The Eternity Key

by Bree Despain

  “Oh yeah, you probably don’t do that in the Underrealm, huh? You know, with the lack of females and all.” A strange half smile quirks her lips, and I can’t imagine what she’s picturing.

  “We don’t celebrate the new year,” I say. “Not the way you do anyway. We count time by the equinoxes. The Leaving and the Returning of the Champions …” I trail off, already regretting reminding myself of the impending deadline hanging over us. If we don’t find the Key before the spring equinox, then surely Ren will send his soldiers after it when the gate opens—after us. And that is only if the Court doesn’t get its way and rips through the walls of the Pits before then.

  That isn’t what I want to dwell on at the moment, so I return my attention to her. Her tears have dried up, but her cheeks are flushed red.

  “Kissing someone at midnight is supposed to bring you good luck for the year to come. I guess I realized that I could have used some good fortune, these days.”

  She tugs on the end of her golden hair, and I watch the curve of her lips as she wavers between a frown and sheepish grin. Electricity pricks my fingertips. If I had been with her that night, would she have let me kiss her if I’d tried?

  Would she let me kiss her now?

  “Or maybe I just don’t like feeling so alone,” she says.

  “You still have your father.…”

  And me, if you want, but I can’t bring myself to say it.

  “I told Joe that I’m quitting the play and moving out.”

  “Oh. Where will you go?” I pull my hand away slightly. My thoughts immediately go to her returning home to Ellis Fields. Leaving here. Leaving our quest. Leaving me.

  “The dorms, if they’ll accept my application. I’ll go back to Joe’s until they do, but I couldn’t handle being there tonight. I’m sorry for just showing up.”

  “Don’t be. You can stay here as long as you want.”

  “Just tonight,” she says. “You’d get sick of me.”

  “I’d never get sick of you—” My throat catches, and my whole face feels hot. I had not intended on saying that out loud. It probably sounded saccharine to her, but it’s the truth.

  A quirk of a smile plays on her lips again. “I shed more than Brimstone, and I probably snore.”

  “You don’t,” I say. “At least you didn’t that night in Vegas.” Heat swirls in my chest as I think of the night I spent lying next to her bed in the Crossroads Hotel, her hand dangling over the side, clasped in mine.

  That was one of the best nights of my life is what I want to say, but this time the words don’t come tripping out of my traitorous mouth.

  Daphne’s lips curve again, and that strange smile falls into a more concentrated expression. Seemingly, something heavy weighs on her mind. I curse myself for not expressing the thought out loud. I am reminded of Dax’s words. That I should tell her how I feel while I have the chance. The idea sends fear shuddering through me.

  Daphne shivers as if her body is responding to mine. She rubs her hands up and down her bare arms as though she is cold. Once again, I wish I could embrace her, this time to share the warmth that ripples under my skin.

  She licks some maple syrup from her lips. I imagine they taste just as sweet.

  You need to tell her, Dax’s voice echoes in my mind.

  I lean in closer to her and she moves closer to me. My courage surges. Gathering all of my control so my lightning remains in my chest instead of flowing up my arms, I raise my hand to cup it against her face. She leans into my touch. Her warm cheek presses against my scarred palm, soothing the pain that always aches behind it. I breathe deep, steadying myself. I caress r her bottom lip with my thumb. Her mouth puckers against my touch.

  She lets out a breath as if she’d been holding it. My skin tingles as her air brushes over my fingertip. I smooth my hand back over her cheek. She leans even closer.

  Hades, I want to kiss her.

  But I need to tell her first. She needs to know.

  Her lips part.

  “I need to tell you something,” I say as quickly as possible, but my words get jumbled with the question that comes tripping out of her mouth at the same time. “Can I show you something?” is what I think she asks.

  We laugh slightly at the awkward timing.

  “What did you say?” she asks, her lips still only inches from mine.

  I drop my hand and pull back slightly, realizing my nerve is waning. “You first,” I say, hoping to build my courage back up again in the meantime.

  Daphne puts her hand on my arm. While I’ve lost my resolve, she seems to be filled with a confidence that wasn’t there a few moments ago. “I need to show you something.”

