence. I hadn't exactly wanted to do this here of all places. The memories of James sent shivers down my spine. Still, there was something poetic about having my aunt's funeral on the site where I'd killed her murderer. I knew both of my aunts well enough to know that they would have delighted in the poetry of it all. I sighed at that particular dark thought.

Edward's thumb brushed the back of my hand comfortingly. He couldn't read my mind, but he knew exactly where my thoughts were.

When we could drive no more, he gently pulled me from the car and took off running. It wasn't as exhilarating this time. I wasn't sure if it was because of the fragility of my current mental state or the fact that I'd experienced the speed that vampires had myself, so being carried wasn't nearly as fun as it used to be.

Edward set me down near the center of the clearing as if I was made of glass. I could tell that he wasn't quite sure how to act around me at the moment. I wasn't exactly demonstrating the stereotypical stages of grief. He probably expected me to break down at any moment.

I took a few calming breaths as I examined the scene in front of me. Aunt Blair was laying on a small pyre in front of us. Hesitantly, I took a few steps forward. Someone—Carlisle, probably—had removed the blood from her neck and arms. The bite marks were still there, though, just like James said they would be. I pushed down a surge of fury. He was dead. I'd kill Victoria too one day, but tonight wasn't about that. Tonight was about letting go of someone I loved.

Despite her deathly pallor, she was still beautiful. I had always envied her and Isolde's thick, ebony waves. My hair was a straight, dark auburn, compliments of my mother. It was so strange to see her like this. She looked like she could just be sleeping like her twin was, but unlike Isolde, there was no sound of breathing coming from Blair. I was never so thankful that witches didn't decay at the rate humans did.

Alice interrupted my thoughts. "Do we need to do anything?"

I shook my head. "Just being here is enough. Thanks."

It was twilight. Purples and pinks entwined with oranges and blues in the sky above the clearing. The trees loomed around us, looking down on us. They swayed with the natural magic of the evening. It was the end of the day and the beginning of the night.

It was the end of Blair Wildes' time in this realm and the beginning of her time in the Others, but she wouldn't be finished with her journey here until I sent her spirit off properly.

Fire was one of the first lessons my aunts taught me. I grinned thinking back to the time I accidentally set their lawn on fire trying to melt snow off the driveway. I'd always thought I'd been bad at spell casting, but I'd been setting things on fire and conjuring storms before I even learned how to control them. Blair told me I was better than I knew, and she was right. I still had a long way to go, and now I had to do it on my own.

I stepped back next to Edward and Alice. They were silent, waiting for me to do something. I could tell Alice was itching to ask questions but was holding them back considering the circumstances.

"I've only been to a handful of witch funerals before. This is my first time doing it on my own," I admitted. I'd never forgive myself if I messed it up.

Edward put his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. He didn't say anything. It was a small gesture, but it made me feel more confident than if I'd decided to send Blair off on my own.

I gave them a brief explanation. "A witch's life doesn't end on earth. When anyone dies, their spirit is released to another realm. But by sending someone with magic off with this ritual, you allow their spirit to roam any of the Other Realms freely."

I took a deep breath and lit the pyre with magic. As the fire caught, dark, black smoke billowed into the sky above. I let it burn naturally as I said the words.

"Non videbit pater meus et mater mea. Video enim fratres meos et sororibus. Ibi agminis populis principio. Invocabunt me. Denuntiant mea ad eos et ad locum meum in Regnis Aliis ubi meus spiritus ejus in æternum vive."

With my last word, the smoke changed immediately from black to pure white. I let out a sigh of relief that I'd remembered the words correctly. More confident now, I held my hand out and poured as much as my energy into stoking the flames as I could. They quickly overtook the pyre until I could no longer see Blair lying upon it. I choked back a sob as I lost sight of her, willing the flames higher still.

My family had never been overly sentimental. I'd grown up without a father. My mother had always been distant, afraid of the magic I had. My aunts were the type to show their love in ways that weren't typical for humans. They didn't hug me, but they made sure I had everything I needed. They took me in when I didn't have anyone else. Isolde was blunt and forthright to the point of coming off as unfeeling, but Blair was the ever-patient one—the one that always encouraged me despite my failings. I always knew they both loved me, though. They never said it; they showed it. And it worked for us. I never ever doubted them.

I could feel the tears sliding down my face unable to hold them back any longer. They were cool against my hot skin that was being warmed by the blaze in front of me. I ignored them and threw more of myself into the flames. The fire was much bigger than would have been natural for a pyre of that size, but they weren't big enough.

