by Sarra Cannon
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, bringing a hand to his forehead. “Everything I’ve ever heard about the Stone Guardians proves that they battled themselves into extinction almost a thousand years ago. It doesn’t make sense that you could simply give them a new heart and awaken them in this way. There has to be another explanation.”
“Could they have been conjured?” I asked. “Their appearance and magic replicated, somehow?”
My father nodded. “Yes. If a demon had the right magic, they could recreate the appearance and strength of a Stone Guardian,” he said. “But for what purpose? What could he be planning to do with them?”
“We’re running out of time to figure this out,” I said. “The spell that is holding the magic at bay will run out in less than two minutes. I’m not sure when I’ll have the chance to speak with you again.”
“My smart girl, thinking of such a potion,” he said, smiling. “You always were a clever little thing. When the magic returns to my scepter, Kael will again be able to see and hear everything that goes on around me. He watches me like a hawk, punishing me if I step out of line. He tells me what to say, how to act, and what to do at every moment. He is the true ruler of the King’s City these days, only no one knows the truth except your mother and I, and we are both helpless to speak against him. If either of us so much as hints at what he’s done to me, the diamond in that scepter will drain the rest of my power instantly. Your mother wears a similar diamond around her neck. We are prisoners in our own kingdom, no different from you or Aerden.”
I closed my eyes, realizing why my father had only been communicating with me through the odd glance at just the right time, when Kael wasn’t watching. It also explained why my mother had been so eager to please Kael and to see me obey him. I’d known he was powerful here in the city, but I had never imagined to what extent he had stolen that power for himself.
“I can’t ever step more than a few feet away from that damned thing, or I am hit with an excruciating pain that takes weeks to recover from,” Father said, motioning to the scepter. “When he gave it to me, he cast some sort of binding spell on it, linking it to me for the rest of my life. I tested it in the early days, and I lived to regret it.”
“Tell me what I can do,” I said.
“You can live,” he said, brushing my hair from my face. “Find a way to get out of this city, and take Aerden with you. Go tonight, if you can. Go far away and don’t look back. Continue your work with the Resistance, and once you’ve put an end to the High Priestess herself, come home and put a dagger through Kael’s heart.”
He smiled, and I threw my arms around him.
“I will,” I said. “I hate to leave you again, but I will do everything I can to be home soon.”
“That’s my girl,” he said, stroking my hair the way he did all those years ago, comforting me when I’d had a nightmare. “I love you more than anything in this world. I’m so proud of all you’ve accomplished, Lea.I hope you know that.”
“Proud?” I asked, pulling away so I could look in his eyes. “How can you be proud of me when I’m the one who was responsible for the death and kidnapping of so many of our people?”
“Don’t put that guilt on yourself,” he said. “You were simply following your heart and doing what you felt was right. You were brave, even in the face of unimaginable horror. I am the one who has failed our people, Lea, but I am powerless to make things right, no matter how much I want to. It’s up to you now to save as many as you can. Return home when the Order is through, and I will pass the kingdom onto you, so that you may be the queen and ruler they deserve.”
“I’m so sorry, Father,” I said.
“Don’t be sorry.” He smiled as he wiped a tear from my cheek. “Be fierce. Be the warrior you were born to be.”
I nodded, wishing for just a little more time with him, but knowing that only a handful of seconds remained.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too, my sweet, strong Lazalea,” he said. “You are the last hope of our kingdom now. Go quickly, so that you may live to fight another day.”
I stood, my heart racing as the barrier that surrounded us began to fade.
We were out of time.
“Goodbye, Father,” I said, squeezing his hand one last time before I darted toward the balcony. Before I passed through the barrier, though, my father called my name one last time, and I turned to him. “Yes?”
“I will see you again, my daughter, in this world or the next.”
“In this world or the next,” I repeated softly.
The barrier shimmered and faded from sight. I turned, great sadness in my heart, jumped from the balcony, and flew into the darkness toward the south garden to meet Ezrah.
Something Greater Than Me
Harper
James pulled up to the Evers house just after dawn.
“Get cleaned up and meet me back here in a few hours,” I said. “I’m hoping my friend Brooke has already rescued a few of the girls, but I may need your help to get the rest of them back here.”
“Brooke?” he asked. Then, recognition settled in his eyes. “Melody.”
“Yes, I said. If you can, arrange for Monica Evers and her nurse, Melody, to visit each of the hospitals. We’ll prepare the proper paperwork to have them discharged from the hospital, so they can come home with us.”
“They’ll never agree to let you bring a hundred girls here to this house,” he said.
“They won’t know that’s what we intend to do,” I said. “We’ll make it appear as if the girls’ parents will be picking them up. Evers Institute was a private facility, after all. None of these girls were every officially committed to any type of state hospital or mandatory facility. As long as we make it look like their parents intend to take them home, I don’t think it will be a problem.”
