by Bree Despain
That small voice, the one that has been in my head, telling me that I am not acting like myself, grows louder.
“That’s quite enough!” Garrick shouts. “Take him to the gate.”
I hear Daphne protest. She’s trying to tell Garrick that she needs to do something, but he doesn’t listen. I am being dragged away from Daphne. Instead of feeling hate and betrayal, my instinct is to try to cling to her, but the fetters on my arms won’t allow me to reach for her. My captors drag me toward the corridor that leads out of the throne room.
“Finish the binding ceremony!” I hear the Heirs demand. They tell her I will be killed unless she partakes of the fruit.
I twist in my captors’ arms, just in time to watch Garrick offer the pomegranate to Daphne again. Before, I had seen her choice as illogical. A poor trade. But now I understand why she’s doing it.
She loves me.
That thought melts through me as more warmth pulsates from the wound in my chest. Only moments before, I had felt incapable of caring, and now I care more than anything in the world about stopping her.
I thrash against my captors. Try to lift the leather straps that entrap my arms against the arrowhead protruding from my chest in an effort to cut them away. That effort fails.
I watch, horror-struck, as Daphne takes the pomegranate from Garrick and plucks one red seed from its flesh.
I have to stop her.
I channel the electric heat from my body into my arms. It pulses into my hands, and I send it crackling against my own chest. I electrocute myself in an effort to burn away the tethers on my arms. I writhe with pain as Daphne presses the red, gemlike seed to her lips, and I manage to rip one of my hands from the singed cords. I fling a bolt of lightning, blasting the pomegranate from her hands. She jumps back, and it falls to the ground as ash. But I can tell from the look on her face that I hadn’t stopped her altogether. She’d already swallowed the one seed.
“No!” I shout, but I am so weak from absorbing my own blast that I am unable to struggle anymore.
“Take Daphne to the chambers that are reserved for the queen,” I hear Garrick say as I am dragged into the antechamber. I feel one of the guards’ hands closing around my neck and forehead. I have become too much of a nuisance, and will be rendered incapacitated for our journey back to the gate. And there is nothing I can do to stop it.
When I open my eyes, I find myself back in the grove. For a fleeting moment, I think that I never left—that I had only suffered a terrible dream after being knocked unconscious by Rowan. But I take in my surroundings and realize that there has been a battle here. Burned trees, and blackened rocks that have been struck by bolts of lightning. I remember the throne room and Garrick ordering my banishment, and watching Daphne with the pomegranate as I was dragged away.
Daphne!
I scramble to the two arched trees that cloak the gate in the mortal world. The green glow is gone, but I still try to thrust my hand through the archway. Nothing.
I hear a faint groan that sounds distinctly female. It comes from somewhere in the grove. My heart pounds against my chest as I follow the sound. I let myself believe that it is Daphne, until I find Terresa lying near a copse of trees in the grove. She groans, cracking her eyes to look at me for a moment and then seems to fall asleep.
I search her pockets, looking for a phone. I need to know the date.
If I have been gone for more than thirty-two hours, that means the equinox has already passed. I find her phone and fumble it open. Then throw it against the ground and watch it break against a rock. It is too late. The equinox is over. Without the Key, Persephone’s Gate won’t open again on its own for another six months.
I am trapped in the mortal world, and Daphne is a captive in the Underrealm.
It is my hubris that brought this upon us. I’d thought I could choose my own path. Weave my own destiny. But the thread I’d been clinging to hasn’t just slipped through my fingers, it has unraveled and snapped. Broken by my desperate attempts to keep hold of it.
In trying to keep Daphne out of the Court’s hands, I caused her to give herself over to them.
I fall to my knees. I want to sob, but I can’t seem to muster the strength for it. My arm throbs again, and I notice that the black inkiness in my veins has started to spread again, as if fighting back against the red. I don’t understand the meaning of this, and the red arrow had disintegrated when I blasted my own chest.
Just as I feel utterly alone in my hopelessness, something small and furry brushes against my leg. “Brim?”
