A young shadowling dropped her flower on the street and tugged on her mother’s hand, begging to go back to pick it up. Her mother leaned down and gently touched her daughter’s face, wiping the tears from her eyes as the father went back for the flower. The little girl’s eyes lit up as he handed it to her and kissed her forehead.
I wanted to look away, knowing that would never be my life. But I couldn’t force my eyes away from the happy family. It didn’t matter that I would never have a true husband or that I would probably never have shadowlings of my own. It was no longer about me and what I wanted in my deepest heart.
It was about them. These demons here in the castle and all those who were still unprotected by any walls. It was about the demons in the villages who struggled to survive. All of them had lost someone they loved. I was not unique in that manner.
We had all lost something in this war.
We had all sacrificed our dreams in some way, but as I watched the pretty shadowling girl disappear into the crowd surrounding the castle, I realized that she was the one I did this for. Those of us old enough to understand the Order’s evil would never be the same, even after the war was over. But if we won and the Order ceased to exist, there was hope for that little one. Hope that she would someday be free to marry the love of her life and start a family of her own. Hope that her children would never know the suffering we had known.
The Shadow World was weakened, but it was not dead. As long as we kept fighting, there was the chance of a better future for my people. I would not let them down.
“It’s time to get dressed for the banquet,” Presha said. “Come inside, Princess.”
I nodded, but lingered on the balcony for a few minutes. Tonight they would reintroduce me to the demons of the King’s City as their long-lost princess, returned from the war unharmed and ready to take my place at the king’s side. Ready to become engaged to a demon I’d never met in the name of duty and loyalty.
I thought of the axe I’d hidden under my bed this morning. I’d had it secretly commissioned from the royal weaponsmith, and although it wasn’t a perfect replica of Aerden’s original axe, it was a weapon worthy of his strength.
I thought of the battles ahead, longing for my bow.
It wouldn’t be long now.
“Why isn’t she ready?” Anastia’s voice rose from the other room, and I sighed. “The doors have opened downstairs, and she isn’t even dressed.”
“Princess?” Presha asked.
“I’m coming,” I said.
Tonight would be my greatest test so far, and in two days the King’s Games would begin.
Aerden’s test. He’d volunteered, like I knew he would. He was strong enough to win, but only if he believed it. I refused to watch him die.
The future was so uncertain for both of us.
For all of us.
I missed the days when we were a group. I think I had taken it for granted those months we lived together at Brighton Manor. I had allowed my own pain and the bitterness I felt at Jackson and Harper’s relationship to blind me to the love that surrounded me when I was there. Here in the castle, I was the loneliest I had ever been in my life, and I missed them.
Even Harper, though I’d never admit it to her face.
Where was she? Was she still alive?
I’d always been so hard on her, but the truth was that she had united us all. This half-human teenager had forced us all to set aside our differences and work together. She was the princess I had failed to be.
I wouldn’t fail again.
Someday soon, I would get the chance to be the leader everyone expected me to be. I hoped I was half the leader she’d been.
We were scattered now, all on our own individual journeys, facing our own nightmares. But we’d be together again. I was connected to them even though we were apart. They were a piece of me, and I drew strength from their love.
Someday, Harper would bring us all together again, and we’d be a family.
“Wherever you are,” I whispered into the night, “come back to us. We need you.”
To Save Us All
I walked around in a fog the next day, images of the house across the street creeping into my nightmares and making it impossible for me to get any sleep.
What kind of demented person kept girls frozen and dressed like little dolls in her bedroom?
Someone evil.
There was no doubt that the woman who owned that house—Dr. Evers’s mother—was the one behind this place. She was responsible for every girl here, and everything that had happened to us.
Had she even set that fire at my house?
Had she killed someone close to me?
I knew from talking to Brooke that my father had died before the fire at my home. And deep inside of me, I knew that I had never met my own mother. I couldn’t explain how I knew, but as my powers grew, some of the truth came with it.
Who was the girl I cradled in my arms when I dreamed of the fire? I could almost feel her long blonde hair draped across my arm, her body ice-cold despite the flames that raged around us.
She had meant something important to me, and whoever this woman was, she had taken her from me.
I was going to get my memories back. I was going to find my way out of this place someday and make her pay for what she had stolen.
But how? I was running out of time.
She’d set a trap for Jackson, which meant he’d been searching for me. If she hurt him in any way, the witch would live only to regret it for a moment before I ended her life.
He had been my solace in this place. My memories of him were the only ones strong enough to resist any torture they’d performed on me before they brought me here, which meant that he was a part of me. What we had was stronger than magic.
“Harper, are you coming?” Nora asked. She’d been quiet lately, at least around me. The first few weeks I was here, she’d hardly shut her mouth, but even Nora seemed to understand that things were getting dangerous around here.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. I stood and straightened the sheets on my bed before I joined her in the doorway of our room. I noticed we were one person short, though. “Where’s Mary Ellen?”
