“Put the iron down,” I demanded.
She let it fall as if my words were a command that she could not disobey.
“Why did you struggle for that key? Why did you take their lives?” I asked with a quick nod to my side. “Why did you take Sophia’s? What did she do to you?”
“How was I supposed to know we would crash?” she yelled in tearful agony. “This was your fault, not mine. They fell for you, so deep and so blindly that they could not see anyone or anything else. They were obsessed with ending Rasure, just as obsessed as you—so much so that weeks before your battle was to be won they helped you stoke the fire of her wrath. You moved the clocks, you threw that in her face. It’s your fault they had the key in the first place, that Rasure tried to kill us all.” She looked down as she raised her arms to her side, like she was being crucified. “I just wanted them to leave it be, for you to leave it be. Stick with the plan. Win your money and kick her out. The human way. The peaceful way.”
“Dear sister. I have never been human. We both know that.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It was powerful, confident—everything that I wasn’t.
She let her hands fall as she shamefully raised her eyes to meet mine.
“I thought you saved me, that my divine sister had spared me, but you didn’t. Fate did. I told myself that you would have if you could, that you were not moving on because you didn’t want me to be alone. Rasure told me I was a fool, that you didn’t care about me. I was disposable, damaged goods as far as you were concerned. I didn’t believe her until you proved her right.”
“Exactly how did I do that, Sister?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “You pulled them to you and pushed me away. You wouldn’t let me help you—you planned to let me go and live forever with your ‘almosts,’ the boys that will never know the real you.”
“I pushed you to safety, to peace. That is my purpose. If you knew the real me, that should not be news to you.”
“That is why I’m here. That is why I told you she had him, she had them all, and where. You may never forgive me, but I will fight for my redemption until my last breath,” she said as she balled her fists.
I glanced back to the guys. Neither of them seemed convinced, and I was divided. I didn’t have time to debate my emotions. For the first time in my existence, a clock was ticking. Counting down to my end.
I gripped the key in my hand and gracefully knelt down, thrusting the star point into the center circle.
When metal met marble and powerful volts of energy weaved through my arm, in that instance in my mind I saw this room, the staircases on fire, wind tunneling around at warp speed, the floor opening to the depths of the Earth. I felt a raw power, it was the power of desperate love, a love that had been divided and would not rest until it was rejoined.
It was a remarkable feeling, one I wanted to relish in so I could understand it, so what I felt for Phoenix would be justified, so I would know that I loved him enough to move universes to find him, that I was strong enough to bring our home to him.
But time was short. Once the energy left, the floor did not open beneath us. Instead, the three spiral staircases began to turn. As they did, the floor underneath them fell, opening the way to more stairs.
Without hesitation, I ran to the one closest to me. When I began to descend the stairs that were still appearing, I had no idea how deep I would follow them or where I was going. We turned and turned, chasing the appearing stairs, finally finding the floor.
When I raised my head and stepped forward, I quickly realized I was overwhelmed. “You have got to be freaking kidding me!”
This was a vast room, as vast as the manor itself, maybe even bigger—and in this room, all within a few feet of each other were thousands upon thousands of grandfather clocks.
In the echo of the room, I heard a bellow. I heard Wilder scream in agony. Cadence grabbed my arm and began to pull me in the direction of it, but Mason stopped her, all but jerking my arm away from her.
“Indie! Come on!” Cadence yelled.
“Not going that way,” Gavin said to her as he nodded toward the way he wanted us to go.
I listened to him, but as I walked away I heard Cadence scream, “You are everything she said you were and worse!”
I turned sharply to face her. “Choose you words carefully, Sister. My compassion is in limited supply tonight.”
“Wilder. You have to help me! I’m not strong enough,” she begged as tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I’m setting more than Wilder free tonight.”
She let a look of disgust fill her innocent image just before she turned and ran toward Wilder’s screams.
Mason turned me and began to pull me through the clocks as Gavin led us.
“Tell me you guys know what the freak you are doing,” I said through clenched teeth. The clocks around us began to creak with ice that was forming on them. I could not handle the idea that Wilder was suffering and his only crime was that he knew me, that he tried to love me.
“We are going to the memorial garden. There has to be a reason she wanted to keep us out of it,” Mason stated sternly.
“What if she was just using it as a decoy?” I argued as I looked over my shoulder at the sound of a new scream.
Gavin stopped and pointed to the key that was clenched in my hand. Now with the missing part, it clearly read ‘Falcon M Observatory.’ “I’m not focusing on her, only the signs. Now suck in those emotions and touch these clocks, as many as you can. Tell me if you see anything—any memory at all.”
“What is it with the clocks? I don’t get it,” I said, desperately glancing to the sea of them around me.
“Time. She takes time from the souls. It’s nothing more than symbolic imagery,” Gavin assured me, “and we are going to give that time back, set free what she has locked away.”
I nodded nervously as I unconsciously let my hand reach for my wrist, to the mark of a falcon under my pearl bracelet. I found my warmth and drew in a deep breath.
