Jayden sprinted to Demi’s crumpled body just as another Erinys soared towards Alec. Hailey aimed the wand. ‘Evat—’ Scorching flames erupted in her head—at least that’s what it felt like—and the wand slipped from her hand.
The flames intensified, making her feel like her head was about to melt, and she screamed. Then something even worse happened: she plunged into the memory of her dad dying.
The memory pressed against her chest, making it impossible to breathe. My fault. All my fault. He’s dead because of me.
‘Hailey!’ She was dimly aware of her friends calling her name before their screams joined hers.
Hailey dug her nails into her head, trying to banish the memory back to the dark part of her mind it had escaped from. But it wouldn’t go away. She watched her dad die over and over again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she cried, feeling warm blood trickle down her face as her nails broke skin.
She couldn’t bear it anymore. She screamed louder than she’d ever screamed in her life, praying she’d pass out.
The pain vanished, taking the memory of her dad dying with it.
Slowly, Hailey’s surroundings swirled back into focus and she regained her breath. Jayden cradled an unconscious Demi, and a few feet away knelt Alec, looking as though he was about to throw up. Aaron looked just as pale, but he was on his feet, his palms raised at the Erinyes, who snarled and bared their pointed teeth.
Thank the Tyches the Erinyes’ torturous powers have a weakness when it comes to force fields, Hailey thought, forcing her body upright. ‘Is Demi okay?’
Jayden nodded. ‘Yeah, just knocked out.’
She grimaced when she saw the claw marks on Aaron’s face. Claw marks that would have been her own if he hadn’t shoved her out of the way. Sweat trickled from his brow. ‘I can’t hold them back much longer. They’re too powerful.’
‘It’s time to end this.’
‘No, Jayden!’
Hailey whipped around in time to see Jayden pick up the wand, and Alec lunging forward to stop him.
But he was too slow.
‘Evatatz,’ Jayden shouted, aiming for the Erinyes.
At first Hailey didn’t know why Alec had tried to stop him, but she soon understood. Aaron’s force field became visible, rippling like water. And then Jayden collapsed—the spell ricocheted!
Hailey reached to grab him too late, shouting his name as his head cracked against the ground. She collapsed to her knees beside him, trying to shake him awake.
‘My force field is weakening,’ Aaron warned in a strained voice, his hands dropping a few inches. ‘If you’re planning to do something, do it now!’
Alec grabbed the wand before Hailey could. ‘Unatat,’ he said, pointing it at Jayden.
Jayden’s eyes flicked open. ‘You’re okay,’ Hailey said with a sigh. She turned to ask Alec to wake Demi up, too, but he was already using his powers to step through Aaron’s force field. Before he could open his mouth, the Erinyes’ crimson eyes pinned him.
Alec froze for a second, and then crumpled to his knees, screaming.
The agony in his cries pierced Hailey, making her want to scream too. She couldn’t let this go on any longer. Aaron’s force field collapsed, and she vaulted forward, her fingers curling around the wand as she hit the ground. ‘EVATATZ!’ she yelled, swishing the wand at the Erinyes before they had a chance to use their powers on her again.
The Erinyes’ eyes rolled into the backs of their heads, and they collapsed into a pile. Hailey stared at them, waiting to see if they’d get back up.
But they stayed lifeless on the ground.
‘You’ve doomed us all!’ someone shrieked. Hailey had been so busy fighting the Erinyes, she’d forgotten about the hundreds of people circled around her. A woman wearing a tattered orange jumpsuit gazed at the Erinyes in horror. ‘You have no idea what you’ve done.’ She turned back to the other prisoners, who shared her look of terror. ‘Get back to work and maybe they’ll spare us.’
The prisoners separated, scurrying back to what they’d been doing before Hailey and her friends had caused a scene.
Aaron scratched his head. ‘What are they doing?’
‘I don’t think they understand the Erinyes aren’t going to wake up,’ Alec replied, stumbling towards them.
Hailey climbed to her feet. ‘They’re not going to get up,’ she called out, trying to speak over the din of hammering. ‘We came here to take you back home—or, for some of you, prison.’ She thought it wise to add that last bit in case any of the real prisoners thought they didn’t have to return to jail.
