"This is just like my nightmare," I mutter to myself then quickly duck as the crows dive for my head. "Stop!" I shout at the top of my lungs, and they scatter like mice.
I stand back up and look around the field for Alana. I can't see her anywhere but notice one crow hovering above my head like it is dancing.
It circles around and flies off toward the trees. Like in my nightmare, I chase after it until it takes off upward, disappearing into the sky and leaving me all alone. Then I trample through the grass, walking for what seems like forever until I finally stumble across a rundown house that looks like it once caught fire.
Trembling from nerves, I carefully walk up the porch stairs and open the front door. When I step inside, I'm standing in a house with charred walls.
"This is the house that was in Iceland," I whisper to myself as I inch inside.
The floorboards groan underneath me, and the door slams shut.
"No." I spin and yank on the doorknob, but it won't budge. "Please, please open. Don't lock me in here."
"Calm down, Gemma. You're all right," Alana says from behind me.
I turn to face her, still tense. "I wasn't sure if I was in the right place or not. Then I realized I've been in this house before and I panicked."
"Everything's going to be okay." She offers me her hand. "But we still have a ways to go."
I take her hand, and then she guides me up the creaking stairs. With each step, the weight I have been carrying in my chest becomes lighter. I don't know if it's the place or the fact that I'm technically dead, but I can see reality clearer and accept it.
"I'm going to die and so is Alex," I say to Alana. "We have to, don't we? Otherwise, there's no way of killing the star and Stephan. I mean, I always kind of knew it was going to happen, but now I know it . . . can actually feel it."
"Death is like that," she says, resting her hand on the banister as we reach the top of the stairway. "It makes accepting things--even death itself--less difficult because you don't have the complication of life."
"Are you sure there's not another way?" But as soon as I ask it, I can feel the answer, understand there's not another way. I'm going to die for real and very soon. "Maybe a way to at least save Alex."
"You'd do that? Choose his life over yours?" As we stop in front of a solid door, she looks at me, appearing astonished.
I nod, wholly aware at that moment just how much I care about Alex. "I care about him . . . And I want out daughter to have her father around while she's growing up."
The door makes a grumbling sound and Alana stiffens.
"Hold that thought for a while, okay?" Alana extends her hand for the doorknob. "Right now, we need to focus on getting you to the queen."
"I have a feeling this isn't going to be as easy as you said."
"Nothing's ever easy, even in death."
She swings the door open, and we step into the darkness. The air is so thick and suffocating I nearly pass out. Then the most rancid smell burns my nostrils, and suddenly I'm kneeling down and throwing up on the dirt floor.
Once I've emptied my stomach, Alana helps me to my feet.
"Keep your head down and try not to look at anything," she whispers as we head down a narrow tunnel.
I slant my chin down and let my hair curtain my face. I hold my breath and quickly realize I no longer need air. I grow fascinated with the idea, trying to suck air in and out of my lungs until I get a glimpse of a bony foot in my peripheral vision. My muscles wind tight as I turn my head.
Bodies cover the wall, wrapped in aged and torn fabric like mummies. Some of their limbs and faces are hanging out, their bodies' pale and frail, their eyes hollow.
"These are some of the souls you're here to save," Alana utters quietly over her shoulder. "Try not to look at them, though. It upsets the queen." She slows down to walk beside me, matching my steps as she leans in and lowers her voice. "And, Gemma, whatever you do, don't give her the ring until you've sealed the promise for the freedom of the lost souls, the ones who ended up here because of the apocalypse."
I jolt as one of the lost souls cries out. "Does she know why I'm here?" I whisper.
"She's the Queen of the Afterlife, not the Ruler of the City of Crystal, so you're going to have to explain it to her."
I dare another look at the souls, worried that somehow one of them might be my mother. Is this where she ended up? If so, does that mean she'll be freed when I release them?
"Your mother's not there, and be grateful she's not," Alana whispers like she read my mind.