Mason picked up a fast-paced jog through the clocks as I let my hands run across the wood of each one we passed. Though I felt the energy of a lost past, the elegance of the piece itself, I saw nothing that said they were mine. That brought me little comfort, though. These were only the ones in our path, but thousands were all around us and the clock was still ticking.
It felt like it was forever before it happened, but we reached the end of the clocks and before us now was a stone wall and one dark tunnel.
“What now?” I asked anxiously.
Gavin and Mason reached for the torches beside the entryway; with a glance from them, fire burned through the kindling.
“Now you are really on stage,” Gavin said, nodding for us to move forward.
I could only assume we were following the path to the memorial garden. I felt my heart beating out of control, adrenaline seized my body, and my breathing fading. I kept telling myself that at any moment Phoenix would appear, that he would feel my unrest and come for me.
When he didn’t, I feared the worst. I feared that no matter the outcome of what was before me that I would live on in grief and agony.
Before long, light emerged at the end of our tunnel. As we approached, in the distance across the open room I saw another clock. A few steps later, we were at the threshold of this room. It was rather large. One clock was on the wall before us, another to the right. On the mantle of an enormous fireplace was the other. In the center of the beams that ran across the ceiling, there was a dome, no larger than five feet. The warm, flickering orange glow from it gave the room a wicked ambience, but not as wicked as the overstuffed leather chair that had Rasure proudly perched in it, with two guards behind her.
Chained from the ceiling with his arms above his head and his shirt off was Wilder. His strong, lean body was glistening with sweat, and blood from his wrist was raining down his arms.
Rasure slowly adjusted herself in her seat as a sinful smile echoed on her thin lips
. “I assumed you would run to the echo of his screams. I suppose you are smarter than that runaway trash you call a sister.”
It took every ounce of my strength, but I held in my anger. I held in the cold. Every emotion I had was sucked into that ice rock that remained in my core.
“I am but a servant to my family. I have been told that they are not resting in peace, that you are the reason behind that.”
Her dark eyes gleamed with malice. “And who has been filling your head with such lies? The same souls that have convinced you that you—of all people—matter in the great scheme of things?”
“I’m not convinced. But I figured what the hell. I’d kill you for kicks and giggles, see where that gets me.”
I stepped forward but halted as she stood.
“Well, then. If we are going to play this game, let’s put all the pieces on the board, shall we,” she said coolly.
She sharply turned to her left and walked to the fireplace. With each step, with each staccato echo of her heels against the stones, I felt my heart pound, my control struggling to be set free.
Once Rasure reached the clock on the mantle, she opened the glass face, whispered something into it, and an instant later a light burst from it, connecting to lights that were now beaming from the other clocks. Rasure stepped to the side as her guards came to her and wind filled the room. The floor vanished beneath a dense fog, an intense bolt of energy exploded in the room. It was so fierce, I had to close my eyes and bow my head.
When I dared to look up again, I saw my worst nightmare: my family, my parents, my sisters, and my uncle were suspended in the air as deep blue flames surrounded them. They were silent in their screams, but Wilder wasn’t. He was now dangling, trying to keep his bare feet off the stone floor, which was causing his chains to cut deeper into his wrist. When I looked down, I saw a thin coat of salt along the stone. It almost seemed like the fog had delivered it. The stone floor was darker, almost wet where the salt was.
“You seem divided,” Rasure said confidently. “Is it the salt in the water across the floor, or this?” she said as wrought iron bars rose from the now wet stone floor and blocked my path to my family. “Or is it the fact that you are not who they have told you? Is it not true that you want to leave your adored in agony, your family to the damned—for the sake of revenge, for the sake of satisfying that self-loathing, cold, vindictive soul of yours?”
All at once, Mason and Gavin threw their torches at Wilder, but they barely landed at his feet. Wilder was at least twenty feet from us.
“If I were looking for evidence that you are only playing a part, your adored have graciously given that to me,” Rasure said smugly.
I knew Mason had an aim that was never wrong, that he had an undeniable strength and accuracy in every physical thing he did. Mason didn’t miss. He’d purposely let his torch fall along Wilder’s body, and when he did no flaming wings appeared—telling us without a doubt that he was not part of what we were. That really didn’t solve much, though. I cared about him, enough to save him, to make sure he was safe.
Wilder must not have understood what the guys were doing. He glared in their direction. It was a look I’d never seen come from him, one that was near terrifying. There was no telling what Rasure had done to him. If my Wilder even still existed.
We all knew we would not be able to withstand the salt long, that we had one of three choices: either go after Wilder, my family, or Rasure.
“Tick tock…smart move. Let the clock run out so you will not be forced to commit a sin as you perish,” Rasure taunted me.
I made it seem as if I were looking into the souls of the ones I loved as I surveyed the room, where the stone became wet, how heavy those floating bars that were around my family seemed, how I could do everything I wanted to do with one swift act.
There were only three bars, all horizontal, and there was a beam above me.
I was out of time and out of choices. The only way out of this was straight up and over.