Not one person acknowledged that she’d spoken; they continued to work, not daring to look back at Hailey and her friends.
‘We said we’re taking you home.’ Jayden was greeted with the same disregard as Hailey.
‘I’ve had enough of this.’ Aaron marched over to a man dragging a cart of sparkling rocks. He grabbed him by the arm. ‘Come with us, you don’t have to mine anymore.’
The man shoved Aaron, sending him toppling to the ground before continuing on with his cart.
This is ridiculous. Hailey didn’t see them getting back to the Academy anytime soon if everyone continued ignoring them. How do you convince someone they’re free if they won’t listen to you?
As if reading her mind Jayden said, ‘I don’t think we need their consent. Just tell the wand to take them back to where they came from.’
‘Good thinking.’ Hailey raised the wand and said, ‘Oatkut—’
‘WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?!’
The prisoners dropped to their knees, bowing their heads towards two people standing in front of the tunnel directly across from the ledge the Erinys had shoved Hailey off.
The two figures disappeared in a swirl of black mist and flowers before Hailey could get a good look at them. They rematerialised next to the Erinyes’ unconscious bodies.
Hailey’s jaw dropped as terror clawed at her heart. It can’t be! she thought. It’s impossible!
One of the figures was draped in black robes that emphasised his sallow skin. The other was a woman, who bore none of the man’s hardness; her features, in comparison, were soft and delicate, like the ring of daffodil flowers resting on her head.
Hailey blinked, waiting for their faces to morph into other people. When they didn’t she gulped. Hades and Persephone, King and Queen of the Underworld, loomed before her.
The gods are alive!
Hades’s eyes flared with rage. ‘What have you done to my Erinyes?’
His words reminded Hailey that she was holding the wand. ‘Evatatz.’
Hades swiped his hand, as if swatting away a fly, leaving Hailey gaping—he’d deflected the spell!
Hades curled out his fingers. ‘That does not belong to you.’
Hailey would have laughed if she hadn’t been so terrified. Did he really expect her to just give him the wand? She opened her mouth. But before she could utter a single syllable of Goldarin, an invisible force wrenched the wand from her grasp, and it flew straight into Hades’s hand, where it shone with a brilliant white light that enveloped the pit.
As the light faded, Aaron charged at Hades.
Hades focused the wand on him, a smile of pure malice tweaking his lips. ‘Nnast.’
Aaron soared backwards, crashing onto several bowing prisoners.
‘Aaron!’ Jayden and Alec shouted, running towards his crumpled body.
Hailey whipped back around to face the god of the dead, anger washing away her fear. She stepped towards him.
‘Don’t,’ Persephone warned. ‘We won’t harm you if you come with us.’
‘Tell that to Aaron.’
Hailey had barely turned her head before Demi, who had regained consciousness, dove for Hades.
Hades darted out of the way, laughing coldly when Demi hit the ground with a thud.
‘You take Persephone,’ Demi whispered in Hailey’s ear as she helped her back up. ‘I’ll get the wand.’ Hailey couldn’t believe how casually
she said it, as though they were facing two ordinary people and not two gods who could send them sailing across the room with a wave of their hand. But they didn’t have a choice. They needed to fight.
Hailey and Demi whipped around, preparing to pounce.
Hades was waiting for them. ‘I tire of this game, human children.’ He flicked the wand. ‘Nnast.’
What felt like a charging minotaur slammed into Hailey, sweeping her off her feet. Her skull cracked against the ground, sending dots dancing across her vision. Her head screamed with pain when she tried to lift it.
The pit blurred before everything went black.
29
Hades and Persephone
Hailey’s mind returned to her body. She grimaced at the throbbing pain in her head, wondering why it hurt so much, and blinked her eyes open; iron bars greeted her.
‘We’re in a dungeon.’ Alec sat next to her, leaning against a rock wall. A flaming torch flickered above him, casting their barred cell in a dim glow. ‘So much for our plan.’
A dungeon! Hailey fought the urge to vomit as she remembered where she was—the Underworld. She’d come here to save the prisoners and ended up one herself.
