I’ll find us a way in, Caleb. I fiercely made the silent promise to my husband. I knew that the whole of GASP was behind us, but when it came down to it, our kids were in that portal, and I wouldn’t rest until Caleb and I were in whatever alternate dimension was hidden behind that black goo—whether the stones worked or not.
A few moments later Corrine reappeared.
Horatio, Aisha and Nuriya all agreed to join us on the trip back to Fair Isle. I was glad that the jinn would be joining us—if the stones had been created by their people, however long ago, then it made sense to me that their magic would be more attuned to them.
Corrine transported us all back to the door of the moldy pub where the others waited. One of the witches, Shayla, rushed out to greet us, shielding us all from the downpours of rain that were currently drenching the small island.
We hurried inside, greeting the small army of witches and vamps who were ready to do whatever it took to get the portal open. It was a reassuring sight.
“Did you get what you need?” Shayla asked.
“We did.”
I decided not to immediately divulge the information on the Shadowed. It was something that could wait until we’d opened up the portal; Dad would now be the one to decide what would happen there—and work it out with Sherus.
“We should get going.” I looked to Corrine and Mona, who both nodded.
“There’s a storm coming,” Mona replied. “I can hold the worst of it off, but not without diverting my energy from the portal, so the sooner we get going, the better.”
“Hold hands, everyone,” Corrine instructed, “and don’t let go once we arrive at the portal. I want our power at its strongest.”
In an instant, we were out in the middle of the ocean—fierce waves spraying us with salt water as we hovered in a circle around the black mass of tar. The wind whipped at my hair, taking it out of its clasp so I could hardly see what was going on around me. Corrine tightened her grip on my hand, as if reminding me not to let go.
Suddenly, the bag of stones shot out into the middle of the circle. One by one, the dull-colored pebbles emerged and started to form a circular shape which hovered just above the mouth of the portal.
While the storm raged on around us, I noticed that we were immune to the worst of it—Mona had obviously decided to use some of her powers to protect us, but I wished she hadn’t. I wanted all her focus on the stones, but I also knew it certainly wasn’t my place to tell the witch what to do.
So I waited.
I glanced over at Claudia, who had the same hopeful and fierce expression on her face that I imagined I had on mine—we were both determined that this would work. No one said a word as the witches and jinn all focused on the small stones floating in front of us.
Please work, I prayed silently.
Even though I knew I couldn’t make any difference of my own, I willed the stones to work their magic—copying the witches’ intense focus, not removing my glare from their smooth surface. I did worry for a moment that we were working with objects that contained malevolent, ancient creatures, but recalling Nuriya’s words reassured me. We weren’t powerful enough to open them – whatever was contained within would stay there while we borrowed their energy…I just hoped it was enough.
Corrine inhaled sharply next to me, and in that moment, one of the stones started to glow. It was only faint at first, a slight luminosity appearing in a green haze around it, but before long the others started to do the same—each stone glowing a slightly different hue till all the stones made up every color of the rainbow.
Oh, my… It’s working!
Ben
“Is that all we have?” my father asked wearily.
I nodded with the same fed-up expression. We had been researching for days, but hadn’t come up with anything that might even hint at a supernatural power emerging somewhere on Earth. The only stand-out event had been a hurricane, but it all appeared perfectly normal—it had started in the Atlantic Ocean, drifting over to Miami, and hadn’t caused any great devastation other than a few fallen trees and some miserable holiday-goers.
“Is there nothing further you can tell us, nothing at all?” my father asked Sherus for what felt like the millionth time.
The fae shook his head. “I wish I could, but I have nothing more to go on. I had hoped that more would reveal itself, perhaps even in a dream, but there has been nothing.”
I tried to hide my irritation. I believed the fae that something was headed our way, but right now we also had family members stuck in another dimension that we knew nothing about, and I felt like both mine and Dad’s efforts would be of better use helping Rose and Caleb and the rest of the witches.
“I don’t have much,” my mom said as she entered the room, holding some printed papers aloft. “A slight rise in Assault and Battery charges, street arrests slightly higher, and a spike in young people being sectioned under the Mental Health Act in coastal areas, which I actually thought might be of interest to Rose…it reminded me of those Murkbeech children.”
“We should inform her,” my father agreed. “But I think right now they’re at the portal, and nothing else sounds like it’s going to be helpful to us.”
“No.” My mother shook her head. “It’s pretty quiet all over the world.”
“What portal?” Lidera asked sharply.
I glanced at her, belatedly realizing that we had filled Sherus in on the situation with the GASP kids, but not his sister.
