by Bree Despain
A dead soul could enter the Underrealm. A dead soul could find Daphne. A dead soul could help her escape from that Shade’s cave. A dead soul could help her find the Key. A dead soul could help her escape the underworld and return her to her family.
“Do you want another dose?” Jonathan asks, searching his quiver. “Where’s my last dart?”
“You gave it to me,” I say. “You gave it to me and I vowed I wouldn’t give up on finding Daphne. I vowed I wouldn’t give into the nothingness again.”
“Good,” Jonathan says, clasping my shoulder. “We need you.”
I nod again and let him help me to my feet.
“Do you want me to administer it to you now? I have my bow back, which means I can make more once we return to the mortal realm, but it will take time. Possibly too much time, though . . .”
“No,” I say. “I’m fine for now.”
I let Ethan and Jonathan lead me through the night back toward the hut where Terresa and Jessica wait with my father. When no one is watching, I pull the last emotion dart from my pocket. I wrap my fist around it. I will honor my vow to never give up on finding Daphne, but I was wrong about not giving in to the nothingness. I squeeze my hand, crushing the last dart into dust, and let it trail behind me as we leave Brim and the Black Hole behind.
There is one last thing I can do to find Daphne.
I need to die.
chapter thirty-one
tobin
“Why have you brought us here, boy?” one of the members of the Court says to Garrick as the royal guard escorts him and his companions down the spiraling stone staircase that leads into the Pits.
“You’ll address us as your king,” Garrick says with a glare that could melt ice. He stands next to what appears to be some sort of invisible barrier between us and the Keres. The shadow creatures keep throwing themselves against it, as if trying to take a swipe at me. I jump every time, even though it is evident that they can’t get through. It reminds me of going to Sea World with my sister when we were young and the sharks would swim up to the aquarium wall. Abbie would dare me to touch the glass right in front of the sharks’ bared mouths and then I’d scream and run away if one got too close. One even rammed the glass once, and Abbie had laughed so hard at my reaction, she almost peed her pants. What wouldn’t I give to see her one last time? I’ll most likely be dead by morning. Which is apparently in a few minutes.
Even if Daphne got my message, even if she has the Key, even if she chooses to come here to rescue me instead of escape on her own, I am still going to die. I heard Garrick talking to himself—or possibly to the Keres that is attached to him—and he made it very clear he plans on killing me whether or not Daphne comes.
I hope she doesn’t, considering he also plans on killing her for her so-called betrayal.
“Why have you brought us here, your majesty?” the man says as he arrives at the bottom of the spiraling stairs. It is clear from the way he and the rest of the Court hold up the bottoms of their robes as if protecting them from grime, and avert their noses in the air against the smell of methane, that the Pits are not a place they visit often. If ever.
“We want you to witness our triumph, Lex,” Garrick says. “At first light, we will have accomplished what King Ren was not able to, nor my two imbecilic brothers, nor any other Underlord since Hades’s death. We will become immortal.”
I gather from the way he says we that he is referring to himself and the Keres, not himself and the Court, but I doubt the Court realizes this.
“Immortal?” Lex responds. “You can’t do that without—”
“The Key? Then it’s a good thing we’ll have it in a matter of minutes.”
Lex scoffs and the other members of the Court follow his lead. “You expect us to believe that you’ve found it? I have it on good authority from my best men that all of your expeditions into the Wastelands have come back empty-handed. You promised us the Key, that is the only reason you’ve been allowed to survive.” Lex turns to address his companions. “I grow tired of this charade, don’t you? The boy has had his chance to play with the crown, I think it’s time we put it on the head of the real Lord.”
Most of the Court call out in agreement, but one steps forward. “Alas, the Fates wanted him to have the crown. He is the one who brought us the Cypher—”
“And then he lost her,” Lex says. “I say that means the Fates have turned their backs on him. Without the Cypher or the Key, he has no claim.”
“Then it’s a good thing we can deliver both right now,” Garrick says, stepping forward.
“I’ll see it when I believe it.”
