by Abbie Lyons
“What else do I do?” I cried. “I don’t have time for a Plan B. He could be—”
“I’ll come with you,” Raines said shortly. “What do you think I’ve been doing out here all this time? I’m trying to stop this as much as you are.” He took two steps down the hallway, then stopped. “Well? Are you coming?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I thought you hated me.”
“Maybe I do,” Raines said, unable to resist a smirk. “But I don’t hate Teddy. Or Morgan. And I sure as hell don’t want Hades Academy to fall.”
I swallowed. Raines held out a hand.
“Follow me.”
I did.
THE POUNDING OF OUR footsteps was the only thing I could hear—the only thing I could feel—as I tore down the hallway with Raines. We flew up the grand staircase, past the streams of students milling out towards the classrooms, and towards a side door from the refectory.
“Where are you—” I started.
“Just run,” Raines yelled over his shoulder. We burst out into the open air, a gray day with slick grass and the mountains in the distance crowned in iron-colored clouds. “I can feel where he’s gone.”
“You can?”
Raines didn’t answer. But I had no choice but to trust him.
We dashed past the herb garden, the scents of the plants now replaced with the tang of copper and rain, and towards an outcropping that surrounded the castle.
“The archway,” Raines said. There was an archway, I realized, coming up quick to our right, leading back into the castle.
“How did you know that was here?” I panted. Raines just threw me a glance. Of course—the Infernal Three had their ways.
Inside the walls once again, the temperature dropped, and my vision temporarily blanked as my eyes adjusted to the darkness within. Squinting, I looked up and recognized the vast windows, the rows and rows of seating, the stage in the middle—it was the assembly room, from the first day of school, the one we hadn’t returned to since. It was lit from within with a terrifying blue light, sharper and brighter than anything I’d yet seen at Hades. It hurt to look at, and I once again threw up a hand to shield my vision.
Raines skidded to a stop, and I did too, in the narrow passage between the front rows of cubicles and the stage.
“Now what?” I said. “Can he—”
The answer was a resounding crash.
Somewhere, in the air in front of us, Teddy—or whatever remained of Teddy—was calling down huge chunks of debris. The ceiling, I realized, as one hit with another thud.
« There you are. »
It must have been Teddy’s voice—the voice of Chaos. It was still eerily deep and echoing, utterly inhuman, utterly un-demon-like.
It’s not him, I reminded myself. It’s not him. He’s not doing this. Above, dozens of feet in the air, Teddy’s body twisted, his eyes still luminous, and with another flick of his wrist, he sent a massive block of stone hurtling from the ceiling down to the ground. A light spray of moisture showered us—rain, from outside. Chaos was destroying Hades Academy one brick at a time.
« Your existence is over. Everything here will be gone soon. The power of Chaos is...consuming. »
Sure enough, no sooner had he boomed out his declaration than the chunks of stone flickered, like bad graphics in a video game. Then, with a quick fizz, they vanished. Gone. Nothing there. I stuck my hand out, reaching for the space where the rubble and dust had been, and there was just...nothing.
As if it had never existed.
“You can’t get rid of us that easily,” Raines said. “We’re not just inanimate rocks.”
He clenched his fists. His eyes were blazing like I’d never seen them before, lighting up his whole face, and his hair was billowing as if an unseen breeze was blowing over him.
Not only that, but—
“Raines,” I gasped. “You have—”
But before I could finish, another voice boomed out across the auditorium.
“Leave it, Raines.”
I whipped my gaze up to the hallway door. Someone had taken the long way and caught up with us.
Wilder.
Raines whirled around, his wings fluttering.
Because yeah, he’d sprouted wings.
Honest-to-an-actual-God, feathered-and-flying wings.
If the day weren’t already so totally bonkers, I would have passed out.