She yowls at me and jumps up on my knees. Her gray fur is matted with blood, as if she’s been in a fight. “Where’s Dax?” I ask.
She shakes her little head and then bristles, sniffing the air.
I cast about and find that we are not alone. Two others lie in the grove, not quite yet recovered from the black sleep. I have not only been trapped in a world that is not my own, but I have been left with Rowan and Ren as my companions in exile.
chapter sixty-three
DAPHNE
It was such a small thing—a pomegranate seed. It had sat like a plump red droplet of blood on the tip of my finger, like I’d pricked myself on a thorn. All I had to do was suck the sweet yet sour flesh from it. Let it dissolve on my tongue and allow the tartness to slip down my raw, parched throat. It had only taken me a moment to eat something so small. It had only taken a moment to change everything—to seal my fate to this dark place forever.
It didn’t matter that Haden had blasted the rest of the pomegranate from my hand. It didn’t matter that the rest of it had been destroyed. The one seed had been enough. I can feel a change starting to come over me. Starting to make me feel rooted here. The stronger the feeling grows, the more I know I need to escape.
Garrick had ordered Haden away before I’d had a chance to actually kiss him. There are less than two weeks left until the black arrow’s curse will take him over completely. I’d already seen its effects in a mild form—once it was permanent, I could only imagine in terror what Haden might do to himself.
And unless I can find the missing Key, the gate won’t open again until it’s too late.
I pace the bedchamber where I have been sent to wait. The bed, draped in filmy veils, calls to me. I am pretty sure it’s been nearly two days since I slept. But I won’t give in.
As I wait, I try testing my vocal powers again, but, once more, no sound comes out when I try to sing or hum. I remember Haden telling me once that music had been forbidden here ever since Orpheus used his powers to betray Hades. I had assumed it was just against the rules, but maybe it had been forbidden in a more literal sense. Like the palace itself had been warded against music?
Finally, there’s a knock at my door. I check the little carved-out window and see Garrick standing outside. He still wears the golden-wreath crown. I pull the door open and beckon him inside. “What took you so long?” I ask as he enters. The longer I had been made to wait, the more I had started to feel like a prisoner.
“I wanted to find something for you,” Garrick says. He holds out his hand, offering me a necklace. It’s a pomegranate pendant, encrusted with rubies, dangling from a delicate gold chain. It looks positively ancient—like something you’d see encased in glass in a museum.
“I can’t take that,” I say. “It’s too valuable.”
“It is valuable. Many of the queens have worn it. The servants even whisper that it had once belonged to Persephone herself.” He presses the necklace into my palm. “I want you to have it. My queen deserves the best.”
“Your queen?” I ask. “I am not your queen.”
“Yes, you are.” There is something very wrong with the way Garrick looks at me. “You are bound to me. That makes you my queen.”
“What?” I take a step back, realizing that Garrick’s behavior in the throne room might not have just been a ruse for the Court’s benefit. My head starts to spin as I realize that I have betrothed myself to Garrick.
/> “Are you okay?” he asks, stepping even closer.
“Yes, I’m just tired. I want to go to sleep.” And get him out of here as fast as I possibly can. “Alone.”
“Very well,” he says. “You’ll need your rest. We’ll head out to get the Key first thing in the morning. My friends are very anxious to have it.”
His friends?
I want to ask what he means, but I also don’t want to give him any reason to stay longer. I need to get out of here.
“Good night,” Garrick says as he takes his leave, shutting the door behind him.
Much to my horror, I hear him turn the lock.
So I am to be a prisoner here?
I run to the door and peer out the little window, wondering how I can unlock it without the use of my powers. As I watch Garrick walk away down the torch-lit corridor, I notice something that I didn’t see before.
Garrick has two shadows.
chapter sixty-four
TOBIN
I stand in a cold, dank cell, shivering in my damp clothes. I was pulled from the river by a group of shades who would have devoured me if it had not been for the soldiers who arrived on horseback, scaring the faceless creatures away with electrified staffs. For a moment, I’d felt grateful to my rescuers. Until they informed me that I was being taken to the palace to be charged with trespassing.