  She stands up quickly and goes to the kitchen. I follow her, tentatively, not knowing what to expect. She plucks a few leaves from Simon’s wilting herb garden on the windowsill above the sink.

  “Watch this,” she says, and begins to hum.

  “Watch what?” I say, stepping closer.

  “Be quiet. This takes concentration.”

  She continues her humming, getting louder, all her focus concentrated on those little leaves. I start to wonder if all the stress is making her a bit addled, but then, for half a second, I think I see one of the leaves in her hand begin to quake.

  The doorbell rings, the chime echoing through the house. Daphne jumps like she’s forgotten where she was and drops the leaves.

  The bell rings again. Brim yowls at me to respond.

  “Must be Dax,” I say, rushing to the door, about to curse him out for coming back sooner than expected, but when I open it, I find one of the last people I expect to see.

  “Tobin?” Daphne says from behind me. I didn’t know that she’d followed me into the foyer.

  “I went to your house first, but Joe said you were gone.” He kicks the front step a couple of times. “Do you think I could stay here tonight?” he asks, looking up at us sheepishly.

  I have never wanted to slam a door in someone’s face more than I do at this very moment.

  “Of course you can,” Daphne says. She looks at me for my approval.

  All the heat that had been building up inside of me washes away in two seconds flat. This was not how any of this was supposed to play out. “Of course,” I say. “Let me make you up a room.”

  Daphne pulls Tobin inside the house. “We made French toast; Dax is coming back with tacos; and I’ve got something to show you. We’ll make an evening of it.”

  “Thanks,” Tobin says quietly. “I just can’t be in the same house as my mom tonight.”

  “I know how you feel,” Daphne says, leading him into the family room while I head upstairs.

  Apparently, we’re taking in strays with parental issues tonight. I just hope there aren’t any more unexpected visitors planning on stopping by. The house is suddenly feeling crowded as it is.

  chapter thirteen

  DAPHNE

  Tobin digs into a piece of French toast like he hasn’t eaten all day. He’s just polishing it off when Dax and Garrick come back with their contribution to the meal. Garrick complains about how slow Dax made him drive until he smells the luscious goodness Haden and I have prepared.

  “You cooked, Daphne?” Dax asks. “It smells better than anything Simon ever made.”

  “Actually, Haden did,” I say proudly. “I might turn him into a decent facsimile of a human being with enough lessons.”

  “You cooked?” Garrick asks, giving Haden a look like he’d done something that made his standing lesser in his eyes. Then I realize that where they come from, probably only Lessers cook. But it doesn’t stop Garrick from wanting to eat the end results.

  Garrick and Dax eat their French toast straight out of their foil wrappers. I laugh when Garrick bites into his extremely overly cinnamoned piece. His reaction is priceless—he spits it out and wipes at his tongue, letting go of a string of what I assume are Underrealm swear words. I glance at Haden with a devious smile, but he doesn’t seem to appreciate the joke an
ymore. He just sits quietly on the couch, watching us.

  “Don’t worry; I saved you a better piece,” I tell Garrick, feeling like a jerk all of a sudden, and present him another foil packet. “There’s even some eggs that Brim didn’t eat.”

  He gives me the stink eye but eats the new piece anyway. Tobin and Dax are the only ones who touch the tacos. When we’re done eating, Tobin knocks his foot against mine. “You wanted to show me something?” he asks.

  Haden sits up when he hears this, but what I want to show Tobin isn’t the same as what I was going to share with him.

  I open my bulging tote bag. My phone sits on top of the papers that I’d shoved inside on my way out of Joe’s house. It lights up with a text from Joe asking me to please come home—that he’ll leave the house if I’ll just come back. I move my phone aside and pull out a stack of color-coded papers. I spread them out on the family room floor because the coffee table is covered with our dishes. “I was kind of in a hurry, so this isn’t everything, but all of this belonged to Abbie. Joe had been sorting through them and said he was onto something, so I thought if we went through them, we might be able to figure out what that was.”

  “Why don’t you just call him and ask?” Garrick says, licking syrup from his fingers.