“We have reason to believe that some of the kids who were sent off to a summer camp have been taken into another dimension—there’s a portal in the North Atlantic that they’re investigating. It’s locked, but jinn have been called in to assist the witches in opening it.” I gave her the shortened version of the story, hoping that we could skip past it and get the meeting tied up—if there was any way we could help Mona and Corrine get it open, I wanted in.
Lidera’s eyes narrowed as soon as the jinn were mentioned.
“Doesn’t this portal sound like it could have something to do with the signs Sherus is experiencing? Do we even know what’s contained within it, where it leads?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” I replied. “We’ll know soon enough, they’ve spent all day trying to open it.”
Before I could say another word, Caleb entered the room, his usually controlled appearance transformed into agitation as he stalked in, frowning at the two fae.
“Derek, Ben—I need to speak to you,” he announced, his brown gaze still fixed on Sherus and Lidera in deep disdain.
“Go ahead, Caleb,” my father replied, looking curiously at his son-in-law.
“The jinn took us to the In-Between, to visit a planet containing stones that we needed to access the portal. When we arrived, we came face to face with creatures that the jinn call the Shadowed—fae who live out their lives on the planet as punishment, being slowly driven insane by the power of the stones. They have become pitiful wretches of the creatures they once were.” He turned once more and glared at Sherus. “It is inhumane, an abomination. We cannot help those who hold their own people’s lives in such disregard.”
My father and I turned to Sherus in stunned silence. Was this true?
I expected the fae to deny it, but instead he rose from his seat with a look of horror on his face.
“What makes you think that the stones will open the portal?” he asked in a whisper.
“So you do not deny it?” Caleb retorted.
“Tell me about the stones,” the king insisted, ignoring Caleb’s accusations.
“One emerged from the portal. One of the jinn said she recognized it, and that more of them might hold enough power to overcome whatever bound it shut,” Caleb replied, his temper draining in the face of Sherus’s ambivalence to the charges being laid at his door.
“And you are opening the portal now, with these stones?”
“Yes.”
Caleb’s reply was terse, but I knew him well enough to know that he was starti
ng to question their actions.
“You FOOL!” Sherus slammed his fist down on the table in anger. “The jinn used those stones to lock in the most evil and dark souls. The In-Between became a dumping ground for jinn undesirables—and you have just opened a portal using the very same stones? You have no idea what might be contained within that dimension! No idea of the horror that might be unleashed! It could be full of the creatures that the jinn held bound—and held bound with good reason!”
“Has the portal been opened yet?” my father asked quickly.
“No, not yet,” Caleb said.
“Then stop it at once!” Sherus roared.
“Our KIDS are in there!” Caleb replied, his fangs shooting out as he hissed at the fae king. “That portal needs to be opened!”
“Get Rose on the phone,” my father commanded. “Before it’s too late.”
Ash
The Impartial Ministers stepped up onto the pavilion. For the first time since I was a young boy, their appearance didn’t stir in me the same reverence and respect that I’d always held them in. Now they seemed as crooked as Lithan, no more mysterious and worldly than the ministers who worked for the Hellswan kingdom…and I had always held them in complete contempt. Jenney and I had spent many long hours in the kitchen discussing their misdeeds—the mistresses, the drunkenness and the narrow-minded attitude of most of them had always reduced us to tears of laughter. Now the idiocy of both the ministers and the Impartial Ministers no longer seemed like a joke, but a deadly mistake. How had the kingdoms continued to let them wield so much power? How had we all been so blind to their limitations?
One of them banged down a wooden staff, designed to command immediate attention. Memenion’s and Queen Trina’s ministers stood to attention immediately, but Memenion barely glanced in their direction—no doubt still fixated on the news I’d just delivered. I knew it had been a mistake to tell him prior to the trial. If anything were to happen to him, I would only have myself to blame.
“We have come to the penultimate trial. Those of you who have gotten this far, congratulate yourselves on your fortitude and know that it will stand you in good stead as you continue to rule your kingdoms.”
I wanted to laugh. What about the kingdoms that had lost perfectly good leaders because of these trials? Hadalix, Thraxus—both good kings who would be missed by their people. It suddenly seemed like a meaningless waste…lives lost because of the games of a few old, decrepit men.
“The trial will be a test of your willpower to see if you can resist the strongest call—that of the heart’s desire. To see if you can put lust and desire aside to do the honorable thing—to answer to integrity, to faith.”