“Then believe it.” Garrick points up the stairs, where a young woman in a tattered dress and a golden cloak has appeared in the middle of the stairway. I could have sworn she wasn’t there only a second ago. The Court falls silent as she descends the stairs. She looks so strange to me in her fairy-tale clothes but with a modern, black fedora perched on top of her head. As she gets closer, I realize she isn’t just any young woman. Panic thunders in my hollow chest.
“Daphne!” I shout. “Run away! It’s a trap!”
Garrick grabs me and pulls a dagger to my throat.
“Do you have it?” he calls to her.
“I do,” she says, continuing down the stairs instead of running away. Why doesn’t she run? When she gets to the bottom of the stairway, the Court parts like the Red Sea. I don’t know what it is about her, but she almost appears ethereal as she passes through their midst in her white dress. Despite the tattered dress and the smears of blood and dirt on her arms, it strikes me that she looks like a queen.
“Where is it?” Garrick says. “If you’ve come here emptyhanded . . .” He presses the sharp blade of his knife against my throat as if to finish his sentence.
“It’s here,” she says, pulling a golden chain from her neck. On it is both a small red charm and what looks like an antique key.
“Don’t try to fool us again,” Garrick says.
“I’m not.” Daphne gives me a quick glance and a small mournful smile, and then she detaches the key from the chain. She holds it to her lips and whispers something against the metal. With a burst of light, the tiny key transforms into a large two-pronged staff.
Garrick lets go of me and greedily grabs for the Key. Daphne lets him take it. As he cackles with pride, she holds her hand out to me, but I shrink back from her touch. I don’t know why. I can’t explain it. It’s like how I’d feel if an angel had tried to embrace me.
Unworthy.
“Tobin, come on,” she mouths the words. “We need to go.”
I shake my head and shrink farther away. She still doesn’t realize this is a trap. Garrick won’t let us leave. His guards will never let us pass. We’re both as good as dead because of me.
She shakes her hand at me more frantically. “I have a plan,” she whispers. “I can get us out.”
But she can’t. I know she can’t. I cower from her. She looks as though she wants to move closer but also like she doesn’t want to move farther away from Garrick. Like she needs both of us within arm’s reach. After a moment of hesitation, she juts forward, wrapping her hand around my shackled wrist. She yanks me toward her as she lunges for Garrick’s arm. But she’s a moment too late. An inch too far away. He catches her movement out of the corner of his eye and swings away from her grasp. His other arm flies in a powerful arc and he backhands her against the face. Her grasp falls away from my wrist and she crumbles to the ground.
“You dare touch us!” Garrick shouts, standing over her. He looks as though he’s about to stab her with the Key.
She doesn’t respond. Only shakes her head and blinks as if the blow nearly knocked her unconscious.
“We’ll show you who’s in charge here,” Garrick says. “We’ll show you all!”
The Keres throw themselves against the invisible barrier, screeching as if cheering him on.
“What is going on here?” Lex says, stepping forward. �
�Give us the Key, boy. It belongs to the Court.”
“It doesn’t belong to the Court. It doesn’t belong to any of you. It belongs to us. It belongs to the true heirs of the Underrealm. Hades’s first creations. His first children. The Key is ours and so is this realm. And soon all the other realms will be ours as well.”
“What is this insanity?” Lex says. “Seize him!” he shouts to the royal guard.
But the men don’t move. They stand as if paralyzed by fear as a great shadow stretches up from behind Garrick. Looming over us all. Garrick sends a pulse of electricity through the Key. Lightning crackles and hisses around it, turning it into a fierce-looking weapon.
“You asked why we brought you here,” Garrick says to Lex. “It’s high time you meet the new royal family. My family.”
“No!” Daphne shouts, struggling to get to her feet as Garrick thrusts the electrified Key into the barrier that separates us from the Keres.
“Do not do this, boy!” Lex commands.
“Why? Wasn’t this your idea? Didn’t you want to rip through the Pits in order to get out into the mortal realm? Didn’t you plan on releasing the Keres yourself?”