  I shake my head. “Not happening.”

  Haden joins us, sitting on the floor all stiff and proper, as we pick through the papers. Many of them are old receipts, but there are also notes, and pages that seem to be torn out of a composition book. Joe’s color-coded system doesn’t seem to make much sense, but that’s Joe for you.

  It’s getting late and I’m fighting to keep my eyes open when Dax waves one of the pink-tabbed papers in the air. “I’ve got something,” he says. “Everything tabbed with pink has a mention of some place called Old Sutton Mill or an Old Sutton Road.”

  “What’s that?” Garrick asks before I can. I’d thought he’d fallen asleep because he’d been just lying there with a brochure for Zion National Park tented over his face.

  Tobin grabs the paper from Dax. “I wonder … When we were younger, before we moved to Olympus Hills, Abbie and Sage used to play at this old abandoned mill with their friends. They let me go with them a couple of times. We used to pretend it was haunted and play hide-and-go-seek. There were the best hiding places there.”

  “Hiding places?” Dax asks.

  “I bet Old Sutton Mill is the same place,” he says, typing the address into his phone. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is.”

  “How far is it?” Dax asks.

  “Right now about a twenty-five-minute drive. During rush hour, it would take a lot longer.”

  “Feel like taking a drive?” Dax asks Tobin.

  He nods and jumps up.

  “Anyone else want to come?”

  I want to be there for Tobin, but I’m so tired, I feel like I’d just slow them down. My phone buzzes from another pleading text from Joe, and I feel ill on top of my exhaustion.

  “It’s okay,” Tobin says, watching my face. “I doubt we’ll find anything anyway. Just ruling out leads.” I can tell by the tone that comes off him that he’s disappointed, but he smiles regardless. “We’ll call if we need backup,” he says to Haden. I realize if I’m staying here, then so will Haden.

  chapter fourteen

  TOBIN

  Dax and I are walking out to Dax’s Roadster parked in the driveway, when a green BMW pulls up to the curb. “Having a party without me?” Lexie calls out the window. “Where was my invite?” For a moment, I almost think I register a bit of disappointment in her voice. Or maybe it’s just irritation, though I can’t imagine why she’d be bothered that we had all been hanging out together. On a normal basis, we don’t usually hang in the same social circles. At least not anymore.

  “It was a spontaneous gathering,” Dax says, like he’s worried about her feelings.

  I am not as inclined at the moment. “What, like you don’t have better things to do on a Friday night?” I ask.

  “Whatever, I just got off a date with Derek Van Houser from the lacrosse team.” She tosses her blond hair over her shoulder. “Saw you guys and thought I might grace you with my presence if you were up to anything interesting. Where are you boys off to now? Wine cooler run? You know I prefer Cristal,” she says, with exaggerated indifference.

  “We’re not having fun. We’re headed out to investigate a lead on Abbie,” I say, my voice indicating that I’m trying to politely dismiss her. I’m not in the mood to be her postdate entertainment.

  “Ooh,” she says, suddenly interested. “Get in. I’ll drive.”

  “We’ve already got a ride,” I say, pointing at Dax’s two-seater Roadster.

  She scoffs. “That thing is tiny. I suggest you let me drive … unless you want me to sit in your lap.”

  I am suddenly too flustered to respond. What makes her think she’s coming? Or that I’d want her to sit on my lap?

  “She does have more room,” Dax says with a chuckle, and heads for the backseat of the BMW. I blink at him, wondering why he’s going along with letting her come.

  “Lap or Beemer, Tobin?” Lexie croons out the window. “Lap or Beemer?”

  I can feel my face burning. For all the help she’s offered us in the last few weeks as part of our team, it didn’t erase the fact that Lexie had mastered the Soprano art of irritation by sophomore year.

  Sometimes, I wonder how we had ever been friends before that.

  “Beemer,” I say, getting in the passenger seat next to her, since Dax is sprawled out in the backseat.

  “Where to?” she asks excitedly.

  “Old Sutton Mill,” Dax says before I can answer.