This can’t be happening.
She lurched to her feet, ignoring her pounding head’s protests, and staggered to the bars, wrapping her fingers around the warm metal. She yanked as hard as she could, but the bars didn’t budge.
Tears burned her throat. She was trapped in Tartarus, and there were two gods on the loose, maybe more. What was going to happen to her and her friends? Would the gods force them to work in the mine? Kill them? Would Hailey ever see her mum again, or would she die down here?
Stop it, she ordered herself, swiping away a rogue tear. We’re going to get out of this. Hailey didn’t know how, but they were, because someone needed to tell the world what was going on before it was too late and half the population became enslaved here.
‘What happened?’ Jayden slowly sat up, pressing a hand to his temple. ‘I feel like a cyclops hit me over the head with a club.’
‘The wand brought back Hades, and he kicked our arses is what happened.’ Aaron stood in front of the iron bars that separated their cell from the one next door. He rattled them. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Demi, who had a bruised and bloody cheek from where the Erinys had backhanded her, was pacing a few feet away from Hailey. ‘We don’t even have beds—or a toilet—all we have is this stupid dirt to lie on.’ She kicked the ground, dirt puffing up around her.
‘I can get us out.’
Hailey’s gaze snapped to Alec. ‘How?’
‘With my Heracles power.’
‘So what are you waiting for? Let’s go,’ Aaron prompted.
Alec didn’t budge from the ground. ‘Not yet.’
Aaron looked ready to shake him. ‘Why? Hades and Persephone could be coming back for us right now.’
‘That’s exactly why not. If we make our escape now, we could run into them on the way out, and we’d end up back here, or somewhere worse.’
Aaron cracked his knuckles, ready for a fight. ‘We can take them.’
Alec scoffed. ‘Like last time? How’s the face, by the way?’
Aaron tentatively touched the angry gashes on his cheek. He flinched. ‘Okay, point taken. So, what’s your plan?’
‘We wait until after they come for us. When they bring us back here, then we’ll make our move.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ Hailey leaned her back against the bars, their warmth sending beads of sweat down her neck. ‘I don’t think Hades will be too happy about us breaking in here and attacking the Erinyes. What if he comes and kills us?’
‘He won’t,’ Jayden said. ‘If he wanted us dead, he would have killed us in the pit. Besides, if the history books are anything to go by, Hades likes to see people suffering, not dead. I think we should do what Alec says and wait to escape. We’re only going to get one chance, and we can’t screw it up.’
Demi sighed theatrically. ‘All right, I guess I can handle sleeping on dirt for a little bit.’
Hailey wasn’t fussed on the idea of sitting around and waiting, especially when it meant putting the world in jeopardy. But she figured Hades and Persephone had been awake for almost seven months now and hadn’t attacked, so the world could probably wait another few hours. ‘Okay. We’ll do it your way. But—’
‘Shh,’ Aaron hissed. ‘Someone’s coming.’
Everyone fell quiet.
Hailey heard it now too: footsteps echoing in the distance, getting closer and closer.
A minute passed before the being they belonged to appeared outside their cell. Hailey’s heart sank.
It was an Erinys. Hades must have used the wand to wake them back up.
Hailey met the creature’s eyes, which glowed bright red in the flickering torchlight. She tensed for pain, assuming it was there for revenge.
None came.
‘Come,’ the Erinys snapped in a voice rough like sandpaper.
Aaron knocked the bars with his hand. ‘You see the problem with that is we’re locked in, so I’m afraid we can’t comply.’
‘Dazatr.’ The iron bars slid open with a creaking moan. ‘Come. Now.’
Aaron stepped in front of everyone, staring down the Erinys as if she didn’t have the ability to melt his brain with her gaze. ‘We’re not going anywhere unless you tell us where you’re taking us.’
The Erinys’s eyes gleamed with delight, as if she’d been hoping he’d say that. A second later, Aaron collapsed to his knees, screaming.
‘Stop it!’ Hailey cried. ‘We’ll go with you.’
The Erinys held him in her torturous stare for a few more moments before releasing him and stalking away.
