No, you don’t, it had said, just as I’d been struggling to control the crown.
No, you don’t control it.
“I don’t want to go back there,” I said. “I can’t.”
“Then don’t,” Becket said.
I frowned at him. “That… wasn’t what I was expecting.”
“Why not?”
“I just told you I don’t want to go back to the Tempest, that I don’t want to use the crown’s power. That means this whole thing ends here, with me.”
He shrugged. “The it ends.”
“Just like that?”
Becket took a deep breath in through his nose. “Isabella, I think you don’t assign yourself enough importance as a person. Yes, we are all here because your unique talents and abilities have enabled us to start unravelling one of the greatest mysteries of our kind.”
“No pressure.”
He shook his head. “Let me arrive at the point,” he stressed, “I cannot speak for the others, I can only speak for myself, and from where I’m standing, I can tell you this. You are more important than this discovery. You, Isabella. Not the crown, not Ashelor, and certainly not Qyhena Ophine. No one is going to force you to put on that crown and continue exploring this mystery. I am almost certain the others will feel the same way.”
“Almost…”
“I admit Karim is something of a wildcard. He may very well have some choice words for having wasted his time. But he will respect your decision.”
I looked up at him. “I haven’t made my decision yet.”
“Be that as it may, I would like to offer you a single piece of advice, and it’s this. Get up, Elemancer.”
I scoffed. “Get up. Sure.”
“Yes. Get up, and face this decision head on. If the adventure is over, then admit it. First to yourself, and then to the others. If not, then let’s continue. But do it now. Do not let yourself be shut down for another minute. That would be a tragic waste of your talents… also they’ll be running out of chores to do soon, and then there’ll be no standing them.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that, even if I did turn my face away from him to hide it. “Fine,” I said, standing up. “But only because I wouldn’t want to inflict Karim on you or anyone else for a second longer than is necessary.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Today was the first time I’d let the crown out of my sight except to sleep. I wasn’t sure what I expected would happen. I guess I thought it would grow legs and start crawling around the room like a spider, or maybe it would burrow its way back into the Tempest to get away from me. The truth was, neither of those things was likely; I was just being paranoid, but at least I’d recognized that now.
Heading downstairs, I was accosted by the heavy chemical scent of varnish and paint and music floating off a set of speakers. I could hear them all working, moving around, indiscriminate voices laughing about something someone had said. It should’ve made me happy, but the truth was, I was terrified.
My heart was pounding, my stomach queasy, my chest tight. I was about to face them all, face the fact that I’d locked myself in my room for days—and for what? To think? No. To hide. Hide from them. From Becket. From… all of this.
Get it together, Izzy. Nobody likes a sad sack.
It was Danvers who spotted me first. She was heading from the living room into the kitchen, carrying a paint bucket, a brush, and a red palette she’d been using to paint with. She stopped in her tracks and stared at me, her lips falling open.
“Izzy…” she said, her soft voice floating over the sound of the music. That got everyone else’s attention.
The others stopped what they were doing. RJ put the table leg he’d been holding down. Karim pulled his mask up and over his eyebrows. Axel set the brush he’d been holding down on a piece of newspaper.
“Hey,” I said, offering a short wave.
“Hey…” Axel said, his voice trailing off into a sigh, his blue eyes sparkling.
“Can I help with something?” I asked, “I feel like I’m the ultimate slacker.”
Danvers’ eyes narrowed. Instead of heading into the kitchen, she walked over to me and dumped what she’d been holding in her hands into mine. “They’re your problem now,” she said, grinning. “Welcome back.”
She sauntered off into the kitchen, leaving me holding the equipment and three stunned faces gawking from the living room. I finished heading down the stairs, set the paint and the brush down, and straightened out.
“So,” I said. “What did I miss?”
Karim’s eyebrows flared. “What did you miss?” he asked, “Well, apparently we’re no longer a heist crew, but a construction crew.”
“I can see that. You guys have done an amazing job. The place looks good as new.”
“We’d have been done a lot sooner if we’d had your magic to work with, but ho hum.”
“A little manual labor is good for the soul.”
“Is it? Then in that case I’m going to follow Miss Danvers and retire for the day. You can take over from here, yes?”
“Wait… wait. I want to talk to you guys. In fact, go and get Danvers back.”
He didn’t argue, didn’t quip, he just nodded and went off into the kitchen to find Danvers.
RJ set the table leg he’d been holding down and folded his arms in front of his chest. “You alright?” he asked.
“I’m still in one piece,” I said, looking over at Axel. “Mostly, anyway. How are you both?”
Axel was about to speak, but then Becket walked into view behind me. The demonologist’s presence must have turned him off from what he was about to say, because instead of speaking, he narrowed his eyes and simply nodded.
Danvers returned with Karim by her side. “These guys have been slacking all day, but I’m the one not allowed to take a break?” she asked, “What gives?”
“This won’t take long,” I said, shaking my head. “I just… I guess I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened to me, and I feel like it’s time I filled you in.”
“I was beginning to think today was never going to come,” Karim said.