  “It’s supposedly haunted,” I say, making a last-ditch effort to deter her. “It could be dangerous.”

  “Neat!” Lexie says, hitting the gas and flying away from the curb.

  I give her the side eye as we drive. I expected Lexie, queen bee of the Sopranos, to balk at the idea of poking around an old, abandoned mill in the middle of the night, but instead it seems she can’t wait to get there. Either her date with Derek Van Housitwhatsits had been a real snooze fest, or perhaps the old Lexie, the one I’d spent the summer before freshman year with, making our own faux documentaries about swamp people in the Olympus Hills lake, was still in there somewhere under all the designer clothing and hair products.

  It strikes me a few minutes later, as we pull onto Old Sutton Road, approaching the mill, that, even though in the last few months, I had come to consider Daphne to be my closest confidante when it came to Abbie, it isn’t she who is with me now, following this lead—but Lexie Simmons, the last person I expected to want to help me.

  chapter fifteen

  DAPHNE

  After Tobin and Dax leave, I wander off to find a spare room upstairs. I choose the one with a small balcony that looks out over the lake. I stand, leaning my elbows against the railing, looking out at the rippling water, and feel a surprising pang of disappointment that Haden isn’t standing next to me. I smile a little to myself, remembering when he’d shocked my hand while we were cooking—and that horror-struck look on his face that he’d tried to pass off as sheepish. Then, with encircling warmth, I think about the touch of his hand against my face. The closeness of his lips to mine. The thrumming notes pulsing off his body, as if an electric current had been building in his chest.

  I don’t know exactly why I’d chosen to come here tonight.

  Or maybe I do.

  Haden had been a welcome distraction when I had lost my hope that night in Vegas, and had treated me with such concern since. Perhaps part of me had been looking for that kind of diversion again—or maybe something more.…

  I had pretended to be fine with Tobin’s intrusion because from the broken notes that were coming off him, I knew he needed my friendship, but his timing couldn’t have been worse. It had taken a stroke of courage for me to finally work up my nerve enough to share my secret with Haden—to show him my new power, but
then I lost my chance when Tobin arrived.

  I’d been more than disappointed when the doorbell had interrupted my concentration, but at the same time, I have to admit that I am also relieved. In the moment, I had wanted to share with Haden. I had wanted to open up to him.

  Hell, if he’d tried to kiss me, I might have let him, despite my better judgment.

  But maybe it was better that I didn’t get the chance for any of that.

  CeCe—I mean, Abbie—had always teased me about having a wall around my heart. I’d put it there after being disappointed by my father time and time again as a kid, but over the last few months of living with Joe and getting to know Haden, I had let some of my defenses down. Opened up. But now that I know what Joe did to me, now that my trust has been so thoroughly betrayed by the one person who is supposed to want to protect me above anything else—my father—how am I supposed to truly trust anyone else again?

  And now that I know that my heart and soul might need to be sacrificed to get the Key, I don’t want to just rebuild the wall around my heart; I want to line it with battlements and cannons.

  Would my secret be safe with Haden? Would he tell the others? Would he still be my ally, or would he only see me as a more valuable prize?

  I try to shake that last idea off. Haden had traded everything he’d ever wanted to keep me out of his father’s hands. The feel of his scarred hand he’d held against my cheek had been a reminder of his refusal. Even if I didn’t know why he’d given it all up for me, that was the reason I’d almost opened up to him earlier this evening. It was the reason I felt safe staying here now.…

  And yet, I still don’t know if I can let him in.

  It’s a clear night, and I can see all the way out to the smaller island of the lake. It sits silent and dark in the water, no longer singing the lullaby it sang to me the first night I arrived in Olympus Hills, the song that drew me to it the next day—the day I met Haden, and the same day Tobin and I found Pear almost drowned in the lake at the edge of the island. The song had seemed fractured then, broken notes and distressful strains, as if the island had been calling out to me that something was wrong. Pear—who is still in a coma at the Olympus Hills Medical Center—might have died if not for that. But after that night, the grove fell silent, like it had gone into hibernation. I hadn’t heard its song since that first day, but it was still etched inside my heart.