by Sarah Noffke
“I’ve always been in your heart, ready to help you,” the voice said. She instinctively trusted it. Almost seemed to recognize it.
That made no sense to Paris, though. However, it was hard to think with the growing heat and the roar of the Deathly Shadow. He was building in force, ready to overwhelm her.
What did the voice in her head mean? she wondered in a panic. What had always been in her heart, ready to help?
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens,” a voice shouted in her mind.
Paris’ eyes sprang open, burning because of the smoke and fire. Then there was the roar and power of the Deathly Shadow pressing down on her. Paris didn’t care about any of that. She lumbered to her feet, staying low, and stared at the circle of flames caging her.
Black spiraled around her, seeking to make her dizzy and disoriented, but she ignored it. Instead, she yanked the heart-shaped locket from her neck, breaking the chain. Then she did something that she would never have considered before that moment.
Paris threw the locket with her initials onto the ground and raised her foot, slamming her boot down and crushing it with deliberate force.
Almost instantly, as if waiting for eternity to be free, something bright and brilliant flew from the locket under her shoe. At first, it was hard to make out the strange shape as it went from tiny to large. The figure, which was full of color in the black sky, flew around the circle, extinguishing the flames caging Paris with the beating of its wings. Paris blinked, trying to understand what she was seeing. Her eyes took in the image, and she made out the figure of a lion with the head of the goat on its back and the tail of a serpent. It was magnificent.
The chimera that had belonged to Uncle John didn’t stop after it freed Paris from the circle of flames. Instead, it flew in a spiral until it gathered all the parts of the Deathly Shadow, corralling him into one massive ball of blackness once more. Only then did the chimera turn and look at Paris before vanishing in thin air. That was fine because she knew what had to happen.
The next part was up to her. It was solely her job to contain the Deathly Shadow.
Chapter Seventy-One
Feeling unsteady on her feet but mustering strength from a place she didn’t know she had, Paris gripped the small clam-shaped metal container in her hand.
She held it out to the spiraling blackness, not knowing what happened next but purely operating on instinct.
She pulled on her demonism. On the part of her that was a magician. On her fairy half. Paris allowed them all to combine, and words she’d never said—never heard before—fell from her mouth, creating a spell that she knew for certain was never spoken by anyone. It was a language she’d not heard, but it effortlessly flowed from her mouth.
A scream from a bodiless form touched her ears, but it didn’t hurt, although she knew it was supposed to harm her.
The ground shook, but Paris stayed standing, although she knew she was supposed to fall from the assault. These were the Deathly Shadow’s last attempts, but she didn’t stop speaking the ancient spell she knew by heart.
No matter what happened, Paris continued to recite the words that flowed from her consciousness, believing that she could do this. Her uncle’s chimera had come to her rescue. Her father’s demon blood had assisted her, breaking down the Deathly Shadow.
Now it was her turn to take over, doing what only she could do—believe that she could.
The sky grew bright and dark again as if the Deathly Shadow was trying to blind her, but Paris didn’t waver. Instead, she spoke the spell that was in her heart. In her soul. Little by little, the bits of the Deathly Shadow seeped into the metal container, which she now realized was open in her hand.
The blackness gathered, accumulating with sounds of protest. Paris’ words were louder and drowned out the Deathly Shadow. She wouldn’t allow him to win. She wouldn’t permit this creature from another world to destroy the one she loved. All she had to do was contain him, then…well, she’d get there when it was time.
The skies slowly started to turn pink, then blue, and the blackness disappeared as the rising sun shone once more when the last of the Deathly Shadow accumulated in the metal container. Paris wasn’t sure how long had passed. A day. Days. A year. Years. It could have been a century for as parched and drained as she suddenly felt, as if everything had passed in an instant.
Paris staggered as the metal container shut in her hands and locked. She’d contained the Deathly Shadow. She’d finally done it.
As the sun rose over Death Valley, Paris felt her first ray of hope in a long time. In what felt like a lifetime.
She held the metal container out, letting the light of the sun catch it. All she had to do was put the vortex opener on the container, and she’d finally find her parents. She knew that time was crucial so she’d have to work fast.
Paris reached into her pocket, staggering from the energy it took to fight and contain the Deathly Shadow. Then she toppled over, and her face hit the sand as she suddenly passed out, drained and exhausted from her efforts.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Something small jerked on Paris’ shoulder. She really wanted to sleep longer. If only that gentle but annoying shaking would stop.
“Would you wake up already,” Faraday said in her ear, his whiskers tickling her skin.
Paris groaned and rolled over, thinking maybe she could buy another few minutes before class. However, the ground was hard…and hot...and gross. It suddenly occurred to her that she was in Death Valley—with scorpions and tarantulas and rattlesnakes and—
“The Deathly Shadow!” she exclaimed and bolted to her feet in a burst of sudden energy. She looked around at the scorched desert, trying to reconstruct what had happened while blinking to clear her vision and her mind.
