by Sarra Cannon
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“I promise you that I am well aware of the innocent people who will lose their lives in the years to come,” I said. “People I love with all my heart. People I loved and never even knew, like my own mother. My father. One of my best friends. But if you hunt down the priestesses now, even if you manage to find them and surprise them, you’ll change everything. You could put everything we’ve accomplished so far at risk. You have to see that.”
“I do see it, but I don't have to like it,” he said, slamming his hand down on the table. “Damn. I want to do more.”
“You will,” I said. “We all will, but now isn’t the right time. You’ll take the potions?”
He took a deep breath and finally met my eyes. “I will,” he said. “But you better be telling the truth. If you aren’t, I’ll find you and kill you myself.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and smiled. “In a few minutes, you won’t even remember you met me,” I said. “But someday, you’ll remember, and you’ll know. I look forward to seeing you again when that moment comes.”
“Me, too,” he said. “I wish you great power in your battle against the remaining priestesses. I just hope I’m standing there at your side when the final priestess falls.”
“And Rend? If we don’t… I mean, if I don’t make it home… promise me you’ll tell Jackson that I loved him until the very end,” I said.
“You’ll tell him yourself,” he said. “Goodbye, Harper.”
“Goodbye, Rend,” I said. Then I smiled. “See you later.”
He nodded and smiled back. “Yeah,” he said. “See you later.”
Azure hugged me again and walked me to the elevator.
“I’ll make sure he takes it,” she said once we were headed back up to the top floor.
“Thanks for everything,” I said. “I owe you.”
“Just tell me one thing.” She shifted her weight nervously from one foot to the other. “Are we happy in the future? Rend and I? Are we…”
Her voice trailed off, but I knew what she was asking me, and I couldn’t bear to tell her the truth. I wouldn’t break her heart by telling her about Franki, but I wouldn’t lie to her, either.
“It’s hard for anyone to be happy during a war like this,” I said. “Even Jackson and I have been through so much heartache, it’s hard to say that we’re happy.”
I thought of the image Jackson had drawn of us sitting on the lawn in the Southern Kingdom, our son playing in the grass. That was the future I held onto throughout all of the torture I’d been forced to endure.
“All I know is that someday, when this war is over and the Order is defeated, we’ll all find the happiness we deserve.”
She smiled a sad smile, as if understanding that the answer was far more complicated than I could explain during a simple elevator ride.
“I’m counting on you guys,” I said.
“We won’t let you down, Harper,” she said. “Jackson is going to be okay. We’ll make sure of it. I know more than most how complicated love can be. Finding the perfect person who loves you back is the most valuable thing in the world. I’m glad you’ve found that, and I’ll fight to make sure that when you get home, he’s there to welcome you with open arms.”
“Thank you, Azure,” I said.
We rode the rest of the way up in silence, thoughts of the decades to come and the uncertain future ahead for all of us.
The Ritual
Jackson
“Is everyone ready?” I asked.
We were all in our places in the underground ritual room. Each of the five witches stood on one point of the pentagram surrounding the large emerald stone embedded into the floor.
I glanced at Essex, and he raised his spear, nodding.
I ran up the steps for a quick look around, just to be sure we were cleared to go through with this. A circle of demons surrounded the clearing in the woods, their collective power buzzing through the air.
Inside the circle, all of Cypress’s witches who were old enough to have been given a demon of their own stood hand in hand, anxious expressions on their faces. We were all on edge.
Rend and Azure stood at the top of the steps to the ritual room.
“We’re ready,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”
I nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
I clapped him on the arm as I descended the steps once again. Franki stood at the bottom of the steps, and she gave me a nervous smile as I passed.
“It’s one minute until three,” Mary Anne said. She took the chalice from the ritual table behind her in one hand and gripped the necklace in the other.
We all took our places and waited, watching the seconds tick by to the top of the hour.
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I gathered my power in my hands, preparing for the battle with the stone creatures as they came to life. Luckily, this gate, like Peachville, was located in the woods, which meant lots of trees for demons to pull our power from. I reached to a nearby tree and consumed its life, drawing the power into myself.
“Here we go,” Mary Anne said when there were only seconds remaining.
I opened my eyes and glanced at Eloise. She smiled at me and nodded. She was ready.
As the hour chimed on my phone, Mary Anne lifted her hands and prepared to speak the words that would begin the ritual.
“No! Wait!” Rend shifted and flew down the steps, Azure at his side. Before I realized what was happening, he had taken the ritual items from Mary Anne’s hands and put a hand over her mouth.
Not understanding what was going on, Essex pressed the tip of his spear to Rend’s throat.
“You will be letting her go,” he said. “I do not want to be hurting you, Rend.”
“We can’t do this,” Rend said.
He took his hand off Mary Anne’s mouth and stepped back, away from the spear. He gathered the ritual items in his hand and set them on the stone table.