“Back away now,” Wilder commanded. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Raines snapped. His wings twitched. They weren’t snowy white, like you’d think an angel’s wings would be, but a kind of dappled gray, like a barn owl might have. If the circumstances had been different, and I didn’t have to devote all of my energy to not fucking dying, I would have thought they were beautiful.
Another chunk of stone crashed in front of us, splintering the nearest cubicle and showering us in dust and wood slivers.
“Don’t you see?” Wilder roared. “He has the Sword of Kimaris. It craves instability, magnetically attracts to it, subsumes it into its void. Your presence—your imbalance—is making it worse. You’re not counteracting the Chaos; you’re feeding it.” In a single, fluid motion, Wilder took a giant leap and alighted in the cubicle behind us. His eyes were, well, wild behind his glasses, his hair in disarray. “This is why you can’t be here, Raines. You’re destabilizing. You’re tainting this place. You’re an error.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Raines held up his palm and let loose a blast of orange-red flame that Wilder dodged just in the nick of time. Holy shit. Guess someone had been paying attention in pyromancy.
“Guys,” I interrupted. “As charming as this is, we are about to die. Do you mind putting your bullshit behind you?”
Both brothers stared at me.
“Nova,” Wilder said, as if he had forgotten I was there—or never noticed in the first place. “You need to—”
A crackling sound from overhead, and then the room lit with another blast of blue energy.
“I need to not die is what I need to do,” I yelled. “And you two need to quit fucking fighting. This isn’t a chance to redeem your self-worth”—I glared at Raines—”or some theoretical exercise about the nature of fighting Chaos”—I glared at Wilder. “This is about not fucking dying. And I think I’ve had a little more experience doing that than either of you has.”
“No,” Raines and Wilder said almost in unison. They glared at each other. Raines’s wings rustled.
“Also, we definitely have to discuss those things,” I said. “But not right n—”
I couldn’t even finish my sentence, because I’d lost my footing. Not stumbled, or anything—just lost it. The ground between the stage and the seats had vanished, replaced with a pulsing void, ringed with blue light, and terrifyingly vast.
Wilder leapt back, immediately, out of self-preservation, I suppose, and landed in a crouch a few rows back with enough force to split the boards of the stairs. I looked down, and my feet swam in empty space below me, like I was staring down into the world’s deepest swimming pool—and I was sinking.
“Nova!”
The void pulled on me, gently but irresistibly, like a soft whirlpool. I felt my body flush with warmth—not uncomfortably, but all-encompassingly, like I was falling into a nap.
“Let her go,” came Wilder’s voice. “Chaos wants her. Let it have—”
Another crack of bright blue light, and Wilder fell silent, his body slumped.
But I could barely see him now. I was still sinking.
Sinking, and not stopping.
Something wrapped around me. Arms. The brush of feathers.
Raines was pulling me back from the void.
“Don’t be this stupid, Nova,” he said in my ear, his teeth gritted. “Don’t be this stupid. Don’t give in.”
I felt my legs steady, and I dropped to the ground. Firm, real ground. Ground that hadn’t disappeared. Instantly, my senses returned to me. Sharper, even. I felt keen an
d eager and ready to fight.
The only problem was, I had no powers.
“Can you do an advelum?” I asked hurriedly. Raines stared back at me, a deep gash across one cheek, and I wished I had Tavi’s healing powers. “Teddy’s still essentially a demon, even with the Chaos, so it should hurt him, right? But not...”
...kill him. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
“I can, but not from this distance,” Raines said, and spat blood onto the floor. I followed his stare to where the void that had almost swallowed me was seeping ever outwards, and didn’t even protest when Raines yanked my arm and flew—flew—us a few feet away.
“If only you had a way to get closer,” I said.
“You seriously have the brainspace for sarcasm right now?” Raines said.
“Can you fly, or not?” I shot back. “Get up there and hit him with everything you’ve got.”
“I can, but—shit,” Raines said, and looked up into the air.