I glanced at him, lips pressing together. “It’s been a difficult few days,” I said, “That’s probably an understatement, though.” I shook my head. “I’m gonna try and explain everything to you, but I need you to wait to ask questions until I’m done. That’ll make this whole process go by a lot more easily. Understood?”
They scanned each other’s faces, then nodded. Becket moved to join the others as part of my audience. Then I started speaking. There was little else left to do but tell them all what had happened from the moment I’d donned the crown, to this moment right now, standing in front of them.
I told them the same story I’d told Becket, carefully choosing my words to make sure I made as much sense as possible. I probably still sounded like I was insane, but in my defense, I had no proof to reinforce the idea that I was sane to begin with. So, there was that, at least.
Giving a voice to what had been a tangle of thoughts helped organize them a little better. I’d spent too long in my own head, too long thinking, trapped in my own mind because I didn’t want to risk anyone hearing my solo ramblings through the walls. Now that I was talking again, the world was starting to make a little more sense.
At least, it made more sense to me. My audience, however, was a sea of confused faces by the time I was done with them. Silence stalked through the living room like the specter of unanswered questions. Karim didn’t look like he believed me, Danvers’s stared at me like I was mad, RJ looked like he was ready for a fight, and Axel… his expression hadn’t changed much.
He just watched me, his jaw clenched revealing dimples in his firm, high cheeks. “I understand,” he said.
“You do?” I asked, “Because I feel like I just rambled.”
“You did,” Karim unhelpfully put in. “Like a bloody lunatic.”
“You don’t believe me?” I asked.
“I
t’s not that I don’t believe you, I just don’t understand why you felt like you needed to wait a few days to tell us all this.”
“I freaked out, and that was it. I shut down. I’ve spent every possible moment trying to go through everything that happened, trying to figure it all out. I still feel like I’m coming up short.”
Danvers raised her hand like she was in class. “Hold up,” she said, “So, you met your Psychopomp for a second time, right?”
“That’s right.”
“And it recognized you?”
“It did. Honestly, it was as if I’d never left the place where I’d last seen it.”
“Huh… well, there’s the answer to that eons old question.”
“What are you talking about?” RJ asked.
Danvers pointed at me. “Izzy over here just answered a question that had plagued scholars for a very, very long time about Psychopomps. Do they remember us? Congratulations. We’re probably gonna make a bunch of breakthroughs before we’re done with this.”
Great. Seriously, no pressure.
“That’s just it,” I said, taking a deep breath, “That’s why I wanted to talk to you all.”
“Oh God,” Karim said, letting his shoulders drop.
“Oh God, what?” I asked.
“She doesn’t want to finish this. Do you?”
I paused, heart racing, mind speeding away like a runaway train. I licked my lips—still dry. “No,” I finally said, shaking my head. “I don’t.”
There was that specter again, moving through us like a silent wolf, eating up all ambient noise save for the beating of my frantic heart. I was growing to really detest silence. Even during the time I’d spent locked away in my room, I’d never been far from some kind of noise and I was always comforted by it.
This?
This sucked.
“Can someone say something?” I asked. Karim was about to speak, but I jabbed a finger at him. “Not you.”
“Izzy…” Danvers said, “Are you sure this is what you want? I mean, we’ve been working toward this for months. I abandoned my lab, my business, for you. RJ hasn’t seen his family in months.”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that? I know all that, Cass. But you don’t know what it was like putting that thing on. I could stand here and try and explain it to you all week and you still wouldn’t get it. I’m telling you, that thing is dangerous.”
“But it’s also precious, and so are all the discoveries we could make. Think of all the answers we could have, all the riddles we’d be solving. We’re standing on the drowned Queen’s doorstep; we’ve literally made it all the way to the door. Do you really want to turn around and go back to our lives right now?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“Sounds to me like you’re hiding. Why are you hiding?”
“Because I can’t do it, okay?” I snapped. “Do you have any idea what I went through when I put that fucking thing on? My world is different now, everything’s changed, and the thought of putting that crown back on my head scares the hell out of me.”
Axel took a step toward me, his hands slightly raised. “Okay, let’s take a second to—”
“—relax? Calm down? It’s hard to do any of that when I feel like all of you are against me on this.”
It happened again.
I stared at him, glared at him like he was about to attack me. No, like I was about to attack him. Maybe I was starting to go a little crazy, because I could’ve sworn I’d heard roiling thunder rolling above us. Distant, faint, but there.
“We’re on your team,” Axel said, “Okay?”
“I swallowed hard. “It doesn’t feel that way.”
RJ moved up beside Axel. “It is that way, Izzy,” he said. “You know we’ve got your back no matter what you decide to do. If you say you don’t wanna put that crown back on, then we ain’t gonna make you. We ain’t gonna try to convince you, either. If the door’s closed, the door’s closed.”
“It’s closed,” I said, “I can’t do it. There’s more to that crown than any of us can see, but I can sense it. I can feel it.”