“This is not what we wanted. The Keres were to be sent into the mortal and Sky realms. Not released here. We—”
But Lex doesn’t get to finish whatever he had to say because Garrick twists the Key as if he were turning it in a giant invisible lock. Streams of electricity crackle along the barrier. “You thought you could use the Keres as your soldiers in a war against the Skyrealm. You thought you could use them as your attack dogs. But guess what? The Keres will be using you now. For food.”
Garrick pulls the Key away from the crackling barrier. The lightning disappears. There is one full second of perfect, dead quiet before the Keres, with a screeching yelp, explode through the now nonexistent barrier.
chapter thirty-two
daphne
I didn’t expect Tobin to shrink from me. I didn’t expect him to pull away. My plan had been contingent on my proximity to both Tobin and Garrick. The plan was to give Garrick the Key, but only for a moment—only long enough to distract him so I could take Tobin’s hand. Then I was going to grab Garrick by the other hand and teleport us all as far away from the Pits as possible, taking the Key with us.
But it all went wrong. So very, very wrong. A moment’s hesitation. One extra step needed, and the upper hand shifted to Garrick. Or the backhand, that is. I didn’t expect him to be able to hit so hard. My eyes refuse to focus and my brain feels like it is rattling in my skull. I did not expect to have to fight against a concussion right now.
I didn’t expect a lot of things, I think as the barrier falls and the Keres burst into the chamber. Great swirling shadows careen every which way until Garrick barks an order at them.
“Kill the Court first. The girl and boy are mine.”
Horrible screams fill the chamber. Some men try to run for the stairs, but they don’t make it. Through my blurry eyes, I watch a soldier try to fight off one of the shadow beasts with his sword. His electrified blade passes through the monster, causing no harm. The Keres aren’t solid. They can’t be touched. I want to help somehow, but I also know I can’t. The Pits are on the royal grounds. I cannot use my vocal powers here. I can’t do anything to make the Keres solid so the soldiers can fight them.
Unprotected, a swarm of shadow encircles the Court. I watch in horror as giant boils form on the men’s skin. They rupture and pus. The men scream and claw at the boils, taking chunks of their rotting skin from their own faces.
A wave of nausea hits me and I lean forward, putting my head between my knees. I will myself not to pass out. Whenever I think of the Keres, I think of them as being like the one that tried to kill my father by attempting to drain his life force. But I remember now that Haden had told me that there were different kinds of Keres. That they were all the evils that were said to be contained in Pandora’s Box in the Greek myth, only the box wasn’t a box, it was a prison. One that Garrick has just opened. The Keres that tried to kill Joe was a reaper, but the Keres attacking the Court must be bringers of plague.
Two members of the royal guard run to help the Court but are set upon by another Keres. In an instant, the two soldiers turn on each other with their swords. Instead of protecting the Court they are fighting each other with ferocious hacking swings. That Keres must be a harbinger of war or violence of some sort. Other Keres go after the rest of the men, and I am completely helpless to intervene as the chamber turns into a death trap.
The Underlords’ screams and Keres’ screeching is so overwhelming, ringing through my skull, that for the first time in my life, I wish I couldn’t hear. Garrick advances toward me with the Key, holding it like a spear. Of course he wanted to kill me himself. He laughs, so proud of his accomplishments.
But then I hear it. Beyond the screeching and the screaming and the sickening laughter, I hear whispering voices. Kill him. Kill the Lesser who thinks he can control us. For a moment I think my damaged brain is playing tricks on me. That I’m hearing voices in my head. But then I realize that I can hear the Keres whispering to each other. It must be the work of the pomegranate Kronolithe. Shady had said that Persephone had been able to communicate with all of the creatures of the Underrealm. Kill him. Kill Garrick. We no longer need the boy.
I look up at Garrick just as he raises the bident to stab me. “They’re going to kill you,” I say.
He stops, holding the Key up. Ready to thrust. “I’m not afraid of them. They’re my family.”
“They’re planning on killing you. They’re whispering about it right now. Can’t you hear them?” I make a swirling motion with my hand in the air. “You can understand them, can’t you?”