The door swings open with a thunk. “The king will see you now.”
I follow the guard down a long corridor lit with torches until we arrive at a room that resembles a private dining hall. My mouth waters from the smell of food that wafts through the doorway. I am ushered inside by the guard and told to sit in a high-backed, cushioned chair. I sink into it and drool at the spread in front of me (roasted meats and cheeses and bowls of fruit) that seems fit for a king.
“Help yourself,” the guard says.
It has probably been more than a day since I have eaten, but I resist, thinking of what Daphne had said about not eating in the underworld. (I’m pretty sure this spread has been put here just to torture me.)
The door opens again and I hear someone enter. “This is the trespasser,” I hear the guard say to the new person before he leaves.
“Hello, Tobin,” says a familiar voice.
I pull my attention away from the smorgasbord in front of me to see Garrick take a seat in a wooden chair at the head of the table. He wears some sort of golden-wreath crown on his head. I laugh with relief at seeing him, and a plethora of questions come tripping out of me. “Are you a prisoner, too? Where’s Daphne? Have you seen Haden? When do you think this king guy is coming? Do you think we can make a run for it before he does?”
Garrick laughs at my barrage of questions. He picks up a hunk of cheese from the buffet and bites into it like he has all the time in the world. “I am the king now,” he says, pointing at the crown on top of his head.
I start to laugh again, but then I realize that he’s being serious.
“How long was I in that river?” I ask. “Obviously a lot happened while I was gone.”
“More than you’ll ever know.” He takes another bite of cheese and chews it as though he’s thinking something over. “Actually, why not tell you everything? It’s not like you’ll ever get the chance to share it.” There’s a sinister edge to his voice that makes me question whether or not I want to hear what he has to say, but still, I sink deeper into my chair.
“You see,” Garrick says, eating a hunk of meat with his fingers now. “I’ve been playing everyone since the day I arrived in Olympus Hills. Actually, much earlier than that, but let’s stick to the topic at hand. Everyone looks at me like I’m some poor, pathetic Lesser boy, so I play that to my advantage. I had everyone fooled, including you.” He takes another bite of meat, the grease dripping off his fingers. “Even Terresa. I’m the one who tipped her off, you know. I convinced her to pretend to be Abbie on the phone in order to lure Dax away into a trap at the mill. And then I drugged Joe so everyone would think he was drunk.”
“Why?” I ask, still not sure if he’s trying to pull some sort of prank on me.
“So Haden would have to turn to me to be the one to go after Daphne in the grove. Things almost went south when Terresa showed up a few minutes too early. Unbeknownst to her, she was just supposed to show up in order to scare Daphne into wanting to go through the gate with me to get away from her. I took a blast from her, and things almost fell apart, but luckily, Rowan was arrogant enough to get it back on track. Frankly, his dragging Haden through the gate was a far better motivator than our fleeing from a Skylord.”
“But I thought you didn’t want to go into the Underrealm,” I say, remembering Garrick’s protests—his tears over the idea of returning to the Pits. “What was the point?”
“Because I didn’t just need Daphne to go through the gate with me; she needed to want to go through the gate with me. What better way to get someone to convince themselves that they want something than to make them try to make you want it? The more she thought I didn’t want to go, the more she practically begged me to help her get there.”
“Again, what was the point?” I ask, sinking even farther into the comfort of my chair. I feel like I should be getting angry, but my emotions remain even. Almost as if I can’t muster the energy it would take to be mad.
“Because of this,” Garrick says, pointing at his crown. “I knew that whoever took Daphne through the gate would become the next heir to the crown. We thought we were going to have to wait a while until we found the best way to get rid of Ren, but luckily, Lex had already taken care of that part. The Fates really seem to be smiling down on us lately.”