As if realizing that she needed a recap, the squirrel at her feet started pointing and talking rapidly. He first indicated the metal container at her feet. “You contained the Deathly Shadow, but by my calculations, you have two minutes to use the vortex opener. If you don’t, you’ll miss your window to pinpoint his energy.”
He pointed a few feet away. “That’s over there where you dropped it when you passed out from expending too much energy.”
Then he pointed at her face. “So you know, your eyes are glowing red like a demon’s, but I’m not judging you. Just hoping you don’t steal my soul.”
Paris shook her head, feeling the fire extinguish from her. She grabbed the container right away, then the vortex opener, and went straight to work without wasting a second. She fitted the vortex opener onto the container as instructed. “Okay, so I need to put this on like so then use the spell that Papa gave me and…” Paris put everything together, muttered the incantation, and pointed the container outward, fully expecting to create a vortex using the Deathly Shadow’s energy.
Nothing happened.
She looked at the container encapsulated by the vortex opener. “I point it outward. Then I use the spell.” Paris tried again.
Nothing happened.
Paris grunted. She didn’t know if she had enough time to call Uncle John to figure out what was going wrong with the device.
“Put it down,” Faraday encouraged from the ground.
“Why?” She was confused.
“I’m going to fix it.”
“You’re a squirrel.”
He nodded. “Now put it down here, and I’ll fix it. Then you can bring back your parents and get back to napping as you’d like to.”
She sighed with relief. The squirrel knew exactly what she wanted, a very long nap. Well, first her parents, followed by sleep.
Paris set down the device and stood back. “Make me proud, squirrel. Otherwise, I’m returning you.”
“To where?” He was already tinkering with the vortex opener.
“To wherever I got you when I hallucinated, and this whole weird dream started.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
It felt like forever as Paris hunched
over Faraday, watching as he did different things to the vortex opener. It all could have been rocket science for all she knew, and it probably was. She didn’t understand a single bit of it. And to make things harder to understand, her head was clouded from containing the Deathly Shadow and realizing she had some demon inside of her and doing all that she had.
However, when the squirrel stepped back and held out a paw at the vortex opener attached to the container, she was fully aware.
“It should work now, but you have limited time, so hurry,” Faraday urged.
“How?” she asked, scooping the device up into her hands. “How did you get this to work when my Uncle John couldn’t?”
“I had to fix a few things he didn’t have calculated right, even after Ren’s equations,” Faraday explained as she pointed the device outward and started the spell again. This time something was different. A light glowed from the container, building up and radiating outward second by second.
“How, though?” Paris looked sideways at him as the device vibrated in her hands.
The squirrel stared intently at the container and vortex opener, then her. “When we get through this, I’ll tell you my secrets, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else, ever.”
Before Paris could answer, two things happened simultaneously. The vortex opener exploded in her hands, not harming her but sending cold air in all directions. The explosion created the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. It was a perfectly round blue hole directly in front of her. Although it resembled a portal, she knew it wasn’t one. Paris blinked at the large blue hole and looked at Faraday, wondering if he was witnessing what she was, but at that same moment, he disappeared—simply vanished.
She looked between where the squirrel had been and the opening, wondering what was real and what wasn’t. Maybe she’d imagined it all. Perhaps she was still passed out. Maybe this had all been a strange dream, and none of it was real. Perhaps she wasn’t real.
Then, as if dreams could come true, two shadowy figures materialized in the round blue portal-like shape, and for some reason, they looked like home.
Chapter Seventy-Four
For a moment, the light from the large blue opening was too blinding, making Paris throw up her arm to cover her face. She waited until her eyes adjusted, feeling the heat of the desert reminding her that she was in Death Valley.
The blue opening gave off a smoldering heat that burned her skin. However, the sun overhead was also beating down on her.
The radiating power before her suddenly lessened like someone turned down a loud noise. Or a light being dimmed. Paris lowered her arm to find that the opening to another world had closed. Standing there in the desert and looking around quite confused were two people: a man and a woman.
Paris instantly felt as though she knew them while still wanting introductions. These were her parents. They had to be, but it didn’t feel real yet. She was in shock and hardly able to take in the moment fully.
The couple was younger than she expected, but she really couldn’t pinpoint how much time had passed for them.
The figure who stepped forward first was a short, lean woman in her early thirties. She had long blonde unkempt hair and wore a black cloak over an all-black outfit and combat boots. Paris instantly approved of the ensemble.
The guy behind her was far more guarded, looking around as if expecting a demon or monster of sorts to jump out. He had jet black hair and the most piercing blue eyes.
Both of them regarded her with hesitancy when they realized she was the only one standing in the middle of the desert.
“You’re safe.” Paris watched their expressions as they took in their surroundings.
“Where are we?” the woman asked.
“Death Valley, but I can get us to someplace where there are fewer rattlesnakes,” Paris joked, always needing to rely on her sense of humor to save her sanity. She didn’t move but instead stayed frozen, running her eyes over her parents, realizing that she was staring at them although she didn’t care.
“No thanks to rattlesnakes.” Liv finally glanced down and looked herself over. “We were in that weird multi-universe with demons long enough. I need a shower.”
