That one motion meant everything to me. Because he was here with me, and we would be by each other’s sides for the rest of our lives. The portal to Kerberos might be closing, but together, we would make sure that all of the creatures that escaped were sent back to Tartarus, where they belonged.
“Okay.” Danielle took a deep breath and turned to face the portal. “I’m ready to get this over with.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Instead of elongating the process further, Danielle glanced back at us one last time, and then she stepped through the portal.
Since the portal was transparent, we saw her appear on the other side. She took a second to get her bearings, and then she turned around, facing us. Her hair blew behind her, and she stared out at us, her eyes gleaming with determination.
Despite her courage, I couldn’t imagine how terrified she must feel.
Her mouth opened—she was trying to say something to us—but it was impossible to hear her through the portal. I pointed to my ear and shook my head, and she nodded in understanding.
Instead of trying to speak, she stepped forward and hovered her hand along her side of the portal. Once it was there, she pointed to Blake, and he stepped forward and did the same.
She counted to three on her other hand, and then the portal glimmered with color—red on Blake’s side, and blue on Danielle’s. It glowed brighter and brighter, and then, just as quickly as it had lit up, the colors disappeared.
Danielle raised her hands and reached for the portal, but they pressed up against it, as if it were a glass wall. She must have been trying to see if Nyx was wrong—to see if she could come back to Earth after completing the binding. But it didn’t work. She was trapped, her hands pressed flat against the surface, staring out at us in despair.
“Should I wait to seal the portal?” I asked the others. “It looks like she wants to come back. If I wait, the binding will fade, and she’ll be able to return.”
No one answered—I guessed they felt as confused as I did. Because even though I wanted to wait and let Danielle back through, I knew in my heart that there was no other way to close the portal. I’d known that since the Oracle had told us in the Underworld, although I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself then.
This was our only option. If Danielle came back, we would have to go through all of this again sometime before the summer solstice—and it wouldn’t be any easier the second time.
But before I sealed the portal, I needed one last thing to happen.
Finally, a shadow appeared behind Danielle, solidifying to take the form of a god I recognized well—Erebus. He was dressed like he’d been when he guided us through Kerberos—dark jeans and a black t-shirt. He placed a hand on Danielle’s shoulder, and she spun around, throwing herself into his arms and burying her head into his chest.
He held her tightly, and then he pulled away to look into her eyes. He said something to her—we couldn’t hear what he said since the portal blocked all sound—and then he lowered his lips to hers in a long, sensual kiss. Being together seemed to come naturally to them—as if they’d done this many times before. But eventually they broke apart, and Erebus reached for Danielle’s hand, as if letting us know he was there for her.
Her eyes met mine, and she nodded. Even though she couldn’t speak to me, I knew what she was saying.
It was time for me to seal the portal to Kerberos.
I stepped forward and placed my hand on the portal. It was warm—as if it still burned with Blake’s fiery, red energy.
It was crazy to think that once I did this, we would be free of the threat of Kerberos forever. That everything we’d fought for these past few months would be over.
But I was thinking too much. I knew what needed to be done—I just needed to do it.
So I closed my eyes and focused on white energy. It was everywhere around me, and as always, it came to me easily, filling my body with its warmth and comfort. At the same time as I gathered the energy, I sent it out of my palm and into the portal. The portal grew hotter and hotter under my skin, but it didn’t burn me. Instead, it called for me, asking for more. It was soaking in the white energy as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and I called forth more of it into my body, allowing it to flow through me and into the portal. Heat radiated against my face, and even though my eyes were closed, I knew the portal was glowing with my bright, white energy.
Suddenly the portal zapped me, and I yanked my hand back, yelping and opening my eyes.
I stepped back in shock. Because the portal was gone. Only the cave wall remained.
“What happened?” I asked, resting my hand back on the same spot I’d been touching before. It was rocky and cold—as if nothing else had ever existed here at all.
“You did it.” Blake stepped up behind me, placed his hand over mine, and drew my palm off the wall. “You sealed the portal to Kerberos.”
EPILOGUE: KATE
Three Months Later
I stared up at the arched entrance to the Emerson-Abbot Academy, amazed by how far we’d come these past few months. With the blacksmith god Hephaestus’s help, we’d built the New Alexandrian Library into a boarding school for demigods and witches. Now, here it stood—the dorms, classrooms, auditorium, and training grounds—hidden in the Virginian mountains and ready for students to arrive next week.
The buildings were inspired by the architecture of ancient Greece, making them look like they’d been plucked from the past. Qualified witches had been brought in as teachers, Darius had been appointed Headmaster, and I’d finally realized where I belonged in the pantheon of the gods—as the goddess of witches and demigods. I would be the patron goddess of the school, dedicating my immortal life to the education of young witches and demigods. After all, with so many escaped monsters roaming the world, it was more important than ever for the demigods who had recently come into their powers to be located, and for them and the witches to be trained for the dangers to come.
