“Isn’t it beautiful?” CeCe says with her beaming smile.
I look down, and the box is already open. A delicate necklace bearing my name sits on the white fluff in the box.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asks again. “I saw it and had to get it for you!”
“Yes,” I say. “This is my favorite necklace.”
Is my favorite? “Do I already own this …?”
“Now eat your cake,” my mother says, and the plate with the cake is in my hands again.
“Drink your milk,” Jonathan says, holding the glass out to me.
There’s a reason I’m not supposed to eat anything.…
I drop the plate on the table and stand up. “Something is wrong,” I say, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Mom and Jonathan and CeCe crowd around me, smiling so brightly. I need air. “I need to go,” I say, trying to find the door. It strikes me that there isn’t one.
“Where would you go?” Mom asks. “Everyone you love is right here.”
“Now eat your cake,” Jonathan says, trying to make me take the plate again.
I thrust my hands into the pockets of my jeans. Something cold and metal touches my hand. I wrap my fingers around what feels like a coin. I pull it from my pocket. It’s large and bronze with the number 1 engraved in the middle with a triangle around it. An inscription at the top says, TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.
Be true. Truth.
“This isn’t real,” I say. “None of this is real.”
Mom shakes her head. “What could be more real than being with the ones you love?”
But that’s what’s wrong with this situation. Not everyone I love is here.
“What about Joe?” I ask, holding out the coin. Something tells me this belongs to him. That he had given it to me. That it means something.
“Joe? We haven’t seen him in years,” Mom says.
But I know that isn’t true. “I just saw him.…”
“Come sit, eat, drink your milk, be with your loved ones.”
I shake my head. There’s someone else missing. Someone else I love …
“Haden,” I say, casting about the room. “Where’s Haden?”
There is a reason he’s missing.… There is something I need to do. I need to think. I need to remember.…
“Drink your milk, and it’ll all be better,” CeCe says, holding it out to me.
“I don’t want the milk!” I swing my arm out, knocking the glass from her hands. It hits the ground and shatters, leaving a puddle that is nothing but water.
The others gape at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.
“Where am I?” I whisper.
“You’re in paradise, honey,” Jonathan says. “Your own personal heaven.”
I shake my head. That isn’t true. Nothing here is right. This can’t be my own personal heaven, because if it were, Haden would be here with me.
A door appears behind CeCe.
“Stay here,” my mother says, a new glass of milky water in her hand. “If you drink the water of Lethe, then you will forget whatever pains you. You can stay here in this moment and be happy forever.”
The water of Lethe—from the river of forgetfulness?
How do I know that?
“No,” I say. “There’s something I have to do.”
The door in front of me opens, light flooding in from behind it.
Before they can stop me, I bolt through the opening.
I sit upright and realize that I have been lying on a slab of white stone—like an altar. I am cold and damp and shaking.
“Our patient is awake,” someone says.
Three women in veils rush to my side.
“Where am I?” I ask.
“Elysium,” one of the women answers, but I cannot tell which one, because their faces are covered. But by the sound of her voice and their hunched shoulders, I can tell that the women are very old.
“Elysium?” So that is what Jonathan had meant when he said I was in paradise. This is where the souls of the honored go when they die. The ancient Greek version of heaven …
The memory of the boat wreck comes back to me. I’d hit the rocks on the shore. “Am I dead?” I ask.
The three women shake their heads in unison. “Though you nearly were.”
“What about my friends? Are they here, too?”
They shake their heads again.
And the Key? I nearly shriek, realizing it is gone.
“Did I have anything with me?” Or perhaps it is still with the boat? Or Garrick or Tobin has it?
“We found you washed up on our shore, alone. The Oracle bid us to bring you to her healing chamber. You were so far gone, we thought we would ease you into death with one of your fondest memories. Let you stay there if you so chose …”
“But you’re a willful one,” another of the women says. “It seems we will not be cutting your thread so soon.”
My thread?
“It seems you had something more important to do than dying,” the second one says. “I guess we had better let you get to it.”
“Yes,” I say, pushing myself off the altar. My arm is bandaged and my muscles ache, but other than that, I feel fine. I don’t know if the three have overstated my closeness to death or if they’ve worked some sort of magic on me. Whatever the case, I am grateful to them for pulling me from the river. “Thank you,” I say.
I take a couple of steps and then realize that I have no idea where I am going. “Can any of you tell me the way to the Underrealm palace?”
“We like you,” one of the old women says. “You have spirit. Because of this, we will send you with a guide. She will take you to the adamantine gate but can go no farther than that.”
Another veiled woman, much younger, based on the way she moves, steps forward from a corridor, holding a lantern aloft. She doesn’t say anything but bids me forward with her hand. She takes me through a series of winding hallways until we find a door. When we pass through it, I find myself standing on the bank of the river again. The wreckage of our boat lies in front of me.
“I sensed you would want to come here first,” she says quietly.
I scramble to what is left of the boat, climbing over broken timbers and floorboards, searching for any sign of my companions or the Key. Neither Tobin nor Garrick are here, and even Charon’s unconscious body is gone. For all I know, the Key has been washed away with them. The thought of losing my friends tries to pull me under, but I steel myself against a wave of grief. I can’t let myself believe it’s true.