Maybe she's right. Maybe I should be grateful my mom isn't in this god-awful place. Still, for some reason, I just feel more heartbroken because that means she won't be part of the souls I free.
When we reach the end of the tunnel and step into a large room, I start to get why Alana told me to be grateful. The souls down here aren't just lost; they're tortured.
In the room, the mummy-like bodies are being forced to drag large trailers of coffins up a dirt path as men dressed in armor beat them. Cries haunt the air, and blood stains the ground.
It reminds me a lot of The Underworld, but the difference is that these souls aren't evil.
They're just lost.
ALEX
"Now what do we do?" Laylen asks as he leans back against the counter and folds his arms. "I mean, there's only so much crap we can attempt to fix before we have to admit we're not handymen." He looks down at the pool of water on the floor, proving his point.
I sit down in a chair, trying to think of an idea, but my thoughts keep drifting to Gemma and what's going on upstairs.
"I honestly have no fucking clue." I pause. "Maybe we should just go upstairs and check on things."
"You know you'll go crazy if you see her like that."
"I know."
The room grows quiet.
"Okay, so who wants to help me?" Aislin enters the room, looking as cheerful and happy as a cheerleader on crack.
"If you're going to be cheerful, then leave," I grumble. "And where's Gemma?"
"She's upstairs in her bed, completely fine. I even checked her vitals and did a spell to make sure the baby is doing okay." She nudges me in the foot with her shoe. "So stop being a downer and come help me."
"With what?" Laylen asks, mildly curious.
Aislin claps her hands together. "With removing your Mark of Immortality."
"You've finally figured out that spell?" I sound way too surprised, causing her to glare at me.
"For your information, it's a completely unknown spell, and most witches can't even do unknown spells," she says, "so the fact that I've gotten far enough to test it says how much of a badass I am."
Laylen's eyebrows shoot up when Aislin looks at him. "You want to try it on me?"
She nods almost too energetically. "It'd be much easier to try it out on you than anyone else." She chews on her fingernail. "You don't have to, though. I get it if you don't want the mark gone."
He looks down at the mark branding his forearm. "You can try it on me."
"Are you sure?" she checks.
"I'm sure," he says confidently.
"Awesome." She scratches at her arm. "Then, after I've perfected that spell, it's on to the shield removing spell. Although I'm not sure how I'm going to figure out if that one works without being right next to Stephan."
"That's not happening. No one's ever going to be around him again," I say and Laylen nods in agreement. "It's a good thing you guys never told him where we were when you went all crazy."
"That's because I put an Interpres Incantatores on all of us, which keeps any of us from divulging our location to any person who means us harm," Aislin says, getting a bottle of water from the fridge. "When you went on that I-need-to-get-away-from-Gemma journey of yours, you missed out on a lot of amazing spells I learned." She unscrews the cap off the bottle and takes a swig.
"But you didn't do the spell on me," I remind her. "Maybe you should."
She sets the bottle down
on the table and elevates her hands in the air. "Non proferre verbum ad hostis." Sparks of silver shoot from her hands and land all over me, singeing my skin and clothes.
"Dammit, Aislin!" I jump to my feet, brushing off the sparks on my arms and shirt.
Laylen chokes on a laugh, and Aislin grins at him. "Don't get too giggly; you're next."
She sits down at the table and opens up her spell book to a marked page titled "Bonum et Malum Cantus."
"The Good and Evil Spell," Aislin reads the title as I sit back down. "It separates good from evil when it coexists inside one entity."
Laylen joins as us the table "But how is that supposed to work on Stephan when he doesn't have any good inside him?"
She traces her fingers along the page. "I know, but for now, it's all I have. Maybe, deep down inside him, he has some form of good in him." She shrugs. "He's a father, so there's that."
"But he was a shitty father," I mutter.
"I know." She tips her head down.
We grow quiet, and my thoughts instantly drift to Gemma again. Is she okay? Is she in the Afterlife yet? When will we know if she's freed the souls?