We? Us? I think, noting that Garrick has switched from speaking in the singular to the plural, like Golem from Lord of the Rings. This strikes me as odd.… But then I can’t remember why it should be strange.
“We did it so we would have the power to destroy the monsters who ruined my life.”
“The Keres? But why deviate from Haden’s plan? Why not just go along with his quest to kill the Keres in the first place?”
“I don’t want to kill the Keres. The Keres are my friends. The monsters are the Underlords. My filthy brothers included.”
I raise my eyebrows at him, the only incredulity that I can muster at the moment.
“The Keres practically raised me. I was only a small boy when I was banished to the Pits. I realized that they had a language of their own, and I learned to call them to me like Hades had once been able to. Everyone thinks they’re mindless creatures, but I know they are cunning warriors who resent their imprisonment. As the first creations of Hades, they should be the true Heirs to the Underrealm. We want the Key for ourselves so we can destroy the Underlords, who have kept us imprisoned for centuries. And then from there,” he says, smacking his greasy lips. “We’ll take over the five realms.”
“We? You keep saying we like you’re one of them.”
“I am one of them,” Garrick says, rising from his chair in front of the fireplace. Two long shadows stretch out in front of him. “I am their emissary. Their ears and their eyes in the outside world. Their hands to get them the Key. Which I will have for them when Daphne takes me to the Key tomorrow.” He straightens the crown on his head and smiles. “Maybe we didn’t actually need the crown in order to get the Key, but it sure feels good to have everything Haden has ever wanted. Daphne included.”
Daphne. A thought of concern for her flits through my head but is replaced by fatigue.
“Why are you telling me this?” I yawn. “Your villainous soliloquy is making me tired.” I try to stretch as I yawn again, but my arms don’t seem to want to move. I look down at them and see that the cushions on the armrests have snaked themselves around my arms. “What were we talking about?”
“I’m telling you all this because in a matter of minutes, you won’t remember a thing I said, because you’re sitting in the chair of forgetfulness. One of Hades’s favorite punishments for those who didn’t take him seriously
. You’ll sit in that chair, wasting away for all eternity, because you won’t remember why you need to get up.”
“Why not just kill me now?”
“Because this is more fun,” he says, heading for the door. “And because we need collateral. If Daphne changes her mind about getting us the Key, we now have something to incentivize her with.”
As Garrick leaves, I want to scream. I want to claw my way out of the chair.
But I can’t remember why.
It’s so comfortable here. I think I’ll just sit a while longer.…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without the support and hard work of many amazing people. I guess you could say that it takes a village to raise a book. Much gratitude goes out to Ted Malawer and Michael Stearns of Upstart Crow Literary, along with the indelible crew at Egmont USA, namely: my new editor (who picked up the baton in the middle of this series and hasn’t missed a step), Jordan Hamessley, and Andrea Cascardi, Georgia Morrissey, Margaret Coffee, Michelle Bayuk, Esther Lin, and Bonnie Cutler. (With a side-note shout-out to my old editor, Greg Ferguson, who helped me develop the first book in this series.)
Thank you to my many friends and family members who provide moral support and enthusiasm (and occasional great lunch companionship) with particular shout-outs to J.R. Johansson, Sara Raasch, Kim Webb Reid, Natalie Whipple, Sara B. Larson, Chersti Nieveen, Colleen Houck, Rachel Headrick, Angela Pederson, Michelle Sallay, Brooke Morris, Noreen Gibbons, and doubly to my parents, Nancy and Tai Biesinger.
Extra, extra special thanks go out to two great friends and beta readers, Sara Raasch and Jenilyn Collings. Your ideas and insights helped me take this story to a whole new level.
Squishy hugs go to my two amazing and (sometimes) patient boys. Between being an author and a mother, I have the two best jobs in the world.
Thank you to the many booksellers and librarians who help put books into the hands of readers—with special gratitude to the enthusiastic and supportive staff at my local indie, The King’s English. And to you, dear reader, for picking up this book. I have always believed that a story doesn’t live until it is read, so thank you for giving this one life.