I walked through the archway and spotted Helios trimming the bushes along the sidewalk. He was doing a surprisingly good job, but I waved a hand in the air, using my power to cause the bush behind him to grow into an absolute mess.
“Great job, Helios!” I called out to him. “But don’t forget the bush behind you. I think you missed it the first time around.”
He turned around, spotted the overgrown bush, and mumbled incoherently. I just smiled and continued on my way.
True to the promise of the gods, Helios had been returned to us as a powerless human after we’d sealed the portal to Kerberos. He now worked under our command as the janitor of the school.
I opened the doors to the main building, amazed that in only a week, students would be entering these halls for the first time. In the center of the lobby were podiums holding the two statues that Blake, Nicole, and I had decided to erect—one of Danielle Emerson, and the other of Chris Abbot. Danielle stood fierce and proud, a replica of the Golden Sword gleaming in her hand. (She’d taken the real sword with her to Kerberos.) Chris’s hands were raised, his hair and clothes blowing around him, as if he were using his power over the air. He was smiling, looking as happy and carefree as ever.
I brushed my fingers across the nameplate on his podium, my eyes filling with tears. Not a day had passed when I didn’t miss him so much that it hurt. At least I knew that his soul was safe in Elysium. But as an immortal, I would never see him again, since I would never go to the Underworld myself.
All I could hope was that as time passed, the pain of his loss would fade, until I could look back on our time together and feel only happiness and appreciation that we had time together at all.
But for now, staring at his statue for too long hurt, so I glanced up at beautiful mural that had just been completed on the ceiling. In it, Hypatia rode the back of a dragon, surrounded by all the dragons that had helped us in our fight against Typhon. She, like Danielle and Chris, would never be forgotten here.
The dragons’ loyalty woul
dn’t be forgotten, either. After starting to build the school, we’d been thrilled to discover that their deaths didn’t mean the extinction of their race. There was a community of dragons that hadn’t been banished to Kerberos after the Second Rebellion, who had been living on Earth alongside humans for centuries. Dragons had the ability to sense the magic in others, so they could find and locate demigods and witches. Per our command, Helios had called upon the last living dragons in the world and requested that they work with us to seek out missing demigods. We told them of our mission, and they were happy to help.
Because our mission was important. All over the world were demigods like Nicole, Ethan, and Rachael who had only recently come into their powers. They didn’t understand who they were or what they could do. If they were coerced to the side of darkness, like Ethan had been, they could cause great destruction. It was vital that we found them and made sure that didn’t happen. Also, monsters could sense their magic, and if those monsters found them first, they attacked to kill. So it was now our job to travel the world, find the demigods and witches, and bring them here so they could be safe while learning about their heritages and abilities alongside others like themselves.
Well, it wasn’t my job. It was Nicole and Blake’s. They’d been having the summer of their lives, riding the backs of dragons on the search for hidden demigods. Or demigods on the run because they were afraid of what they could do with their powers, like the first two they’d found—Sydney, a daughter of Aphrodite, and Garrett, a son of Hermes. They, along with a few others, were already situated in their dorms and had started their training.
Nicole and Blake weren’t going to be happy when school began and they would be forced into classrooms again—after all, they still needed to keep up with their regular education—but it was part of my job to ensure that all of the demigods and witches at this school received a proper human education along with their magical training. Just because Nicole and Blake had powers over the elements and had helped stop the war against the Titans, it didn’t mean they could be excused from school forever.
Some of the adult demigods could take over their job during the week. And I would allow them to fly off in search of lost demigods on the weekends, because truth be told, those two thrived on adventure. It was where they excelled—it was where they felt alive. It wouldn’t be fair to keep them grounded all the time.
I, on the other hand, was glad to have found a home at the place where I was the happiest—here, at school.
And not just at any school, but the school that I founded—The Emerson-Abbot Academy for Demigods and Witches.
* * *
Thank you for reading Elementals 5: The Hands of Time! I hope you enjoyed the conclusion to the Elementals series as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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Lizzie Davenport has been reincarnated from 1815, England... but she doesn't know it until she meets her soul mate from the past and he triggers her memories to gradually return.
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REMEMBRANCE: PREFACE
It was at the Halloween dance that I got the first glimpse of my past life.
The gym was packed, and due to the masks and the dim lights, it was impossible to tell who anyone was. I looked through the crowd, trying to see who Chelsea was dancing with, but even her red dress blended into the darkness.
Then I felt a movement from behind.