"There's just one tiny, little problem with the spell," Aislin says, breaking the silence. "There's this thing about blood." She flips the page. "The spell requires the blood of a person who's both good and bad."
"I have an idea on where you can get that." Laylen says then points at himself. "Me."
"Oh, I don't think that's what it means," Aislin skims the spell. "It couldn't be . . ."
I decide to put my two cents in, even though Aislin's more than likely going to get pissed off at me.
"He's a vampire and a Keeper, and that's bad and good."
"Alex, be nice," Aislin hisses, glaring at me.
"I'm not trying to be mean," I say. "And I'm not saying he's bad, just that he carries vampire blood inside, and vampires are usually bad."
Laylen places a hand over Aislin. "It doesn't hurt to try it."
She mulls it over, running her finger along the page. "We can try it, but I still need a few more ingredients." She scoots back from the table. "Let me go check my supplies and see what I have."
She skips off toward the stairs, swinging her arms.
"Sometimes, she can be so crazy," I say, shaking my head.
"She's your sister"--Laylen crosses his arms on the table--"so wouldn't that make you crazy, too?"
"I never claimed to be completely sane, but what I really want to know is what Aislin is to you."
He shifts in the chair, seeming uneasy. "Where the hell did that come from?"
I shrug. "You guys just seem really close lately, yet at the same time, you're close to Gemma, too." I recline in the chair. "I just want to make sure no one gets hurt."
"Gemma and I are just friends."
"Okay, but what about you and my sister?"
"I care about Aislin. You know that." He pats the table then scoots the chair back and stands up. "I think I'll go help Aislin."
The second he walks out, the silence sets in, and my head crams with worry. I hate not knowing what's going on. I want go upstairs and check, but worry I might mess something up.
But all I can do is wait and hope everything will be okay.
GEMMA
"This is way worse than I thought it would be," I tell Alana as we hurry out of the torture chamber and down another long, narrow tunnel that, fortunately, doesn't have any lost souls bound to the wall. "They look so . . . so broken. I don't get it. Why does she have to torture them?"
The glow from the red lanterns hanging on the walls lights up her face as she looks at me. "When people die before their time, their soul is considered lost. There's no real place for those souls to go, so they end up here. Queen Helena collects them and turns them into those mummy figures you saw. She has them work for her in order to keep her world thriving."
I swallow hard. "You know for sure my mom's not one of them, right?"
"When she died, it was her time," she tells me as the tunnel makes a dip downward.
"But she took her own life; how can that be her time?" I hunker down as the space between the ceiling and my head shortens.
"Just like when you sacrifice your life to save the world, you mother's life ended when she took her own life to save you."
"But how did it save me? She didn't know if she'd lead Stephan to me. She just feared she would."
"No, she knew." She stops in front of an archway. "Just like I knew you needed to come here."
"So you've seen how all of this is going to turn out?" I question.
She nods then inches through the archway and vanishes into the darkness. I follow after her, trying to keep track of her silhouette, but darkness suffocates me, bearing down heavily. I feel so heavy.
When I can finally see clearly again, I'm standing in front of a throne made of twisted, thorny branches. The legs are perched on a blood-red platform that grows out from the charcoal floor.
"She's not here," I say to Alana, turning in a circle, taking in the rippling sheet of silver metal above my head.
"Oh, she's here." Alana points upward.
The sheet warps, and a shimmering spiral of metal twists down and connects to the seat of a throne, forming an eyeless woman with glittering, sliver skin.
"Quomodo audent intra hic sponte. Ubi non est libertas," her voice ripples through the room.
"I've come to turn myself in," Alana calls out, moving in front of me. "And she would like to make a bargain with you."
"I do not make bargains!" the queen bellows, thankfully in a language I can understand. "There are no bargains to be made here, only souls to collect."
"Feel her soul, Helena," Alana speaks passionately as she stands tall in front of the throne. "Feel it and you'll see."