“Do you still wish to move forward?” the veiled young woman asks.
I nod. Even if I don’t have the Key anymore, even if our escape plan is all but ruined, even if we have little chance of surviving now—or maybe because of it—I need to bring the antidote arrow to Haden so he will know how much I love him before it’s too late.
After we leave the shipwreck, I follow the woman along the shore. She moves quickly, as if floating, and at times all I can see is her lantern ahead of me. The ghostly sky has dimmed considerably, and I realize it is night here. My ears are pricked, listening for the moaning of the shades. They found us so quickly before, I don’t know why they don’t come for us now.
“We are on the shores of Elysium,” the woman says as she stops to wait for me to catch up with her. “The shades cannot venture here. However”—she holds her lantern aloft, lighting up a great metal gate in the near distance. They remind me of what the “pearly gates” are supposed to look like, only totally obsidian black and topped with razor-sharp-looking spikes—“since you are not traveling by boat, you will have to go a less desirable route. It is faster, but beyond this gate are many dangers. Follow the path, and it will take you to a back-door entrance to the palace. But whatever happens, do not stray from the path or you may find yourself in the Pits, where the deadliest and most vile creatures of the Underrealm lie.”
I take in a deep breath. “Got it. Don’t get lost.… Are you sure you can’t come
with me?”
“I am a creature of light, and therefore can’t cross the black gate,” she says, stepping closer to me. She lifts her veil, and clasps her hand over my trembling one. “May the gods give you speed in your quest, whatever it be. I feel it is a righteous one.”
I meet her eyes under the light of her lantern. They’re jade green like Haden’s, and I realize that I’ve seen her face before. In photo albums at home and in a picture that was on the wall in the Crossroads club back in Vegas.
“Kayla?” I ask. “Are you Kayla Reed?”
Haden’s mother.
She blinks at me. “I may have been,” she says. “But I do not recall anything of my former life. When I died, I was chosen to serve the Oracle. That is all I know.”
I remember the glass of milky water that had been offered to me in my dream. I’d refused it, knowing it was from the river of forgetfulness. At the time, I couldn’t place how I knew that, but now I remember that it was from a scene in Joe’s play. Eurydice had refused the water even though it would make her forget her pain—make her forget her former life.
My heart swells with the thought of being able to tell Haden that his beloved mother isn’t a shade. I can only hope he’s still himself enough to care.
“Godspeed,” Kayla whispers. She lets go of my hand and disappears, leaving me alone in front of the towering adamantine (aka impenetrable) gate. There are no handles or latches as far up as I can see.
Joe had once told me that he’d written the play for me. That he had intended it to be his covert way of teaching me about the perils of the underworld. So far, I’d used what I’d gleaned from the play to steer the boat, remember to refuse food, and to avoid having my memory wiped by the water of Lethe. I look up at the looming gate and remember in the story that Orpheus had played his lyre for the gate (or in the case of Joe’s rock opera, it had been Tobin with his guitar), and the gate had been so moved by the beauty of his song that it had swung open on its own. I don’t have a guitar, or a lyre for that matter, but I do have a song. I stand in front of the gate and direct my voice at it, imploring it to open.
I sing the words from the scroll’s song, louder and louder, raising my volume until finally I hear the screech of metal against the stone path underneath, and the gate opens just wide enough for me to squeeze through.
I cross onto the path ahead of me in the darkness and find myself wishing that I’d thought to ask Kayla to leave me her light.
Sticking to the path, I stare at my feet as I go, with my arms stretched out in front of me in the darkness. Curtains of thick mist surround the path on both sides. I walk slowly for what feels like miles, wishing I could see more than a foot in front of my face. I have no idea if I am getting closer to the palace or possibly traveling in the completely wrong direction.
I am so startled when I hear voices up ahead of me, I practically jump. It sounds like a group of soldiers, from the accompanying sounds of marching feet. I am so panicked that my only thought is to hide—and take refuge in the mist. I step off the path, just one yard’s length, and crouch in the mist until the voices pass.
Then a thought occurs to me—if I need to get to the palace, why not reveal myself to the soldiers and demand that they … um … take me to their leader?
I make a move to rejoin the path, and then suddenly realize that I don’t know if the path is to my left or right. Is it in front of me or behind me? I try all directions, taking one large step like I’d had when I stepped off the path, but I don’t find it.
Had I traveled much farther off it than I had thought?
I try shouting, calling out to the soldiers, but it is almost as if the mist drowns out my voice. I spin around, frantic, realizing that I have completely lost my way.
I stand still for a moment, breathing deep to stave off panic, and try to collect my bearings.
Convincing myself that I am certain I must have come from the right, I walk a good few paces in that direction. Only it isn’t the path that I find but a door.
Was this the back door to the palace that Kayla had told me about? I can’t make anything out in the mist, and without any other options, I do the only thing I can think of—I open it.