‘That was really stupid,’ Jayden chided Aaron.
‘Really stupid,’ Hailey reiterated. ‘Are you okay?’
Aaron nodded, his eyes dazed. ‘I’m fine.’ He forced a smile. ‘I couldn’t resist.’
Demi whacked his arm. ‘Don’t do it again.’
‘We better hurry up and follow her,’ Alec said, voice shaky, ‘before she comes back.’
They practically sprinted through the door and began trailing the Erinys, who led them through a torch-lit hallway of empty cells that looked as dark and depressing as the one they’d been in.
Hailey felt like a toddler being led to a Nemean lion’s den. There’s only one of her; you can take her, a voice in Hailey’s head urged. Her legs tensed, ready to pounce on the Erinys and pin her down while her friends choked the creature out. But then she remembered she didn’t have the wand anymore, which meant the only way to escape the Underworld was through the pit. She would bet her powers that that was where the other two Erinyes were, and she doubted she and her friends would be able to take them out too—they’d barely survived them the first time, and that was with the wand.
With a defeated sigh, Hailey silenced the voice in her head. Maybe if her, Demi, and Jayden’s powers weren’t useless, she would have at least tried to make a run for it. But without the sky, vegetation, or water, they might as well have been ordinary humans. Only Alec and Aaron could use theirs, and super strength and a force field would only get them so far.
The last thing Hailey wanted to do was ruin any chance of them escaping by taking on the Erinyes now. If they lost—which she was pretty sure they would—the Erinyes would probably kill them. Their escape would have to wait until later, like Alec said.
They continued down the fire-lit tunnel, their footsteps echoing off the rock walls and ceiling.
Hailey clutched her pendant, the gold heart warm against her skin. She had a bad feeling the Erinys was taking them to Hades instead of to work in the mine. Jayden had made a good point about the god not wanting them dead, but Hailey wasn’t entirely convinced. What if Hades hadn’t killed them in the pit because he wanted to have a little fun with them before incinerating them with a fireball?
They reached t
he end of the tunnel and shuffled back into the mine, where the prisoners had returned to work, their pickaxes clanging against rock and their carts squeaking as they mined precious metals and jewels from the walls. The other two Erinyes patrolled the pit, ready to turn their gazes on anyone slacking off. One of them looked at Hailey, who tensed, waiting for her head to explode in flames, but the Erinys merely smirked, as if Hailey’s fear pleased her.
Her fear only grew when the Erinys guiding them led them into the tunnel Hades and Persephone had materialised in front of. Her instincts to flee intensified, and she glanced back at the ledge in the pit—the one that led to Cerberus. It was so close. If she and her friends ran fast enough, maybe Aaron could lift them up there with his force field. She looked back at Jayden, as they moved further away from the only escape route, to see if he’d changed his mind about them blindly following the Erinys. He gave her a reassuring smile and mouthed it’s going to be okay.
It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay, Hailey told herself over and over again. But when she reached the end of the tunnel, she realised things were very far from being okay.
A colossal cavern stretched before her with a fiery sky that flowed like lava and rained ash, making the whole place smell like smoke.
‘Move,’ the Erinys barked, shoving Hailey.
She tripped forward, gasping as the intensity of the cavern’s heat enveloped her, making her feel as though she’d fallen into an oven. She stumbled to her knees and silently screamed, her body paralysing.
A dark abyss extended below her.
She had been too busy gazing at the burning sky to notice the cavern was one big bottomless pit. She definitely noticed now. And was too terrified to even breathe, afraid she might fall into the chasm and find out just how endless it was. Can a person fall forever?
‘Hailey, are you okay?’ Demi’s hysterical voice asked.
Hailey couldn’t answer. She’d forgotten how to speak.
‘Get up,’ the Erinys hissed.
‘Don’t,’ Hailey heard Alec beg in a quiet voice. She assumed one of her friends—probably Aaron—had been about to push the Erinys over the edge. She agreed with Alec that it was a really bad idea. The Erinys would dematerialise as she fell and rematerialise back on the ground and probably knock them off in vengeance.
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