My magic swelled under my skin. Does she have any magic of her own? I thought. Can I zap her until she gives us information?
I shuddered, closed my fingers over my palms, and lowered my hands. Sibyl had welcomed us into our home. She’d offered us food. She’d shown us nothing but kindness.
As desperate as I was to return home, I refused to let my magic turn me into someone I hated. Someone like Octavia.
Julian sat straighter. “You said it’s not your secret to share,” he said to Sibyl. “So, whose secret is it to share?”
She smiled knowingly, like she’d expected the question. “That would be the first and only bearer of the wand,” she said. “Queen Gloriana, the First Queen of the Otherworld.”
“Queen Gloriana is dead,” I said flatly. “We saw her tomb.”
“Correct,” she said. “However, being dead doesn’t make someone unreachable.”
“Um, yeah. It does. Unless you have a Ouija board or something?” I looked around the room, since it was cluttered with knick-knacks.
“A child’s game?” She raised an eyebrow and chuckled. “Surely you—someone from Earth—know those are only toys.”
“I was being sarcastic.” I sat back and crossed my arms.
“Selena,” Julian said, and I glared at him. He was starting to sound ridiculously condescending. “You’re thinking like someone from Earth. Not like someone from the Otherworld.”
“Death is a universal thing,” I snapped. “The veil between the living and the Beyond is impenetrable.”
He frowned at my harsh tone. “Perhaps it is, when you think of it as the Beyond,” he said. “But here, we don’t have the Beyond.”
I opened my mouth to argue.
But then, the chilling words the fae chanted after each death in the arena echoed in my mind.
May her crossing to the Underworld be a peaceful one!
The Underworld. Not the Beyond.
“You’re not seriously suggesting…” I trailed off, since it was impossible. But I turned to Sibyl, and she looked just as serious as Julian. “You want us to go to the Underworld?”
“You must, if you wish to speak with Queen Gloriana,” she said. “And I know exactly what you need to do to get there.”
16
Torrence
Aphrodite’s girdle? Check.
Circe’s staff? Check.
Two magical objects down, two more to go. And with all those days lost on Circe’s island—each one equaling a full week in the Otherworld—we needed to be fast.
Sage, Thomas, and I stood on the top deck of the yacht as we approached the Nemean lion’s island. The island was flat, except for one rocky hill in the center.
The lion’s den.
Reed, of course, sat below deck.
His favorite pastime was ignoring the three of us. Which was for the best. He’d been broodier than usual since we’d escaped Circe’s island, and we didn’t need his negative energy in our space.
I didn’t need his negative energy consuming my thoughts.
From the way Sage was looking at me, I could tell she knew I was thinking about him. She was ridiculously intuitive like that. It probably had something to do with her enhanced wolf senses.
Oh my God. Did I give off a specific scent when I thought about Reed?
I hoped not.
“It should be easier to get the Nemean lion’s hide than it was to get Circe’s staff,” she said. “A classic slice and dice operation.” She tossed her dagger in the air and caught it by the handle.
“Don’t get overly confident,” Thomas said. “The lion is impervious to all but the most powerful weapons. We shouldn’t underestimate him.”
“Good thing we have holy weapons.” I smiled.
“Good thing,” Sage agreed.
Thomas shook his head and sat down on the bench to lounge in the sun.
Once we were close enough to the island, Thomas anchored the yacht. The four of us armed ourselves with weapons, piled into the speedboat, and were off.
We wore our black Avalon jumpsuits, which were far more comfortable to fight in than the tourist gear we had to wear against Circe. And we brought the same holy swords we’d used to fight Scylla—the ones with crystals embedded in the handles to give the blades extra power.
We had this.
The island was small—it was more of an islet. As we walked, birds, hogs, antelope, and even zebras hurried out of our way.
The lion’s food.
We got closer to the center, and spotted giant paw prints in the dirt.
The lion had been there recently.
I reached for my sword and surveyed the area. The others did the same. Lions were nocturnal, so he should be in his den. But we needed to be ready for anything.
We followed the paw prints to a massive cave entrance. A full-grown elephant would have been able to get through it, with room to spare.
Reed picked up a stone and faced the cave. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, and then he hurled the rock into the entrance. He picked up another, and another, throwing each one with more force than the last.
Anger management problems, much?
A deafening roar resounded from inside the cave, so loud that the ground shook.
Reed picked up another rock, but I reached for his wrist, stopping him. “I think he knows we’re here,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes, dropped the stone, and yanked his wrist out of my grip. “Don’t touch me,” he growled, shaking out his hand like I’d jolted him with electricity.
“No problem.” I rolled my eyes and faced the cave, holding my sword at the ready. The others took similar stances.
Clomp, clomp, clomp, the lion’s steps sounded louder and louder as he plodded forward. My grip tightened around the sword’s handle with each one.
Finally, the beast emerged. It had to be at least four times the size of a normal lion. It opened its mouth and roared, showing off its sharp, deadly teeth. Its yellow eyes glowed as it stared us down.
It roared again and pounced at Sage. Its gold fur gleamed as it flew through the air.
Sage rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding being squashed.