He shook his head and glanced up at the house. “But how will you keep them all here?” he asked. “It’s a big house, but feeding everyone and making sure you have enough beds is going to be a nightmare.”
“Once their memories are restored, I’ll let the girls decide what they want to do,” I said. “They were brought here against their will, and right now, I can’t promise them a trip back to the present day. We may have to face the fact that we’re all stuck here, at least for a while. If they want to stay with me, maybe we can find a place to rebuild and start our lives over.”
“But what about the danger of disrupting the timeline?” he asked. Stress formed wrinkles on his forehead. “If you just restore their memories and let them go and do whatever they want to do, they could change everything. We may get home to the present and find out that nothing is at all what we thought it was.”
I thought about his words for a long time as I sat staring up at the house. He made a good point. What if any of these girls decided they wanted revenge for what happened to them? The emerald priestess might be dead in the present day, but there was still another version of her here in the 50’s, living her life and making plans for this horrible place. Hundreds, if not thousands, of girls would die here in the years to come, and right now, there was something we could do about it if we had no choice but to stay.
It was a powerful temptation to try to change the things we knew were yet to come, but at what cost? We could save hundreds, but if that meant the Order itself would be free to continue enslaving demons and witches for their own evil purposes, what would we really accomplish here?
Yet, how could I free these girls and expect them to sit back and let it all happen? If I ended up stuck here for the rest of my life, how would I live with myself knowing all the things happening around me that I could have changed?
I took a deep breath to calm my racing mind.
For the past several years, ever since I was brought to Peachville and told that it was my last chance to make something of my life, I’d been fighting. Through it all, I had somehow found the strength to believe that I would survive and that we would win t
his war.
And somehow, I had. Even in the darkest of times, when hope had seemed to abandon me, I believed that I would make it through.
I had no idea what the future would bring. I had no idea if I would find my way home. But even now, with the portal closed and no way out, I knew in the deepest part of myself, that it was going to be okay. My job wasn’t to know how it would work out. My job was simply to trust.
“I don’t have all the answers for you,” I said. “I don’t know how this ends. What I do know is that I will always continue to do what I know is right. And restoring the memories of these girls is the right thing to do, James. Beyond that, it’s up to something greater than me.”
James gave me a strange look. “How can you say that after everything you’ve been through? How can you even know what the right thing is? I thought for sure that joining the Others was the right thing to do. That killing you was right. But now…”
“The difference, I think, is that I’ve learned to let my heart guide me. This war against the Order is not about revenge for me. It’s not even about justice. Not really,” I said. “I want to put an end to the Order because as long as they exist, the people I love most are in danger. You want to save your sister? Fight for her. Don’t fight for revenge. Fight for love.”
His lip trembled, and he looked away.
“Do you really think we can save her?”
I touched his hand. “I know we can try,” I said. “Let’s save these girls, first. Then we can find our way home, James. We can free the emerald gates and restore your sister’s true memories. One step at a time. We can do this as long as we believe we can.”
He nodded. “Somehow, I believe in you. As crazy as it sounds.”
“Come back in a couple hours?” I asked.
“I’ll be here,” he said.
I opened the door of the police cruiser and stepped into the cool spring air. I was exhausted, scared, and the future was uncertain, but in my heart, there was still the whisper of hope.
Amethyst Collars
Harper
I let myself into the house and called out for Brooke.
“I’m home,” I shouted.
She came rushing down the steps, but stopped in the middle, her eyes widening.
“What the hell happened to you?” she asked. “Oh my God, Harper, have you been shot? And why is your blood blue?”
I glanced at my shoulder, laughing. I had honestly almost forgotten about that.
“They shot me with demon steel,” I said. “Have you ever heard of the Others?”
She shook her head. “Who are they?”
“Come upstairs with me and let’s look for peroxide or something while I tell you all about them,” I said.
I explained about my first encounter with the Others after I had first gotten to Peachville. I told her how they had been the ones to kill Morgyn Baker the night of our Homecoming dance, but that their original target had been Jackson. I explained how the Others believe magic comes from God and that demons and any witch who hosts a demon are tainted with evil.
“Wait, so this cop was part of the Others?” she asked. She held up a bottle of peroxide she’d found in the medicine cabinet of Doctor Evers’ bedroom. “Hold on, this is going to hurt. A lot.”
I winced as she poured the liquid on my wound. When the pain had subsided enough for me to take a break, I continued with my story.
“Yes, much to my extreme disappointment,” I said through clenched teeth. “I had to fight them just to get a chance to check on the portal.”
Brooke poured more of the peroxide on my wound.