I glanced to my side at Mason. He held his hand out flat, a common gesture between us. He agreed, and he was telling me to go up, that he was planning on thrusting me up.
I let my eyes meet Wilder’s across the room just as I used Mason’s hand to jump up and grab the beam.
There was no room above the beam for me to stand, and barely enough for my hands, so I pulled myself across until I knew I was close enough to swing my body over the iron. I only had a few feet to squeeze my body above them.
My anger, shock, and doubt caused ice to form as I fell to my feet, but that wasn’t a mistake. The ice froze the fire around the souls of my family, but they were still trapped. Before I could think of what to do next, Mason had charged forward, jumping into the air and grasping the top iron bar. He flung the bar at the chains around Wilder, and they went right through the hook. Gavin was already there, climbing up behind Wilder so he could reach the bar and turn it to set him free.
There was only one way for me to break the ice around the souls of my family: from the bottom up. I grasped another wrought iron bar, feeling the jolt of energy painfully surge through me. The bar felt guided by some other force. When I looked back, I saw that that force was Mason. He was behind me, giving power to the swing. We aimed at the floor, slicing through the ice as Mason bellowed, “Rise!” and the iron bar turned to fire in our hands.
The souls of my family struggled in unison upon hearing his command. The combined strength from their struggle caused the flaming iron bar to slice through water, not ice, triggering the flames that had bound them to wash away.
A peace, a warm peace filled my soul. I felt like I was cutting free an anchor—that everything that had bound me had finally fallen away. I watched as the faces of my mother, my father, my five beautiful sisters turned to light and vanished. My uncle seemed lost, disoriented, like he had just woken up in the middle of a nightmare.
I wanted to relish this victory, to stare at the last peaceful glimpses of my family, but this was not over. Rasure. She was still standing. And if she had done this to my family, there was no telling who else she had trapped, who those other clocks we passed led to.
I only knew one thing: she was not getting out of this room alive.
Chapter Sixteen
Rasure’s guards charged us, but the instant they moved, the instant I heard Wilder’s chains fall to the floor, I heard Mason bellow, “Betray us, cease!”
Whatever that phrase meant, it was powerful. The overgrown guards halted as their arms violently jerked back and black smoke steamed out of every opening in their bodies, finally ripping them apart as they vanished.
I stared coldly at Rasure as my chest rose and fell with adrenaline. I could feel a raw power swelling inside of me.
After a moment of hesitation, she let an evil smile come across her lips. “You have not yet transformed. You are nothing more than a vengeful spirit.”
“Is that your bet?” I seethed, daring to move slowly toward her.
“It is, dear,” she said with a smirk. “And now you never will. He perished. The flaming bird that is to guard your passage has left his existence.”
No amount of self-control in the world could have held back my emotions. Ice began to form across the stone room as she laughed. What was she saying? Phoenix had died? Let go? That because he had, because he thought that we could never be together in the form we were in, he let go? He lost his battle tonight, and at any moment I would lose mine?
“I don’t believe you,” I raged.
“It doesn’t matter if you do or not. I knew you were still vengeful the second you plotted your way around the salt and iron. Someone of your power would never fear the elements of the Earth. I knew his death was certain the moment he did not come for you. He should have arrived the moment you laid eyes on me, the moment fear came to you. I suppose he didn’t care to be another notch on your bedpost.”
I reached down for the last wrought iron rod, feeling—yet ignoring—the pain of its touch a
s Gavin came to my other side.
I let a deceitful smirk come to the corner of my lips. “I have yet to have fear for you, therefore, there is no reason for him to come. Whether I rise or fall is none of your concern, for tonight you will pay your debts.”
With that I charged forward, rod in hand, aiming for where her heart would be if she had one—if she were human at all. The second the iron entered her flesh, black smoke trickled out of her body.
She let a slow smile come across her face as death invaded her eyes and smoke seeped from her lips. “You are a fool. And I will have the last laugh tonight.”
Mason and Gavin both pulled their blades from where they were tucked in the back of their pants. In mid-thrust they connected, then pushed into Rasure. I pushed their arms down, causing the blade to divide her, causing thick black smoke to rush out of her body just before she turned to flames and vanished.
Breathless, I let my heart race. The ice built, I let the real, terrified me out.
Just when I thought I had control, when I let myself feel the slightest bit vindicated, iron chains wrapped around my neck. I gasped for air as I felt the strength behind them.
I knew from the cut on the arm that it was Wilder, that he was trying to end me.
“Back away, or this will be over really quick,” he said through a locked jaw to Mason and Gavin.
They only stepped forward and turned so they could see him, so they could figure out their play.
“Glad to see that I wasn’t special enough for you to save, D,” he said into my ear as he tightened the chains. I’m not mad. Not at all. I found someone that was a little more interesting than you. I’ll play with her for now.”
At that moment, I heard the echo of a clap and slanted my eyes to the doorway. There, I saw Cadence clapping slowly as she walked to where we were.
“Well done, Sister,” she said as she positioned herself in front of me.
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