Stefan nodded, checking his wife for injuries and sighing with relief. “But we’re back now.”
“Thanks to this one.” Liv pointed at Paris. “You opened that vortex, didn’t you?”
Paris nodded. “So you realized you were in another world and not through a portal.”
“Yeah, but it was confusing at first,” Stefan explained.
“We thought we’d stepped through a portal, but that damn Deathly Shadow fooled us.” Liv scowled and looked around. “When I get my hands on him, I’m going to give that guy a body so I can strangle him to death.”
Paris couldn’t help but laugh. That did sound like something she’d say, just as everyone had said about her with her mother.
Both of her parents gave her confused looks for laughing.
“There’s no need to worry about the Deathly Shadow,” she explained. “He’s gone.”
“He was here,” Stefan argued. “He opened the vortex. He tricked us.”
“I got rid of him.” Paris gulped, not sure how to explain the next part and knowing she had to.
“So you got rid of the Deathly Shadow and brought us back from that weird world?” Liv was totally in awe. “We owe you the biggest debt of gratitude ever.”
Stefan nodded, relief flooding his face. “That’s incredible. How did you do that? More importantly, who are you?”
“M-M-My name is Paris.”
Both warriors tensed.
Stefan gulped. “That’s weird…”
Liv slapped his arm playfully. “Not so much. Many are naming their kids Paris these days. It’s a coincidence.” She offered Paris a smile. “Sorry, it’s just our daughter’s middle name is Paris.”
She nodded, not knowing what else to say…how to tell them… wanting to hug her parents but not wanting to freak them out. This was going to be weird…it was weird.
Liv looked at Stefan, ignoring that Paris was staring at them with her mouth wide open. “You know, I really miss that kid. I mean, it’s only been a day, but a day without Guinevere is too much.”
Paris sucked in a breath. It had only been a day for her parents.
Her father nodded at his wife. “I know what you mean. She’s my heart.”
Just like that, the tears fell from Paris’ eyes. A sob escaped her mouth. She felt like crumbling. Her parents, not knowing who she was, gave her a look of confusion.
“What’s wrong?” Liv looked her over as if she must be hurt. “Are you okay?”
Paris sucked in a breath. “It’s just that you haven’t been gone from this world for a day. You might have only been in the other one for a single day, but it was much longer here where the passing of time is different.”
“We haven’t?” Stefan stepped forward. “How long were we gone?”
“I’m sorry, but you’ve been gone for fifteen years.” Paris choked on her breath between words.
Both Liv and Stefan tensed, visibly in shock. Liv’s hand reached out, grabbing her husband’s arm—horror in her eyes.
“Y-Y-You’re,” Stefan stuttered, the realization seeming to hit him, although he didn’t seem to be able to finish his statement.
Paris nodded, swallowed, looked between them, let out a breath, and forced a smile. “Yes, I’m Guinevere Paris Beaufont. I’m your daughter.”
Chapter Seventy-Five
“Being reunited feels so good.” King Rudolf hugged Captain Morgan tightly. She didn’t seem as excited about the experience but allowed it.
“I’m so glad that we can relate,” the king of the fae said, looking at Paris across the counter in the Fantastic Armory.
“Although I’m sorry you and Captain Morgan were separated, my parents were apart for fifteen years, not a few days.” Paris slumped to the side, wishing that she had her parents to hug right then.<
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“I kind of hoped for fifteen years,” Captain Morgan grumbled. “If the lighting in my cell was better and I could get manicures, that is.”
“That’s not nice,” Subner scolded. “Parents aren’t something that you should take for granted, even if something with the IQ of a watermelon is raising you.”
“Thanks, Sub,” King Rudolf chirped.
Liv and Stefan had immediately gone into shock after the news that they’d been gone for fifteen years and rescued by their daughter. Paris brought them straight to the Fantastical Armory as instructed, and Papa Creola had taken them down to his office for examination. Apparently, traveling to different worlds could result in trauma and all sorts of other problems. Paris hoped that they recovered and when they looked at her again, it wasn’t like she was a stranger.
Uncle John rushed into the Fantastical Armory, his eyes frantic, followed by Aunt Sophia and Uncle Clark. They all looked around with worry and anticipation.
“They’re being examined for warts,” King Rudolf said in a bored voice in answer to the questions on their faces. Captain Morgan had abandoned him to check her Instagram to see what she’d missed in her absence.
“They are being examined by Papa Creola because they traveled through a vortex to another world,” Subner corrected matter-of-factly.
Uncle John sighed. “They’re okay?”
Paris nodded.
Aunt Sophia hurried over and grabbed her hand. “What? What’s wrong?”
She looked up, realizing that the dragonrider had sensed the stress in her. Paris bit her lip and let out a breath. “It’s been only a day for them. They were only gone in that other world for one single day.”
Clark choked on a cough. “Only a day…”
“I know,” King Rudolf said. “Liv is going to look younger than me.”
“She is younger than you,” Clark fired back, irritation flaring on his face.