I followed his gaze. Teddy hovered, the outline of his form pulsating, each pulse throwing the edges of his shape larger and larger like the booming of a bass speaker in a cartoon until, at last, he split into three.
“Shit,” Raines said again. “Chaos.”
Of course, I thought. Of course it wouldn’t be as easy as just blasting Teddy-full-of-Chaos with a smack of magic energy. No, suddenly it was demon whack-a-mole.
“If I miss,” Raines shouted, “we’re sunk. I can’t do it more than once. Not with any real force.”
The three Teddys glowed hot and bright, the “real” one still in the center. Slowly, they began to rotate.
And even more slowly, a thought dawned on me.
“Go,” I said, not taking my eyes off of the spinning forms in the air. “Fly up there and on my signal, blast the one that’s nearest to you.”
“What?” Raines frowned. “Are you crazy? This is Chaos, Nova. I’m not going to just guess which one is which.”
“It’s not Chaos,” I said. “There’s a pattern—there’s always a pattern. So unless you want to die, get up there and follow my lead.”
I gave him a shove, and Raines flapped, once, twice, then zoomed up into the air so he was within striking distance of the spinning trio of forms.
I jumped up the nearest set of stairs two at a time, the void ebbing ever closer to the toes of my Docs, never breaking my gaze.
Maybe I didn’t have reliable demon powers.
Maybe I couldn’t fly up there and cast a spell.
But I’d be damned if I couldn’t follow three-card monte.
The real Teddy ducked from side, center, side again, far side, center—I never lost him, but I wasn’t going to call for Raines until I was absolutely certain he’d land the strike. Around us, the auditorium was stirring to a whirlwind, gathering dust and debris with every rotation of the three forms above us.
Oh, and there was the terrifying voice.
« I am Chaos » it echoed. « Chaos reigns »
It was scary as fuck.
Still, I never lost my focus, never ripped my gaze away. I followed the real Teddy left, right, left, left, down, left, right, up, left.
“Raines,” I screamed. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” he called back, his voice just carrying over the howling of the wind.
“Okay,” I yelled. “On my signal—”
Left, right, up, right, down—
“Ready...”
Down, up, down, up, right—
“Now!”
Raines thrust his hands in front of him. A pinprick of gold light flared from his fingers.
Then a shockwave.
Then nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I was in the sick ward. That much was clear. The bare white walls and soft, glowing overhead lights—rare for the torch-obsessed Hades Academy—were enough to figure that out, although I’d never actually been there. Well, until now.
But that’s all I could figure out. My vision was blurry, my body was sore, and worst of all, it felt like somebody was taking a jackhammer to my head.
On the plus side, the school was still standing and I hadn’t been sucked into a void of Chaos, so I wasn’t about to complain too much to whatever nurse would surely come to check on me now that I was awake.
Sure enough, I could make out the outline of a woman walking into the room. She stopped at the very edge of the bed and looked down at me.
I couldn’t make out the details of her face. She just stood there silently.
“Hi?” I croaked out. Even just speaking was painful. I was going to have to shut up for once in my life.
No response from the lady. And no more movement, either. Just staring.
I rubbed my eyes, naively hoping that would somehow make my vision clearer, but all it really seemed to do was pull a muscle in my arm.
I must have been pretty zonked, because the room started to go fuzzy at the edges. The woman—the nurse, I guess?—got a kind of gleam around her edges, like she was the moon blocking out the sun in the eclipse.
There was something about her, too—something familiar and comforting, when really, a strange figure just standing there completely still should’ve been awkward. But then I noticed her hair. Even with my blurry vision, it stood out. It was dark and big and poofy. Just like mine.
It was my hair.
And it was the hair of my mother. Exactly as I remembered it.
“Mom?” I managed to muster out despite the knives in my throat. “Is that you?”
No response. Just continued staring. But that feeling of peace persisted.
It was the feeling of comfort that I’m sure young adults who moved away from home felt whenever they returned and were reunited with their mother. A sense of being safe. A sense of belonging.