Through the doorway, the mist is gone, and in front of me is a long staircase that spirals downward. Oily torches line the walls, which remind me of a cavern. I follow their light down the stairs, descending for what feels like several minutes.
I am almost to the bottom, my legs aching, when I start to regret my decision, realizing that down is not the direction that I want to travel in the underworld. I start to turn, ready to run back up the stairs, but some sort of small creature skitters under my foot.
I trip, losing my balance completely, and tumble down the remainder of the stairs. I am too stunned to move for a moment. My arm aches under my bandage, and I wonder if I’ve broken something … possibly again. Cradling my arm against my chest, I manage to get to my knees. I am about to attempt to stand when I sense movement close by. Like a shadow shifting in the light of the torches.
Shadow? My heart slams against my rib cage as I look up and see a Keres looming only a few feet in front of me. I have lost my way, as Kayla warned, and found myself in the Pits.
The Keres sees me. I know it does. It stops midair, a floating shadow, and puffs itself out like a bird of prey, preparing for an attack. I stand and back away just as the Keres swoops forward—and then it stops dead only inches from my face. I am so shocked, I find myself paralyzed, breathing right into what I would consider the Keres’s face, if it were corporeal. The shadow writhes, screeching and wailing, like a toddler having a tantrum, but it doesn’t get any closer. Like some sort of invisible barrier is preventing it.
I take another step back, putting more distance between me and the Keres, which now appears to be trying to ram the barrier. Its fit must have caught the attention of a few of its fellow kind, because three more Keres approach the barrier. I am about to run for the stairs when the strangest noise catches my ear. It sounds like a voice calling out. It sounds like a person’s voice, but it speaks some sort of screeching, sharp dialect that I don’t understand. The four Keres facing the barrier turn away from me, and as if heeding the call, they float away, leaving me behind.
The voice goes on in that strange language, and I hear more sounds, as if one of the Keres is responding to it. More movement catches my eye as other Keres seem to drift in the direction of the voices. I may not be able to understand the language but I do understand tone, and I’m pretty sure the two are arguing. I climb a couple of the steps and grab one of the lit torches and hold it out in front of me. Black shadows swirl beyond the barrier, encircling the area where the voices are coming from. I start counting the shadow creatures until I can’t keep track anymore. There aren’t a couple dozen Keres down here as Garrick had claimed: there are hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands.
I drop the torch.
It thunks against the ground and rolls away beyond where the barrier seems to stand. The voices stop, and several Keres turn in my direction.
I run. Up the spiral staircase, my legs screaming with pain. But I don’t stop. I make it out of the doorway, up back into the mist. Frantic thoughts fill my mind of me and Dax and Haden crossing that barrier to take on a handful of Keres, only to find ourselves overwhelmed by thousands.
How could Garrick have gotten their numbers so wrong? Or had the Keres gotten strong enough to exponentially multiply?
I think I hear someone following. Or at least there are footsteps that don’t belong to me somewhere in the mist. At first, I think it is a Keres persuing me, but Keres don’t have feet. Could it be the person who was conversing with them? Or perhaps another soldier?
I keep sprinting, realizing that I am turned around again, until I run right into what feels like a brick wall. I look up to find that I have collided into the chest of a very large man in armor. He grabs my arm before I can pull away. There are two more soldiers with him. “What are you doing he
re?” he growls. “Boons are not allowed—”
“You there!” one of the other soldiers shouts, and dives into the mist. He comes out a moment later, gripping a boy by the arm.
“Garrick!” I say, relieved to see a friendly face.
“Isn’t this one of Ren’s sons?” his captor asks the others.
“What are you doing with this Boon?” the man asks Garrick.
Garrick looks at me frantically. I wonder how long he’d been lost in the mist also.
“I am not a Boon,” I say. “I am the Cypher. I am Garrick’s … er … prisoner. Now take us to your king.”
chapter sixty
HADEN
Rowan and I are allowed to walk on our own accord into the throne room, our hands still bound against our chests, and flanked by guards with electrified swords at our sides. The guard must have sent a runner ahead, because when we enter the room, the Court of Heirs looks as though they have been awaiting our arrival. Lex sits in my father’s ebony throne, with the majority of the Court seated at his sides. I note that Lord Killian and Master Crue are not with him. Other Underlords crowd the room, as if spectators to a battle of gladiators.
My father sits, bound to a chair, in front of the Court. His crown, made of golden cypress leaves, has been laid out upon the altar, and his black robes and golden breastplate have been stripped away. He looks like nothing more than any other Underlord—except for the way he sits: his head held high, as if he were not a prisoner. As if he cannot be fazed.
But I know that he can. I’d seen his desperation when I refused to give Daphne to him. My throbbing arm is the only thing distracting me from screaming to the Court that he is merely acting.
Lex stands when we near the middle of the room. “The day of the equinox has arrived, Ren. Your sons have returned, as you predicted. However, I see they are empty-handed, as we predicted. Their failure is your failure.”
One of our guards approaches Lex. “My lord, I have news,” he says, giving him a slight bow. Lex nods for him to come forward. “Lord Rowan claims that the girl is coming. That she’s on her way now.”