I jumped up and brought my sword down on the lion’s back.
The lion growled, swiped up its paw, and my sword clanged against its fur. The force of the blow pushed me backward.
I crashed to the ground with so much force that I couldn’t properly roll into the fall. Pain exploded in my bones, and I couldn’t breathe.
I sucked in a few sharp breaths, grabbed my sword, and jumped back up to my feet.
The others were using their swords against the lion with no more success than me.
The lion swiped at Sage with its tail and sliced through the side of her jumpsuit.
She pressed a hand to the wound and rolled away. Blood poured out of the tear.
Thomas was in equally bad shape. His left hand was bruised and mangled, as if he’d tried punching the lion. Blood flowed down his arm and dripped onto the ground.
Our swords might as well have been tin smashing into a wall of diamonds. It was a miracle that the lion’s hide hadn’t bent the steel.
Reed shoved his sword into its holster. “Everyone, back up!” he said, and his eyes glowed yellow, his magic swirling around him.
Sage and Thomas scurried out of the way and joined me off to the side.
Reed’s eyes turned black, and he blasted the lion with cloudy, black magic.
The magic bounced off the lion’s fur and slammed into a nearby tree.
The tree withered and died on the spot.
Reed grunted and pushed more black magic at the lion. The lion couldn’t move forward. But the magic still bounced off its fur and into the trees, killing each one.
“Everyone to the top of the cave!” Reed shouted. “NOW!”
I ran, pushed off from the ground, and leaped onto the top of the den. Thomas and Sage shifted into their wolf forms—they had more dexterity that way, although t
hey needed to drop their swords—and jumped up to join me. Blood soaked their fur.
Reed glanced up to check that we were all there and leaped up to join us, using his magic to hold off the lion the entire time. It left dead trees, bushes, and grass in its path. But all it did to the lion was hold it back.
His eyes were still black as night. Two dark holes of nothing.
Not even red demon eyes looked that creepy.
He landed next to me, stopped aiming his magic at the lion, and created a shimmery dome around us. The dome was yellow, with smoky gray tendrils snaking throughout it.
He lowered his hands, and his eyes returned to their normal brown with white around the irises.
The lion roared again, ran toward us, and pounced.
It bounced against the barrier and smacked down to the ground.
Payback.
The lion tried breaking through the barrier a few more times. Eventually, it gave up and started prowling beneath us.
Sage and Thomas had shifted back to their human forms, but they were both sitting down, covered in blood.
“What happened?” I asked, shocked. Thomas was an expert with a sword, and Sage was an expert at fighting in general.
To me, they’d always seemed invincible.
Sage held onto the bleeding wound on her side and grimaced. “The lion must have sensed our wolves,” she said. “It went for us more than the two of you. And our swords—”
“Are useless.” Thomas scowled.
“But your injuries…” I eyed both of them. There was so much blood. “They’ll heal?”
“They’re not lethal.” He cradled his mangled hand with the other, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. “But it’ll take at least twenty-four hours for them to patch themselves up.”
“We don’t have twenty-four hours,” I said. “We need to kill the lion now.”
Reed stared down at the lion, studying it. “We don’t need to impale it to kill it,” he said. “Hercules strangled it with his bare hands.”
“I know that,” I said, since I’d read the children’s books, too. “But Hercules must have been a giant, because our arms can’t wrap around that neck.”
“We don’t have to use our arms,” Reed said, and he pulled his sword out of its holster. “We have these.”
I stared at him like he’d lost his mind. “Our swords don’t work against the lion,” I said slowly.
“We’re not going to use them like that,” he said.
“Then how are we going to use them?”
“We’re going to jump onto its neck like we did with Scylla and use our swords to strangle it. Like they’re extensions of our arms.”
I gripped my sword’s handle in excitement. “Smart thinking,” I said. “I’m in.”
Thomas cleared his throat, and we all looked to him. “The lion is stronger and faster than Scylla,” he said. “If you try to land on its neck, it’ll fling you off like ragdolls.”
He was right, and we all knew it.
So I reached into my weapons belt, pulled out a pod of deep blue potion, and said, “Then it’s a good thing my mom gave me this before we left.”
17
Torrence
“Complacent potion.” Sage smiled.
“Of course, a Devereux witch brought along an illegal potion,” Thomas muttered, although I could have sworn I saw approval in his eyes. “I shouldn’t have expected anything less.”
“It’s only this one, and we’re on an island that most supernaturals don’t know exists.” I shrugged. “No one will ever know.”
“It’s like being with Bella all over again.” Sage glanced at Thomas, and they exchanged a knowing look.
Aunt Bella had never told me flat-out, but she’d definitely used complacent potion, too.
“It’s not like being with Bella.” Thomas turned to me, as serious as ever. “You’re far more powerful than she is.”
“Wow.” I stood there, stunned. “Thanks. But make sure not to tell Aunt Bella that. Unless you want her to hex you.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.” He sat straighter and smirked. Then he grimaced and grabbed his bleeding leg with his good hand.
If healing potion worked on vampires and wolves, I would have given them some by now.