“I don’t know,” Nora said. “She never came back from breakfast.”
She was so quiet, I had completely missed the fact that Mary Ellen hadn’t been around this afternoon or at lunch. I’d been so wrapped up in my own thoughts, it hadn’t even dawned on me.
Was she in some kind of trouble?
It was hard to imagine since she was always docile. She never stepped out of line or talked back to anyone. Maybe she wasn’t feeling well.
I shuddered at the image of her dressed in a frilly child’s gown with a bonnet on her head.
One of the nurses led us outside. It was fully spring now, with birds chirping all around and the sun warm on our faces as we stepped into the light. Someone had already wheeled the girls in wheelchairs out into their row near the cement benches. They stared ahead, their eyes blank, as if they weren’t even aware of their surroundings.
“What happened to those girls?” I asked Nora.
“Which girls?” she asked, looking around.
“The ones in wheelchairs and up there sitting on the benches?” I asked. “I only see them out here and in the rec room. They don’t even talk to each other. What happened to them?”
She shook her head and looked away. “Those are the girls who have been taken in for the procedure.”
“What procedure?” I touched her arm as she started to walk away.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said. “Can’t we just enjoy the sun for a little while?”
“I need to know, Nora,” I said softly. “I need to understand what’s going on in this place.”
“No, you don’t,” she said, yanking her arm away from me. “That’s your problem, Harper. You can’t just let things be, and it’s going to get you into trouble.”
“You seriously don’t care tha
t they’re holding us here for no real reason?” I asked. “That they torture us if we break the rules and no one seems to care or stand up for us? None of that matters to you?”
“What matters to me is staying alive,” she said. “You’ve already gotten into trouble once. If they catch you again…”
Her voice drifted off and she looked away, hugging her arms close to her body.
“What?” I asked. “If they catch me, what?”
“They won’t settle for shock therapy or injections,” she said. “They’ll take you straight to the procedure, and you’ll end up just like those other girls. You think it’s bad to lose your memories? What if you lost everything? Your mind. Your ability to walk or talk. It isn’t worth it.”
“We’re prisoners in here,” I said. “How could it not be worth it to try to fight them?”
Tears welled up in her eyes and she moved to stand beside me. “Do you see that girl on the far right? The one with the pink ribbon in her hair?”
I nodded.
“That’s Jessica. She was my best friend my whole life, even before we got thrown in here,” she said. “The nurses and Dr. Evers don’t know that I remember her, but after a few months here, we both realized how we knew each other. We used to sit and talk about what we remembered, trying to piece it all together. But then Jessica went too far. She got angry during a group therapy session and accused the nurses of trying to hold us hostage. She accused them of trying to manipulate our memories.”
“And they did this to her?” I asked.
“They tortured her first. Shock therapy. Injections. Maybe more that she didn’t tell me about,” she said. “She had cuts on her arms when she came back, just like you. For a while she didn’t even speak to me. She acted like she had never seen me before in her life. Then one day during dinner, she pulled me to the side. She told me if I ever got out of this place to promise to find her family and tell them she loved them.”
Nora started to cry, and I touched her arm, but she pulled away.
“I never spoke to her again. After dinner, she pulled a knife on one of the nurses. I don’t even know where she got it,” she said. “But she cut the woman pretty badly before they were able to drag her away. A few weeks later, she returned in a wheelchair, drooling all over herself. There’s nothing left of my best friend in there, anymore. I think she wanted to die, to be honest. I think she thought if she did something terrible, they would just kill her for it. I can’t imagine she wanted to end up like this. And neither do you.”
I stared at the girls in the perfect row near the door. “They’ve been lobotomized, haven’t they?”
It was a procedure everyone knew about, but no one actually performed anymore. Why wasn’t the government stepping in to intervene here?
“Just be careful,” Nora said. “Follow their rules. Tell them what they want to hear. Maybe someday, if we’re lucky, someone will come to save us. Until then, don’t let them take away what little of you there is left.”
She walked away, and my stomach twisted inside. Was that what everyone else here was doing? Waiting for someone on the outside to save us all?
And why did I suddenly feel like that someone was supposed to be me?
You Can Fly
Near the end of our rec time, the French doors swung open, and Mary Ellen stepped out onto the concrete patio. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, and she squinted against the sunlight.
I sat near the brick fence and watched as she made her way to a secluded spot next to the bird-bath and sat down. Her black hair hung around her face, hiding her from the rest of the girls in the courtyard.
I stood and walked over to her.
“Hey,” I said, sitting across from her.
She didn’t respond.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. “We were worried about you.”
She shook her head and began rocking back and forth, her arms clutched tightly to her body.
“Mary Ellen,” I said, touching her knee.
She stopped and looked up at me, her eyes wide. I’d never actually gotten a good look in her eyes before. She kept them hidden behind her hair and lowered to the floor most of the time, but the crystal-clear blue of them shook me to my core.