Garrick stops. He holds his head as if he were straining to listen. I wonder how he learned their language, to interpret their speech beyond the screeching. The chamber boy had told me that Garrick is especially talented with languages. I wonder if that is a natural talent, or if it had something to do with the pomegranate necklace. Haden had told me the story of Garrick trying to steal it when he was a very young boy. He had eventually been compelled to give it back—and as punishment had been sentenced to work in the Pits with the Keres. But perhaps he’d kept part of the necklace for himself. I had noticed that a couple of the rubies were missing. I assumed it was because the necklace was so ancient, but perhaps Garrick had pried one off to keep. If he kept it with him in the Pits, perhaps that was how he had learned to communicate with the beasts. Why the necklace had deemed him worthy of its powers, I don’t know. Perhaps he had been, long ago.
Garrick’s face hardens and I know he’s heard what the Keres are saying—that they should do away with him now that he’s fulfilled his part. That they don’t need him.
They don’t want him.
“Some family,” I say.
“Shut up,” he says, but I am not sure if it is directed at me or the Keres that loom over us now. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”
He thrusts the bident at me, but instead of forking me in the chest, he goes for my neck. The two-pronged staff closes over my throat, the sharp ends of the Key grind into the stone floor at either side of neck. I am quite literally pinned to the ground.
I hold my hand out to Tobin again. This time he doesn’t hesitate. He scrambles to me and wraps his fingers around mine so tightly. As if he’s holding my hand at my deathbed, and he knows he’s next.
“Come with us, Garrick,” I say. “We can escape through Persephone’s Gate. Get out of here before the Keres kill you. Right now.”
Garrick shakes his head. “There’s one thing you’re forgetting. One thing you’re all forgetting,” he shouts as if directing it at the Keres. “I’m immortal now. You can’t kill me.”
Not if you don’t have the Key, I think and wrap my hands around the two prongs of the staff that pin me to the ground. A burst of electricity pulses from Garrick’s free hand. He goes to wrap it around the hilt of the staff, meaning t
o electrocute me. “Mikro!” I shout.
The bident shrinks. With a pop it transforms into a tiny antique key and lands on my chest. Garrick looks from me to it and then to the Keres that circle above his head.
Kill him now, they say.
The Keres swarm Garrick. Wrapping him into a black cocoon. “You can’t do this! I’m one of you!” he screams and screams.
I grab the key and make sure I have Tobin by the other hand and think of anywhere other than this place. The last thing I hear as Tobin and I vanish from the room is Garrick’s terrible screams breaking off into utter silence.
chapter thirty-three
haden
“I think he’s waking,” Jessica says, greeting us outside the door to the hut at the outskirts of the Skyrealm. It takes me a moment to realize she means my father. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want me to do.” She holds up the small bottle of sleeping draught.
“I’ll take care of it,” I say, taking the bottle from her.
“Give him only a drop,” Ethan says. “Too much could kill him, and I imagine Terresa wants her prize alive.”
“Is she here yet?” I ask, dreading what needs to come next.
“She came by a little while ago,” Jessica says. “She said she’ll be back soon. She’s growing impatient.”
“I guess I’d better take care of my father then.”
I go into the hut. The others stay outside. My father lies on his side, his back toward me. Jessica has rearranged his chains so his hands are bound over his chest as if he were a prisoner of war. Which I guess he is. The sounds of restless sleep fill the hut. He turns on his back. Jessica is right, he will be awake soon. I lean over him with a glass dropper from the potion bottle. I reach my fingers out to part his lips. His mouth opens in a sudden, teeth-baring grimace. I pull back slightly.
His eyes fly open and his large, bound hand shoots up, capturing my wrist. His eyes are not clouded with sleep, and I realize the sounds he’d been making were a ruse. He’s been awake for a while. I brace myself for the lashing words that will come from his bared mouth. The berating he will try to cut me down with. He lost his crown because of me, so I can only imagine how hot his anger boils against me now.