Reed marched over and glared at us. “In case you all forgot, there’s a lion down there that we need to kill,” he said, pointing at the golden lion pacing beneath us.
“I didn’t forget.” I held the potion bomb with my throwing hand and my sword in the other. “The potion will only take a few seconds to work. Once the blue mist clears, we’ll jump onto the lion’s neck and strangle it.”
“Deal,” Reed said, and together, we walked to the edge of the barrier.
The lion must have sensed that we were about to attack, because it stopped pacing, stared up at us, and roared.
Reed looked at me and nodded.
I pulled my arm back and threw the potion bomb at the lion.
It hit the lion in the back and exploded into a puff of dark blue mist.
The mist cleared, and the lion shook out its mane. Its glowing yellow eyes dimmed, and they were dazed and confused.
“Now,” I said to Reed, and we ran toward the barrier.
Reed flung his arm out and grabbed my sword out of my hand at the same time as I smashed into the boundary.
I bounced back and landed on the ground next to Sage. “What the hell?” I ran at the dome and hit it with my fists.
The dome was transparent, but I might as well have hit a brick wall.
I screamed and hit it again. It didn’t budge. A kick yielded the same result. As did a blast of my magic.
Defeated, I pressed my palms against it and looked out.
Reed had landed perfectly on the lion’s back. He held both of our swords, and he leaned forward, wrapping them around its neck. If the lion’s fur wasn’t impenetrable, the swords would have sliced straight through. As it was, they squeezed it without cutting.
The lion tried to buck Reed off, but the complacent potion had slowed it down so much that the attempts were futile. It struggled to breathe, and its eyes bulged. It scratched at the dirt so frantically that a few of its claws ripped straight off. Liquid gold gushed out of the fresh holes.
Blood.
Finally, it collapsed into a giant heap of golden fur on the ground.
Reed jumped off its back, dropped the swords, and picked up one of the dismembered claws. With eyes full of fury, he kicked the lion to roll it over and rammed the claw through its heart. He drove it in so deeply that when he pulled his hand out, it was covered in the lion’s golden blood.
He stared at the motionless lion, as if making sure it was dead. Then he aimed his magic at the dome.
It shimmered and disappeared.
I jumped off the top of the den and stomped toward him. “What. The. Hell.”
“I could do it myself.” He shrugged. “So that’s what I did.”
I flung my arm behind me and pointed at where the barrier dome had been. “You locked me in there with dark magic!” I said.
“I did.”
“How?” Hot anger coursed through my body, and I balled my hands into fists by my sides. “Who did you kill in the past twenty-four hours? And when? I didn’t even see you bring out the blood.”
“I’m a mage,” he said smugly.
I stopped walking, since there were only two feet between us. “Really? I didn’t know.” My tone dripped with sarcasm.
“Mages don’t have the same limitations as witches,” he said. “We can call on dark magic as easily as we can call on light magic.”
“Without a catch?” It sounded fishy to me.
“It’s just another example of how much more powerful mages are than witches.”
I so badly wanted to rip that smug smirk off his face. “So you trapped me in there,” I said. “When I was going to help you kill the lion.”
He glanced at the dead lion on the ground next to him. “Does
it look like I needed your help?”
“You might have.”
Silence.
Neither of us was going to budge.
Feet shuffled off to the side. Thomas and Sage. They’d taken their time getting down the cliff, and they were moving slowly. But at least they were moving.
Thomas picked up one of the lion’s claws that had come off during the struggle. It was almost half the length of his arm. “What’s done is done,” he said. “Stop fighting. We’ll be able to skin this lion much faster if all four of us work together.”
I glared at Reed one more time, spun around, and picked up a claw to get to work.
18
Selena
“This is as far as I can take you,” Sibyl said once we reached the edge of a dense forest.
Even though it was mid-morning, the trees were packed so tightly together that it was as dark as night in the forest. Silver mist hovered up to a foot above the ground. Owls hooted in the distance. Tree trunks curved and bent in unnatural angles, their gnarled branches ready to strike down and snap people up.
Not even my traveling cloak stopped the chills from creeping up my spine.
It seemed impossible that there was a lake in the center of the forest. But Sibyl had said there was. And while I was still hesitant to trust anyone in the Otherworld, it was all we had to go on.
Plus, we were no threat to Sibyl. She had nothing to gain by sending us to our deaths.
At least, I hoped not.
“Thank you for leading us here,” Julian said to her. “We’ll see you again soon.”
He faced the forest and stepped into the mist. It reached midway up his shins, and nothing leaped up from it to attack him. He turned and looked at me, waiting for me to join him.
I glanced back at Sibyl for reassurance.
She was gone.
I looked back at the forest and took a deep breath. You can do this, I told myself. You made it through both those labyrinths. This is no different.
Except it was different. The forest was wild. Untamed.
Julian pulled a dagger from the ether, tossed it up in the air, caught it by the handle, and threw it into a tree trunk across the way. Its tip embedded itself into the bark, and then it disappeared. “They’re only trees,” he said. “They’re not going to hurt us.”
The Faerie Wand (Dark World: The Faerie Games Book 4) Page 7