I had risked everything to save my aunt—my morals, my friends, my soulmate, myself—and it wasn't enough. I had been too late—so late that I'd never even had a chance at saving her.

Blair knew that being a Septe meant that the world would take more from her. She knew that she wouldn't be able to hide from the dangers that magic attracted. Any practicing witch knew what was at stake if they used too much of their magic or if the wrong people came asking for help. Blair did it anyway. She'd known for years how she was going to die, and she still let it happen. She told me not to blame myself.

It didn't make it any easier, and I still did. I let the guilt consume me feeding the fire of the pyre.

The flames had to be over a hundred feet high by now breaking just over the tops of the trees. The white smoke billowed into the sky above twinkling slightly.

I'd heard about grief. I'd read about it in books and seen it in movies. I had thought the same thing about love before I experienced it for myself. But like love, grief was different. Maybe it was just me, but I didn't feel empty. I didn't feel like I was drowning in a sea of pain and misery.

I felt as if James and Victoria had taken a knife and stabbed me right in the gut. I was bleeding out, and the wound was deep. That was the love that I felt for my aunt. My wound would heal in time. It would scab and then scar. It would hurt for a while, and then it would hurt less. Scars were stronger than flesh. I'd rather have a scar than forget completely and have no memories of Blair whatsoever. After all, pain was a part of being alive.

I was still alive.

With a scream, I let go of the flames. My arm fell limply to my side.

The three of us stood there, watching as flames turned to embers which turned to ash. Edward's arm stayed tight around my waist. Alice grabbed my free hand giving it a squeeze. I was grateful they were with me. Night wrapped us in her comforting embrace.

Thanks to Carlisle and Esme, the school had decided not to completely fail me out of my junior year. As long as I completed the work that I missed out on before the new semester began, I'd be allowed to continue on to my senior year in the fall. The stack of paperwork only took me about two weeks to do since I had already been so far ahead of my classmates.

"I don't see why you don't just get your GED and be done with it," Emmett muttered from the couch after I'd declined his invitation to play against him in Need for Speed in favor of finishing my last assignment. "Or just drop out. You're smart enough. You can just make your own diploma if you want to go to college."

I'd been spending the majority of my days at the Cullen residence. I couldn't bear to spend too much time in my aunts' home alone at the moment, though I did spend my nights there with Edward and sometimes Alice.

I shrugged glancing into the other room at Edward playing the piano. He met my eyes easily without missing a note, and then promptly rolled them. I snickered. We'd had this conversation (more like an argument) at least three times by now. "Edward doesn't want me to miss anything. He thinks it's important that I experience as much as I can as a normal teenager—whatever that means."

Emmett snorted.

My snicker turned into a laugh. The idea was completely ridiculous. "I used to want to be normal. I know better now. I can't ever be, really, but what's the harm in humoring him? If he wants to live vicariously through me while I write about the influence of the witches in Macbeth, then so be it."

Emmett let out a booming laugh. "You're joking! You're not really writing your paper on that."

"As if I would write it on anything else."

"Emme!" The shriek came from outside the house, yet half of a second was all I had before Alice materialized by my side. She small girl seemed bursting with energy. "She answered! She finally answered!" Alice grabbed my hands and pulled me out of my chair before twirling around the room.

I grinned at her antics, trying to keep up. "That's great, Alice! What'd she say?"

"She wants to meet me!"

Alice released me and danced into Jasper's arms. He'd appeared in the doorway, watching his wife with an amused expression.

Alice had written to her sister claiming to be a descendant of herself. Evidently, Cynthia wanted to meet her as much as she wanted to meet Cynthia.

"You're going, right?"

"I want to…" She trailed off as her eyes unfocused. She flicked through her possible futures before a wide grin settled on her face. "Yes! I'll have to get started on the arrangements right away—"

And as soon as she'd arrived, she was gone.

Jasper's soft gaze lingered on me for a moment more before he left to help Alice. He'd been practically worshipping the ground I walked on ever since I regained consciousness—in his own way, of course. He may have been an empath, but he was much more closed off than the others in his family. Not for the first time I wondered about his back story. Everything the man did practically screamed 'trauma.' Still, I could feel the gratitude radiating off of him anytime he was within twenty feet of me.

All of the Cullens had whole-heartedly accepted me, which was more than I deserved after all the trouble I'd caused them. Edward assured me that they thought I wasn't to blame for anything that had happened. Even Rosalie stopped looking at me with cold hatred, although we still weren't exactly on friendly terms. She recognized that despite not knowing much about my kind, I didn't want anything to happen to any of them. I did attack her husband, though, and that didn't do me any favors at all.