“You better start explaining yourself,” Mary Anne said. “This is our chance. If that clock switches to 3:01, we lose the entire day.”
Out of breath, Rend lifted a hand to his head.
“I know how crazy this is going to sound, but just before the ritual began, I had a flash of memory,” he said. He looked to me. “Harper. She came to see me.”
“When?” I asked, my heart racing.
“In 1951,” he said. “In fact, I think I almost killed her.”
“You did,” Azure said. She glanced at me and shrugged. “It was fine. I stabbed him.”
“Wait, what? Why didn’t you tell me before now?” I asked. “You’ve known all this time that she was going to be trapped in the past? How could you have known that and kept it from me all this time? We could have saved her, Rend. What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t tell you before, because I couldn’t remember it,” he said. “I started feeling weird about this whole thing back in the war room when we first started talking about the ritual, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me. Standing up there just now, though, I felt nearly ill about it. It wasn’t until right before the clock ticked over to three that the memory came back to me.”
“To both of us,” Azure said. She glanced at Franki with a sad look, but seemed to shrug it off.
“I don’t understand,” Mary Anne said. “What did Harper say to you when she came to you?”
“She told me that she wasn’t the one who left these items for you,” he said. “It was the emerald priestess.”
Eloise started to cry. “She’s not really dead, is she? This has all been some kind of trick. I knew it was too good to be true. We’ll never be free of this place.”
“She is dead, Eloise,” Rend said. “Harper killed her, and she does have the master stone, but the emerald priestess set this trap for us before she died. She set it for us here in the present, just in case Jackson found the institute while he was searching for clues about Harper. She used Harper’
s memories to replicate her handwriting and her style of speech. Everything.”
“What does this mean?” I asked.
“It means these items can’t be trusted,” he said. “There’s a spell connected to them that, when triggered, will open a portal so that the amethyst priestess can bring an army through to destroy us.”
My heart nearly stopped. Amethyst? What did all of this have to do with the collar Joost had found?
Mary Anne cursed and slammed her hand down on the ritual table.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “So these items aren’t even real? What the heck are we supposed to do now?”
“Rend, did she tell you anything else?” I asked. “Does she know how to get back to us?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “When she came to see me, she said there might still be a portal open that would bring her home but that it would be closing soon. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to find it in time.”
“How does she even know about the trap and these items in the first place?” Mary Anne asked. “I’m guessing the emerald priestess didn’t tell her about them before she died. She wouldn’t risk us finding out.”
Rend hesitated and glanced at me, and I knew whatever he was about to say wouldn’t be good news.
“She found out about the items and the portal from the ruby priestess,” he said.
I closed my eyes and brought a hand to my head. God, hadn’t she been through enough? Now, she had to deal with the ruby priestess on her own, too? I had to find a way to help her.
“Wait, but how is the ruby priestess there with her?” Mary Anne asked.
“The ruby priestess told Harper that the portal her sister created between the past and present was still open,” he said. “She tried to make a deal with Harper. If Harper gave her the true emerald master stone, she said she would show her where the portal home was located.”
“She didn’t do it,” I said.
“How could she?” Rend asked. “She didn’t trust the ruby priestess, but not only that. She said there were about a hundred other girls there in the asylum with her. They were taken to some hospital after the fire, and Harper couldn’t just abandon them.”
I shook my head, feeling helpless to do anything about all of this.
Somehow, she had not only managed to kill the emerald priestess, but she’d also had to face the ruby priestess. And, she’d still found a way to survive it long enough to warn us about these items.
But the fact that she wasn’t here with us right now meant that she hadn’t yet found the portal and figured out how to get home. I knew Harper well enough to know that she would never just leave a hundred girls trapped in the past. Even if it meant never coming home.
“We have to find a way to get her back,” I said. “We either need to find that portal ourselves or find someone else who can open one.”
“And how exactly are we supposed to do that?” Mary Anne asked. “We don’t even know where to start. Mordecai and the others searched everywhere in that town in Ohio and didn’t see any sign of a portal. And I’ve never heard of another witch powerful enough to actually open a portal to the past.”
Azure cleared her throat, but looked away when I tried to question her.
“I don't know how, but we have to at least try,” I said. “If the portal is still open, we have to put everything we have into finding it before it closes.”
“So, we’re back to square one,” Mary Anne said. “Awesome.”
I glanced over at Eloise, who was holding her girls tightly to her. “I’m so sorry, Eloise,” I said. “No one here can be as disappointed as you are.”
She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I don’t think I’d entirely believed it was going to happen, anyway,” she said. “I hoped, of course, but I didn’t allow myself to trust it. But I agree with you. We need to find that portal. If Harper has the master stone, we need to put everything we have into bringing her and that stone home.”
“Once we have it, we can open the gate, right?” Caroline asked.