“I take it the portal was closed?” she asked, not meeting my gaze straight on as she screwed the cap back on the bottle.
“Closed,” I said. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t taken all that time to go find Rend, we might have been able to get there before it was too late.”
“Maybe, but then what? We just leave all the girls here while we go back?” she asked, shaking her head. “We couldn’t do that.”
“I know,” I said.
“Wait a second,” Brooke said, pointing toward the front of the house. “But wasn’t that the cop who just brought you home?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a long story, but basically he’s going to help us now. I hope.”
“Do you really think we can trust him? I mean, what if he comes back with more of those people?” she asked. “Maybe we should take the girls and find someplace to hide for a while. At least until this stuff with the Others blows over?”
“I think we can trust him,” I said. “He thought he was doing the right thing, and I hope I convinced him to look at it another way. Plus, now that the portal has closed, we’re probably his only chance of ever getting home. He’s really just a victim in all this as much as we are.”
“He helped them kill all those girls,” she said.
“To keep his sister and himself alive,” I said. “He had no choice. Not any good ones, anyway.”
“Well, I have to say I wouldn’t have been so forgiving if it was me,” she said. “But if you trust him, I’m willing to go with it.”
“He’ll be back in a few hours to take us by the hospitals so we can start releasing the girls,” I said. “Were you able to get to any of them while I was gone?”
She smiled. “I found Mary Ellen and Nora first,” she said. “I pretended to be their mothers and had them discharged from the hospital. The potions worked beautifully to restore their missing memories and their magic. Now, the two of them have been going around and doing the same thing, having the girls discharged one at a time.”
I sat back, hardly believing we were finally making progress. “How are they going to explain the truth to them? It’s bound to be a bit disorienting.”
“They’re taking it one girl at a time,” she said. “As long as every girl that’s awakened agrees to help, I think we’ll have them all back here by the afternoon. At least I hope. But then what?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe then we get everyone together and start thinking about where we could go to hide out in safety while we look for another way home.”
Something thumped on the floor above our heads. Brooke and I both stood up at the same time.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Shhh,” I said in a whisper, holding up my hand.
I strained to listen, keeping my body as still as possible. I didn’t even breathe.
Several faint footsteps followed the sound, and I jumped up quickly, grabbing Brooke’s hand.
“Someone’s in the house,” I said. “We have to hide.”
We ran out of the bathroom and searched for any good place to hide, but I quickly realized how futile that would be. Whoever was here had magically appeared on the secret third floor of this house.
They had to be witches, which meant magic. Hiding in a closet or under the bed would do us no good. Even an invisibility illusion wasn’t going to work against a group of talented witches.
“You need to get out of here,” I said, taking her hand and practically dragging her to the window. “Do you still remember how to levitate?”
“Magic 101,” she said. “But I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Whoever is here in this house, they’re here for me,” I said. “No matter where I go, they’re going to follow me, Brooke. I’m not going to put you or the girls in that kind of danger. This is my fight, but if I don’t make it out of here, you have to promise me you’ll save as many as you can. Find a safe place to hide.”
“Where?” she asked, tears shining in her eyes as she clutched the bag to her chest.
My eyes widened as an idea occurred to me. “Chicago,” I said. “Find Rend and Azure. The entrance to their club is in an alley just off Hubbard Street. You’ll feel the pull of the door when you get close. He’ll take you in and keep you safe from the Order. If I make it out of here, I’ll come there to find you. Now, go.”
There was movement just outsid
e the bedroom door now. I could feel them. Definitely witches. Powerful ones.
“I’m sorry, Harper,” she said. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“The girls are all that matter now,” I said. “Go. Please.”
She nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek. She pushed the window open and flew safely down to the ground. With one final look, she started running.
Behind me, the door to the bedroom opened, and when I turned, ready to fight, Five witches, dressed all in black with amethyst collars around their necks, rushed into the room.
I gathered my power in my hands, but I was a second too late.
A bright light exploded behind my eyes as the first of their spells slammed into my body. I fell to my knees, half-blind. I couldn’t move my arms. I struggled to reach out for my magic, but I had lost the connection.
With cat-like grace, one of the witches walked toward me, a black rope in her hands.
“Hello, Harper,” she said. She wrapped the rope around me several times, and when she was done, she leaned toward me and whispered, “Priestess Black will be so happy to meet you. She’s been looking forward to this for a very long time.”
She put her hand on my head, pushing some kind of dark magic through me that tasted like bile on the back of my tongue.
“Now, sleep,” she whispered.
And I did.
Beyond The Darkness
Jackson
I trudged through the swamp, knee-high in murky water for half a mile before something strange appeared in the distance. A black tower rose high above the trees. Its surface gleamed in the sun, reminding me of the towers of the King’s City.