He shakes his head. "My only connection to Ava is through you, your thoughts about Ava."

I look away, watching a family of bunnies hop by, then back at him. "So the racetrack?"

"Premonition, you did it too." "What about the race you lost?"

He laughs. "I have to lose a few, otherwise people tend to get suspicious. But I certainly made up for it, don't you think?"

"And the tulips?"

He smiles. "Manifesting. Same way you made the elephant, and this beach. It's simple quantum physics. Consciousness brings matter into being where there was once merely energy. Not nearly as difficult as people choose to think."

I squint, not really getting it. No mater how simple he thinks it is. "We create our own reality. And yes you can do it at home," he says, anticipating my next question, the one that just formed in my head. "In fact, you already do, you're just not aware of it because it takes so much longer."

"It doesn't take longer for you."

He laughs. "I've been around awhile, plenty of time to learn a few tricks."

''How long?" I ask, gazing at him, remembering that room in his house and wondering exactly what I'm dealing with.

He sighs and looks away. "Very long."

"And now I'll live forever too?"

"That's up to you." He shrugs. "You don't have to do any of this. You can simply put the whole thing out of your mind and go on with your life. Choosing to let go when the time is right. I only provided the ability, but the choice is still yours."

I stare out at the ocean, its sparkling waters so brilliant, so beautiful, I can hardly believe it exists because of me. And even though it's fun to play with such powerful magic, my thoughts soon turn to darker things.

"I need to know what happened with Haven. That day I caught you..." I grimace at the memory. "And what about Drina? She's immortal too, right? Did you make her that way? And how did this even begin?

How did you become immortal in the first place? How does such a thing even happen? Did you know she killed Evangeline, and almost killed Haven too? And what's up with your creepy room?"

"Can you repeat the question?" He laughs.

"Oh, and another thing, what the heck did Drina mean when she said she's killed me over and over again?"

"Drina said that?" His eyes go wide as his face drains of color.

"Yeah." I nod, remembering her smug and haughty face as she broke the news. "She was all, 'Here we go again, stupid mortal, you always fall for this game, blah blah blah.' I thought you were watching, I thought you saw the whole thing?"

He shakes his head, mumbling. "I didn't see the whole thing, I tuned in late. Oh God, Ever, it's all my fault, all of it. I should've known, I should've never gotten you involved, I should've left you alone—"

"She also said she saw you in New York. Or at least she told Haven that."

"She lied," he mumbles. "I didn't go to New York." And when he looks at me his eyes are etched with such pain, I reach for his hand and hold it in mine. Shaken by how sad and vulnerable he looks and wanting only to erase it. I press my lips against his warm waiting mouth, hoping to convey that whatever it is, there's a pretty good chance I'll forgive him.

"The kiss gets sweeter with every incarnation." He sighs, pulling away and brushing my hair off my face. "Though we never seem to make it further than that. And now I know why." He presses his forehead to mine, infusing me with such joy, such all consuming love, then sighing deeply before pulling away. "Aw, yes, your questions," he says, reading my mind. "Where to begin?"

"How about the beginning?"

He nods, his gaze drifting away, all the way back to the beginning, as I cross my legs and settle in. "My father was a dreamer, an artist, a dabbler in sciences and alchemy, a popular idea at the time—"

"Which time?" I ask, hungry for places, dates, things that can be nailed down and researched, not some philosophical litany of abstract ideas.

"A long time ago." He laughs. "I am a tad bit older than you."

"Yes, but how old exactly? I mean, what kind of age difference am I dealing with here?" I ask, watching incredulously as he shakes his head.

"All you need to know is that my father, along with his fellow alchemists, believed that everything could be reduced down to one single element, and that if you could isolate that one element, then you could create anything from it. He worked on that theory for years, creating formulas, abandoning formulas, and then when he and my mother both... died, I continued the search, until I finally perfected it."

"And how old were you?" I ask, trying again.

"Young." He shrugs. "Quite young."

"So you can still age?"

He laughs. "Yes, I got to a certain point, and then I just stopped. I know you prefer the frozen in time vampire theory, but this is real life, Ever, not fantasy."

"Okay, so..." I urge, anxious for more.

"So, my parents died, I was orphaned. You know, in Italy, where I'm from, last names often depicted a person's origins or profession. Esposito means orphan, or exposed. The name was given to me, though I dropped it a century or two ago, since it no longer fit."

"Why didn't you just use your real last name?"

"It's complicated. My father was... hunted. So I thought it better to distance myself."