I could feel the tears building up in my eyes, but it would’ve been too painful to wipe them away. This was my mom here in the room with me. I just knew it.
But was she actually here? Or was she using some kind of power to project the image of herself? Did that mean she was the parent I got my demon genes from?
Stop overthinking it, Nova. Just take in the moment. Relax.
And so I sat there soaking it all in, until her image slowly began to dissipate. She was gone without a trace. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to see her face.
That’s when the nurse walked in, as if she’d been waiting for the presence of my mother to clear the room. She too wasn’t much more than a blur, but I could tell she was wearing what seemed to be the demon version of blue scrubs: a little more form-fitting and stylish, and covered in some kind of silvery runes that twisted and morphed along the fabric.
“Looks like you’re awake!” she said in that classic cheerful nurse voice. “You’ve been through a lot, and I know you must have a million questions. I’m just going to ask that you don’t strain yourself too much. You’re on the road to recovery, but we don’t want any setbacks, do we?”
I could’ve asked if she’d noticed my mother, but I didn’t want to waste my breath for a question that I already knew the answer to. Nobody else had seen that—not a chance.
“Let’s just do a quick check on your vitals,” the nurse went on, producing a palm-sized glass disk from her pocket, which she held to her eye before looking me up and down. I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to hold still, like an MRI or whatever, but then again, I didn’t feel much like moving at all.
“Very good,” the nurse said approvingly. “Now just slide this under your tongue—there’s a good girl.”
She popped a totally spherical pill between my lips, which I obediently rolled under my tongue. I felt a brief snap, like I was eating Pop Rocks, and then nothing.
“Well done. Now, there’s a visitor here who’s been waiting for a while,” the nurse told me. “But I’m happy to shoo away if you’re not ready for that. It’s up to you, dear. Just blink twice at me if you’d like company.”
Morgan. It had to be Morgan. She was safe af
ter all. And maybe she’d come bearing news of what happened after all the Teddy stuff—poor, poor Teddy. I hoped he was all right.
I blinked twice without hesitation.
“Very well,” she said. “I’ll send him in.”
Him?
I’d sort of assumed that Raines was off somewhere in a sick bed of his own. If that advelum did such a number on me, I could only imagine what it might’ve done to him.
I saw his figure enter the room as the nurse shuffled back out to give us some privacy.
“I’m happy to see you’re awake,” he said.
But that wasn’t Raines’s voice.
It was Wilder’s.
He was maybe the last person in the world I wanted in the room. Back in the fight against Chaos Teddy, he appeared resigned to the fact that I could be sucked into a void and lost forever. What was it he had said?
Chaos wants her. Let it have—
But he’d never gotten the chance to finish the sentence before Teddy took him out. Convenient. And evidently he was doing just fine now. Probably because he’d totally wussed out during the fight.
He pulled up a seat beside my bed.
“How are you feeling, Nova?”
“Weird question to ask,” I rasped. “Considering.”
Wilder chuckled. “So, back to your usual self, I see.”
If I’d had the energy, I would’ve scowled.
“Nova, you showed a lot of bravery last week,” he went on. “Lots of foolishness, too, but you were brave nonetheless. You really are...extraordinary.”
Last week? I’d been out longer than I’d thought.
“Your friends are okay,” he said. “I’m sure that’s what you wanted to know. Teddy’s still here in the sick ward, but he’s going to be fine. Poor kid did nothing wrong. Chaos just happened to see him as a useful conduit.”
He still wasn’t addressing the most important thing—he was going to leave me to die back there. No matter how much it hurt my throat, I was going to be the one to have to broach the subject.
“You said,” I managed before needing a small break. “You said, Let it—”
“Nova.” His voice was firm, as if he knew clear well where this was going. “We need to clear up this misunderstanding right away. I was saying that as a tactic. I needed Teddy—the Chaos inside him—to turn his attention from you to me. That’s all.”