A memory flashed in my mind of a girl with pale skin, and I smiled. Mary Anne. The name came to me in an instant, and I knew her as though she had whispered it in my ear. Could this girl be related to her?
They had the same pale skin and striking blue eyes. The same raven-colored hair.
“Want to see something cool?” I asked.
Mary Ellen nodded, a light in her eyes that looked so innocent and scared. Childlike, though she must have been at least my age.
I searched the ground around us for a flower or leaf or something I could use. A clump of tall weeds grew around the base of the bird-bath, and I reached over and plucked them out at their roots.
I placed the grass in my palms, hiding them for a moment inside my hands. I brought them to my heart and closed my eyes, imagining the wings of tiny black birds flapping against my skin. I blew into a hole between my thumbs, pushing a piece of my magic into them.
I smiled at Mary Ellen and glanced around quickly to make sure we weren’t being watched. I opened my palms and a small cluster of black crows flew off my palms and into the air around her. She laughed and tried to catch them.
It was the first time I had ever seen her smile.
The birds faded a moment later, turning to grass again and falling across Mary Ellen’s legs and hands. She touched the green tip of one and looked up at me.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
I smiled. “Ah, so you can speak,” I said, an eyebrow raised.
A pink blush colored her cheeks and she looked down.
“It’s called a glamour,” I said. “Where you make one thing look like something else for a while. This one is kind of advanced, because I wanted to make them move like birds. It takes a lot of practice, but I bet you could learn to do it, too.”
“They were beautiful,” she said. She placed her hand on top of mine. “Thank you.”
“It’s worth it to see you smile,” I said. “What happened to you earlier? What did they do to you?”
She shook her head. “It’s just something they do sometimes,” she said softly. She held her arm out to me. Fresh pinpricks of red dotted the skin on her forearm.
“They injected you with something?”
“No,” she said, pulling her sleeve down. “They drew blood. I don’t know why. They say I’m special.”
“You can fly,” I said. The memories were right there on the edge of my consciousness. I could almost piece together the puzzle, but something was missing.
“What?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said with a half-smile. “Forget it. I’m crazy, remember?”
We laughed, and as I glanced around, the smile quickly faded from my face.
Judith was standing by the door, staring right at us.
Darkness Personified
I sped through the night, the motorcycle’s engine grumbling back at me from the tree line as it sliced through the darkness. I revved the engine, pushing harder. Faster.
It had been a long trip from Chicago to this small town in Tennessee, but I was almost there, and I was anxious now, adrenaline racing through my veins.
I itched to shift to shadow and fly to my destination, but where I was going I didn’t want to be followed. Using my demon magic would leave a trail, and I didn’t want to leave any sign that I had been there.
So I raced faster, the cold wind whipping at my face. The hood of my sweatshirt blew off my head, and my hair flew wildly against my skin, stinging me like a dozen tiny ropes whipping at my forehead.
It was quiet here on the back roads of Tennessee. I hadn’t seen a car in hours. There were only trees, and as I passed, I gathered tiny amounts of their power, sucking it in through my nose as I breathed. I didn’t take enough f
or it to be noticeable. Not enough for someone to track me. Just enough to fill me up so that when I needed it later, I would be able to cast and kill.
The people I was going to see were not known for their hospitality, and they were most certainly working with the emerald priestess. Lose-lose. Plus, I hadn’t seen Jereth in more than twenty years, and we hadn’t parted on good terms. To say the least.
But I had to try.
Even if I was walking straight into a trap, I had to go. If there was any hope of finding her, I couldn’t just walk away.
I saw her face in front of me at each mile, knowing this was for her. It was all for her. I couldn’t live without her, and I couldn’t feel anything but the distance between us.
I didn’t care what I had to do or who I had to face. If my actions had drawn the emerald priestess herself to Tennessee, then either she would die tonight, or I would.
I pulled into the parking lot of a shady honky-tonk, its neon lights the only thing visible for half a mile in either direction. A few pickup trucks with rusted beds were parked in the front spaces, but the place seemed mostly deserted.
Good.
The fewer humans here to witness whatever was about to go down, the better.
I pulled around back and parked my bike next to a pristine Harley-Davidson that probably cost ten times what mine had even when it was new. There was a row of hogs, each one bigger than the next. I guessed some demons really liked their bikes.
This crew especially.
My heart pounded as I stepped into a puddle of mud left from an early afternoon rain. What if this was the key? What if this was the last step to finding her?
I’d spent so much time searching when maybe the only thing I’d ever had to do was make a mess and wait for the witch to come to me.
I secured my hood over my head and pushed my sunglasses back up the bridge of my nose. I was in all black tonight: Black jeans, boots, jacket, hoodie. Black soul. All of it. Without her, I was darkness personified, and I knew there would be no more light until she was safe in my arms.
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