“What is it, exactly?” Karim asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s pure evil. I just know I don’t want to be anywhere near it or the crown.”
“We’ll have to lock it away, then,” Danvers said. “I mean, that’s the sensible thing to do, right?”
“Maybe. I haven’t gotten to that part of the process yet. I just wanted to make sure you all knew… I wanna go home. Back to my normal life. Don’t you?”
Karim shrugged. “My normal life wasn’t anything exciting,” he said, “But I do miss the pleasure of my own company.”
“Ew,” Danvers said, “Nobody wants to know about that. Anyway, we probably shouldn’t forget there’s a psycho crime lord out there that probably wants revenge on us.” She looked over at Axel. “No offence.”
“None taken,” Axel said.
A pause, then Karim took a deep breath. “It would be nice to go back to what I know, I suppose. Normal life… maybe going back to it isn’t a bad idea?”
He’d said the words, but I wasn’t convinced he’d meant them. Either way, it sounded like I had some kind of consensus from the rest of the group, so I wasn’t going to push the matter. We’d come this far, we’d uncovered plenty of secrets, we’d played with plenty of forces none of us really understood all that well.
Miraculously, we’d all survived Asmodius, his crows, even Harrowgate prison. There was nothing this little team hadn’t been able to achieve, no obstacle that had been able to beat us. Except this one. This one had beaten us. There was no going past this.
It was time to go home.
CHAPTER FIVE
I woke up with a start, covered in a thin film of sweat and shivering from the cold. My heart raced, my teeth chattered, and it was so dark I could barely see a thing. I must’ve kicked the bedcovers off because my bed was naked, and freezing. Scrambling, I searched for them, finding a piece of the bedcovers right at the corner of the bed.
I tugged hard and pulled it to me, wrapping it around me and rocking on the spot to try and generate a little warmth. Even though I couldn’t see, I was sure my breaths were coming out in little warm puffs.
“If—Ifrit,” I said, my lips quivering. “Ifrit… wh—where are you?”
Ifrit didn’t come.
I tried reaching for the Tempest to draw a little warmth into my body, but I couldn’t think straight. I’d woken up too fast, too suddenly. My brain was fuzzy, and that was no way practice safe magic. So, instead, I sat there, trembling under the covers, chattering and shivering, waiting for just a little warmth to trickle into my chest.
I glanced over at the window and looked outside, hoping to find a little light to break the gloom, but there was nothing there. No sky, no stars, no moon—only darkness, utter and complete. It was starting to get to me, making it difficult to think. The cold didn’t help.
A twinkle of light caught the corner of my eye. It was little more than a shimmer, but enough that I noticed. The crown. I could see its edges, glimmering like they were underwater. There was no light to play on it, though, nothing to make it sparkle like that.
“Ifrit?” I called out again.
Nothing.
Isabella, came a voice, faint and distant. It was a woman’s voice, and one I recognized instantly—a voice that made my heart leap with excitement, but also sink with dread. It wasn’t the queen’s voice; it was my mother’s.
“M—mom? I asked, my lips still quivering.
I’m here… she said, her soft, graceful voice trailing off.
I couldn’t feel my hands. Not from the cold assaulting my body from the outside, but from the block of ice that had just fallen into my stomach to chill me from the inside out. I couldn’t move. The urge to get off the bed and speed toward the door was there, but my bones were locked in place, my nerves f
rozen solid.
“Ifrit!” I yelled, my voice piercing through the crushing darkness all around me.
A tiny flame flickered to life; not in my hand or on my shoulder, but on top of the crown across from me. Light from his flame flickered and danced around the room, sending sinister shadow puppets along the walls and giving the crown itself sharp highlights.
“I’m here,” Ifrit said.
“Where were you?” I asked, frantic now.
“Here… always.”
“What’s happening to me?”
“Nothing. Why don’t you get up from your bed?”
“Because I can’t,” I snapped.
“So you keep telling yourself…” he trailed off.
I scowled at him. He’d just taken a dig at me, and under normal circumstances, I’d have fought back. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Also, since when did Guardians mouth off against their Mages? Something wasn’t right here.
I had to find the others and make sure they were okay. I had to—Isabella… called the voice. It was closer, now, but still far enough away that I couldn’t see the source, not even with Ifrit’s light to fight the darkness.
I heard a click, and then the bedroom door opened a little; just enough for me to notice the movement. I looked over at Ifrit. “I need you,” I said.
The little fire Godling leapt from where it was and landed in the palm of my hand, becoming something of a torch to help me see my surroundings. With Ifrit in my hand, I slid out of bed and moved carefully toward the door. I could see my breath forming in front of my lips, now; tiny clouds of condensation pushing out into the cold.
I reached the door and peered through it, but there was only darkness on the other side. Swallowing my anxiety, I wrapped my fingers around the door and carefully pulled it open far enough for me to slip through. My head spun as I moved through the threshold and into the corridor, my surroundings morphing like they were on moving platforms.
I wasn’t in the corridor I’d expected to be in.
Heir to the Throne (The Wardbreaker Book 4) Page 3