I don't understand what's going on. I just hope Alana does, hope I can trust her. Hope. All of this is riding on hope.
"She's broken." He mouth moves fluidly, liquid steel flowing. "Why do you bring her to me? Your first time in the Afterlife after escaping your debt for years, and this is what you bring me? A broken and tortured soul that belongs to another?" She flicks her wrist, shooing us away. "Take her away." She unexpectedly freezes then leans forward in her throne with eagerness written all over her face. "No, better yet, stay now that you're here."
"She's come to make an exchange for the lost souls' freedom." Alana moves in front of me, blocking the queen from my view. "She's the one responsible for the heavy amount of traffic you've had lately."
"How dare you!" Helena shouts, slamming her fist against the armrest, liquid splashing from her body and pooling around the throne. "There's nothing you can do or give me that would ever, ever make me want to free any of my souls!"
Alana spins toward me, her hair whipping around. "Show her the ring. Show her now."
Stepping around Alana, I lift my hand and show the queen her ring.
Helena gasps, jerking back in her throne while covering her mouth with her hand. "Where did you get that?"
Before I can respond, she dives off her throne. With a swish, her liquid body pools in front of me, and she rises, taking form. Then she dips her nose toward me and smells me like a dog.
"Who are you?" she growls "And why does your soul feel unnatural, like venom in my lungs?"
I look to Alana for help because I have no idea what to say. Alana opens her mouth to say something, but the queen cuts her off.
"It's invigorating," she purrs, sniffing me again. "I want it." She swoops up and dives down with her mouth open.
I can feel my limbs being pulled inside her body as her liquid seeps through my skin like hot, polluted water.
"Let me out!" I scream, but my voice gets trapped in her body.
She slinks back to the throne and sits back down. "There we go. Much better."
I dry heave as I feel what she's feeling, feel how much she wants to keep me.
"Let me out." I start to cry.
"Oh, sweetie, you're not going an
ywhere," she says. "Ever again."
"You can't hold onto her forever," Alana tells the queen after hours have gone by. She's been pacing in front of the throne ever since the queen . . . well, ate me, I guess. "You know you can't. She's not one of your lost souls; therefore, you can't keep her."
"I can keep her if she offers herself to me. And you know the souls that offer themselves to me are the best kind." She slams her fists against the armrests, throwing a tantrum, but I can feel her weakening around me as she struggles to keep me trapped inside her body. "She can offer herself up! She can offer herself up! And then I can keep her forever and ever and ever!"
"Helena," Alana says, sounding exhausted but patient. "You can't keep her, and you know it, so let her go and hear what she has to say about the bargain."
She rumbles, and the walls vibrate around us. Then liquid swells inside her lungs as she unhinges her jaw and, with a yack, spits me out onto the floor.
I slide out and roll over onto my back, wiping away her silvery spit and God knows what else that now coats my skin.
"Well, that was lovely," I say, pushing myself to my feet.
"You're lucky I let you go," she snaps, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "Now tell me more of this bargain before I lose my temper again. You want me to free souls in exchange for my own ring back? Because I'd really like to know how you ended up with the ring to begin with."
I touch the ring, remembering when my father gave it to me. There's no way I'll ever out him, however he ended up with the ring.
"You know as well as I do that those souls are supposed to be free." I square my shoulders. "You were never supposed to have them, and I think you know that."
She leans forward on her thrown. "How dare you talk to me like that? This is the Afterlife--my Afterlife--and I'll rule it however I want."
"Not even for this?" I raise my hand, giving her a glimpse of the ring again.
She licks her lips, eyeballing the ring. "Give me my ring back."
I shake my head, tucking my arm behind my back. "Not until you free the souls."
"I could just take it from you," she warns in a low tone.
"I really don't think that's true." I struggle to stay composed. "Otherwise, you would've already."
She curls her fingers around the armrests. "Maybe I will, then."
I shrug, even though anxiety and worry bounce around inside me like an out-of-control bouncy ball.
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