I finished my essay a half-hour later. It was getting dark out already. Time seemed to fly by whenever I was at the Cullen residence.

"Are you ready to go?" Edward asked, standing up from the piano.

I nodded, gathered my belongings, and followed him out the door.

"I think we should talk about it."

I'd been laying in bed for close to two hours now, no closer to sleep than when I first crawled in. Edward was across the room, reading a stack of books on witchcraft that I'd picked out for him. He had insisted on learning as much as he could after my fight with James. He wanted to be sure he knew what to do in case something like that ever happened to me again.

He set the thick book down turning his attention to me. "Talk about what?"

"The elephant in the room."

Edward's eyes blackened, but his tone was still gentle. "What elephant?"

He knew exactly as to what I was referring to. I narrowed my eyes. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. There's only one subject we haven't touched."

He looked away, trying to avoid the subject like we both did whenever we managed to get close to it. But now, after everything we'd been through together, we owed it to our relationship to at least try to figure it out. The questions had been creeping toward the front of my mind ever since I woke up from my near-death experience.

"You and I both know that witches aren't immortal. We've been dancing around the subject ever since I woke up—before then even."

Edward stood up and made his way onto the bed next to me. "What's there to say, Emme?" He sounded exhausted already.

"I just… I don't know. I want to make sure you're going to be okay. I heard what you were like when you thought I was dead. I don't want anything like that to ever happen again. It was unbearable."

His gaze softened. "I suppose we're even then. Seeing you like that wasn't exactly bearable for me either."

"That's the point though, isn't it? One day I will be like that, and if it's not because of magic it'll be because of time." I knew I should stay calm, but I was growing frustrated—not with Edward, but with my lack of a solution.

"What are you saying, Emme? Are you asking to be like me?" Edward was incredulous. I'd asked about how vampires were made, but I'd never even hinted that that was the future I wanted. "You can't ask me to be the one to end your life."

I shook my head. "I honestly don't know. I don't know even know if I can be changed, Edward. I don't know the effect of your venom on my kind. I don't think anything like this—" I gestured at the two of us, "has ever happened before. If it has I certainly haven't heard about it."

He frowned as he pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes.

It took me a moment to realize what his silence meant. I hadn't brought up the topic of me changing. I was simply trying to point up a problem and go over possible solutions. He was the one that brought it up. My jaw fell.

"Alice saw something, didn't she?" I guessed.

"Alice sees a lot of things," Edward retorted.

"But it's a possibility?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm not killing you."

I rolled my eyes at his dramatics, taking his chin in my hand and bringing his face towards mine. "It does matter, actually. If we want any sort of future, we're going to have to figure it out. I can do some research and experimenting of my own—I rather like being a witch and I'd like to stay that way. But when it comes down to it, I'd rather be like you than be without you. I'm not going to leave you to an eternity of loneliness, and if it takes 'killing me' to do it, then I will. Plus, we've been through this before. You aren't damned or condemned or whatever else. You're just a different brand of magic."

Edward deflated with my words. He brought his lips to my forehead, and then down to my neck. Chills crept down my spine. I melted into his side.

"Alice has seen some things," he admitted. "Our futures aren't certain—they keep changing. But they're always intertwined. Isn't that enough?"

I allowed myself to fully relax. He was right. I didn't know what was going to happen to us, but if we were together, I knew we would figure it out.

"It's enough for now."

A/N:

And that's all, folks!

It's been a journey, and I am EXHAUSTED. I'd like to formally apologize for what is probably some horrible grammar and syntax. I've written about 10k words today, and English began to look fake there at the end. That being said, I hope you enjoy it regardless. Let me know if you catch anything that I didn't!

Please leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of this story! I read them all and can reply more freely now that it's finished. I'd really appreciate the feedback since I've decided to continue this story into New Moon as well. What worked? What didn't? Were the characters too OOC? Do you have any theories about what's going to happen? What would you like to see in the sequel? My main goals for Devil's Playground were to get rid of as much of the toxicity as I could in Edward/Bella's relationship, give them more equality in their dynamic, and still maintain the integrity of the original story and characters (not to mention include more of the awesome backstories that we never got to see). I hope I managed to do that at least a little bit.

The sequel is going to be called "Devil in Me" and I will have the first chapter posted hopefully before you finish reading this. That way, you won't forget about following it if you're interested. Speaking of following, the Tumblr for this story is .com. I post a lot of clues, visuals, and music over there. It's worth a look!

Thanks a million for sticking with me till the end. I never thought I'd actually finish a fic lol. I hope you had as much fun as I did!

Until next time :)