“We need the ring, too,” I said. “As far as we know, that’s still in the Shadow World.”
“How do we find it?” Mary Anne asked. “Essex and I can go look for it while you guys are searching for the portal.”
“Harper and I got lucky finding the sapphire ring, but I can explain to you how we found it,” I said. “Come on, let’s get back to the castle and plan our next moves. We can’t afford to waste any time.”
“What do we do with these items in the meantime?” Rend asked, motioning to the fake emerald ritual items.
I glanced at the items, a plan slowly forming in my mind.
“Bring them with you,” I said. “We might be able to use them yet.”
An Exact Replica
Aerden
When morning came on the day of our first battle, I woke with one thought on my mind.
Win.
Seeing Lea again had made me even more determined to put my heart and soul into winning my freedom. There had been enough dark days in my past where I had wished for death. Begged for it. But today was not one of those days.
“Are you ready?” Rushon asked as we ate breakfast in our room. A group of servant girls had appeared a few minutes ago with trays full of warm food, a rare treat for us prisoners.
I was glad we weren’t having to eat with the other teams today. It was nice to have these moments alone together with just the five of us. I wasn’t sure what would happen to our team after today’s round was over. Would we still be allowed to share a cell? Or would we be labeled as competitors after this? And how would they split us into groups of two for the next round?
The guards hadn’t explained what would happen to our fifth member for the second round of the games. Either they all expected that at least one of us wouldn’t survive the day, or they had the intention to let someone back out of the games.
I hoped it would be our choice who to take as our partners. These other demons cared for Trention, but I doubted they would put their own lives at risk to keep him safe in the heat of battle.
My hope was that Trention would be excused from the second round after today, and even though he would most likely be condemned to spend the remainder of his life in slavery, at least he would be alive.
“I’m ready,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
“Scared, to be honest,” Rushon said. “I’ve been a prisoner of the king for five years now, but I still have a small family here in the city that I would love to see again.”
“A mate?” I asked.
He nodded. “And two small shadowlings,” he said. “I’m afraid they’ll be in the crowd today watching. I don’t want them to watch their father die.”
I held his gaze. “They won’t,” I said.
“They said they won’t let us die,” Perrick said. “I’m still hoping we’ll survive even if we lose.”
“I wouldn’t count on that being true,” Trention said. “And even if it is, they’ll lock us away and we’ll spend the rest of the years we have left mining gemstones. I’m not sure that’s a life I care to live anymore.”
“Well, I would rather take my chances in the mines than be dead by nightfall,” Perrick said.
“None of us are going to die today,” I said. “We have a solid strategy. Just remember what weapon you’re searching for in the armory and locate it as quickly as possible. They might not give us much time to look around, and each of us having the correct weapons is a key part of our success today.”
“I wish they would allow us to watch the other matches of the day,” Trention said. “We could gain a lot of good information from that.”
I’d been thinking the same thing, but there was no use wishing for things we had no control over at this point. All we could do was wait until our round was called and it was our turn to battle.
Half an hour later, Reynar appeared, telling us it was time to choose our weapons.
“You’ll all be
paraded in front of the crowds during the opening ceremonies,” Reynar said. “After that you’ll be escorted back to the ready room where you’ll await your turn in combat. I imagine your battle will be swift. Do me a favor and try to at least make it seem like you have a chance. It will make a better performance for the crowds. I was up half the night with anticipation.”
The evil guard laughed and sneered at the same time, and I couldn’t wait for the chance to prove him wrong.
The five of us walked down to a room I hadn’t been in since I was a young demon. My arms broke out in chills as I stepped over the threshold. My father had brought me down here to choose my first real weapon after years of begging him to let me train with more than a stick or a rock.
Back then, I’d been as in awe of the demon steel and obsidian weapons as I was today. The flames of the weaponsmith’s workstation pumped heat through the room, and I was surprised to see the master demon working here today.
He looked up as we entered the room, and I noticed a flicker of recognition in his eyes as they travelled over my face. He placed the weapon he’d been working on back into the fire and stood.
Reynar cleared his throat. “You’ve got five minutes to make your selections,” he said. “Each of you can choose up to two weapons and a shield, if you want to use one. The only armor available to you are the helmets along this wall and the chest pieces here along the opposite wall. They will provide some protection, but they’ll also slow you down when you shift. Choose wisely, not that I think it will make a difference.”
He laughed and stepped out of the room, leaving the door slightly open as he stood guard.
Trention chose a small dagger that he placed in the belt of his pants. We’d decided his best asset was his casting, so it would be best for his hands to be free and his body to be as light as possible to make shifting easy in case he got into a rough spot.
Rushon quickly selected a light buckler and then tested several of the short swords on the rack in front of him, while Perrick went for the heaviest, deadliest morning star he could find. He gripped it in his hand and smiled at me, nodding.