“Your boyfriend won’t mind if you dance with someone else?” a familiar voice whispered in my ear, barely audible over the loud, trancelike music. I turned around, disappointed to find that the black bandanna wrapped around his hair and the matching cloth mask covering the top half of his face made it impossible to see his features in the low lighting. But I knew it was Drew.
He pulled me closer before I could respond to the question. His arms wrapped around my waist, and I rested my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes and inhaling the sweet scent of pine coming off his skin. Jeremy would mind, but pulling away from Drew would be like trying to yank two magnets apart. It was dark, and we were in the back of the room, far enough from the main crowd in the center for anyone to notice. One dance couldn’t hurt.
He must have figured that I wasn’t going to try pulling away again, because he raised his hand to my shoulder and trailed his thumb down to my elbow, reaching my wrist and intertwining his fingers with mine. The palms of our hands connected, and I decided to enjoy the time we could be together, knowing that everything would return to the way it had been come Monday morning. The world spun to the beat of the music, and I let myself sink into it, clearing my mind of everything around me.
That was when the first flash came.
REMEMBRANCE: CHAPTER 1
Today was going to be different. I could feel it.
It wasn’t because it was the first day of school, or that it was ten minutes after the time Jeremy agreed to pick me up. There was something strange in the air.
Or maybe I was just being ridiculous.
Tires screeched around the corner, and I looked down the street, recognizing Jeremy’s red Jeep Wrangler speeding down the pavement. He pulled up in front of my house and I hurried to the side of his car, swinging the door open and hopping onto the hot leather seat.
“Way to be late for the first day of school,” I said, pushing a few strands of hair off my face that had gotten out of place during my dash to the car.
He looked at me and smiled, his blue eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, and reached to tuck a loose curl behind my ear. “Liz,” he calmly spoke his nickname for me. “It’ll be fine. The teachers won’t even care on the first day.” He leaned back, the sunlight shining through the window glistening off his sandy hair. He looked like a model featured in a summer clothing catalogue; the pale colors of the blue and white striped shirt and khaki shorts he wore intensified his golden tan from his recent outdoor soccer practices.
“Not all of us have gym first,” I pointed out. “Your teacher might not care if you’re late, but mine will.”
He shrugged and turned to look at me again. “Why didn’t you straighten your hair today?” he asked, unhappy with my decision to let it dry naturally.
“I like it like this,” I said, unsurprised that it didn’t take long for him to mention it. I’d started to embrace my curls over the summer, which was easier than straightening my hair every day. It wasn’t like they were springy and uncontrollable. They were loose and flowing, the kind of curls people cherished before the invention of flatirons.
“I like it better straight,” he told me. “You look so young right now, you could pass as a freshman.”
The words stung. I took a deep breath to calm myself, keeping my eyes focused on the road. “If I’d straightened it, we would have really been late to school.”
He reached his arm across the gearshift and squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry, Liz. I meant it as a compliment. You look great when you straighten it.”
I shrugged and pulled my hand out of his, looking out the window as my house disappeared behind us and blended in with all the others in the quaint New England neighborhood. The early September leaves were still green, and I soaked in the last day
s of summer, not looking forward to the weather getting cold. Even though I’d lived in Pembrooke—a town right outside of Manchester, New Hampshire—for my entire life, I still hated the winter. Whenever snow, sleet, or ice fell to the ground, I stayed in as much as possible. There was no point in going outside and freezing to death.
Jeremy stopped at a red light and reached over to turn on the stereo. The heavy pounding of an awful rap song filled the car; it was so loud that the floors vibrated with the bass. The old man in the rundown truck next to us glared and shook his head in disapproval.
“When did you start listening to this kind of music?” I asked, lowering the volume.
“Some guys on the team got me into it.” He grabbed his iPod off the dashboard and handed it to me. “Check it out, it’s pretty good.”
I glanced at it before putting it back where it was, uninterested in the other songs in the album. “You know,” I said, looking back over at him, “I just realized we don’t have a song.”
The words sounded stupid after I said them.
He thought about it for a second. “I guess we don’t,” he said, switching the stereo over to the radio. “Why don’t you put on any station, and whatever comes on will be our song.”
It sounded ridiculous, but I reached towards the tuner to change stations, closing my eyes before turning it.
AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” blared through the speakers, and I turned if off so quickly that I feared the knob might break off in my hand.
“Great pick, Liz,” he said with a laugh, driving into the parking lot of The Beech Tree School—a private school for kindergarten through 12th graders that sprawled across a small campus. We drove past a variety of cars—everything from used Volkswagens, brand new SUVs, and even the occasional Lexus, BMW, or Mercedes—but Jeremy didn’t turn to find a parking space. Instead, he pulled up next to the flight of steps leading to the entrance.
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