I resisted the urge to scoff. The Ministers didn’t know anything about integrity or honor. If they did, they wouldn’t be standing here, preaching to us as Nevertide sank further and further into its inevitable end. Why were we standing around a stone pavilion, being tested, while the entity rose?
“No weapons will be needed for the trial,” the minister began. “You are the only weapon that will—”
The Minister broke off suddenly as the ground beneath the pavilion started to rumble with a low, insistent tremor. After a few moments, it stopped.
“As I was saying, you alone will be the weapon—”
A resounding crack splintered the air. It was a few moments before I realized that the sound had come from the stone of the pavilion—a split ran through the center, a jagged hairline that divided the stone in two. The split widened, dust pluming up from the stone and the black crevice yawning open.
Everyone staggered back, holding on to the arches as the rumbles from the earth began again, sending the ornate decorations at the top of the arches crashing to the floor and smashing into thousands of pieces. I looked around, noticing that the disturbance wasn’t isolated to the pavilion. All around us the trees were starting to shake. Horrific tearing sounds screamed from the depths of the forest—the screeches of rock cracking and grinding against itself, and then the low rumble of timber whistling through the air as the trees began to collapse.
“What is going on?” one of the ministers roared, slamming his staff down as if he could command nature itself to stop and obey him.
All around us, the ground was starting to split open. The cracks ran across the earth as if nature itself was dividing up the six kingdoms, severing our lands. Rocks leered up from the depths of the soil, jutting off at odd angles, their stone as black as night and jagged.
I heard the cries of the birds; they had all launched themselves up into the sky, too terrified to land, and had begun to circle the chaos beneath. As I looked up, I stumbled backward instinctively—the sky had torn.
That makes no sense!
But it was the only logical explanation for what I could see. The morning sky, gold and pink, had been carelessly ripped open, leaving a long, ragged scar that revealed the night’s sky—an endless black dotted with the cold glow of stars.
What in Nevertide is happening?
I watched, astonished, as one of the arches of the pavilion launched itself forward. As if in slow motion, the stone came toppling down, its already broken tip spearing the body of one of the Ministers who hadn’t thought to move in time—had thought that he was immune to the dangers that ravaged the land around us. His body crumpled to the floor.
As if some switch had been flicked inside me, I immediately came to my senses—I needed to run.
“MEMENION!” I bellowed over the noise, catching his attention as he stumbled back from the steps of the pavilion. Righting himself, he ran forward, his ministers behind him. Launching himself over the gaping crevice in the stone, he landed a meter away from me, skidding to a halt.
I pointed up at the birds, indicating that we needed one of them to land. Simultaneously we started to run for the forest edge back where I’d originally landed. The black rocks created an obstacle course, but the earth’s cracks were smaller. If we reached the edge of the forest and managed to get one of the birds to land, we might have a chance. I turned to look behind me once, relived to see that Memenion was keeping pace—but Queen Trina had the same idea, and was hot on our heels.
I launched myself forward, feeling another tremor erupting beneath me. I heard the creak and groan as the ground split. I heard the strangled cry as Memenion stumbled.
No!
I spun back around, diving forward to catch the king before his body was swallowed by the earth. I grabbed him around the upper torso, but he slipped further from my grasp as another tremor shook the rock. I was left with only my hand clasped onto his arm, doggedly holding on as the king looked up at me, his legs swinging above a bottomless eternity.
“Hold on!” I yelled, tightening my grip with all the strength I had. “I’m going to create a barrier!”
I wanted to look away. I saw the look of defeat in the king’s eyes—he couldn’t hold on for much longer.
How can I do this if you can’t believe you can do this?
I wanted to scream at the king, but focused my energy on trying to secure a barrier that would hold him. On the fourth attempt, Memenion’s arm slipped further.
“Help me!” I cried down to him. The barrier was impossible to secure—the earth kept shifting, breaking any bonds I tried to make, the screams of the earth shattering my concentration each time that it jolted.
Giving up, I forgot trying to create a barrier and tried to focus on catching the attention of one of the birds. I could hardly distinguish one from another, their hysteria melding them together as one as they flapped and shrieked above us in the sky. I glanced upward as I heard one of them swooping down toward Queen Trina. She was on the opposite side of the crevice. She reached her arms upward, jumping up to close the space between them and clasping the bird’s claws. It rose back upward, the queen dangling from its feet. Envy shifted to shock as the bird was knocked sideways by a rock tearing upward from the ground as the creature tried to ascend. It screeched, and Queen Trina was flung ont
o the earth next to me, unconscious. The bird flew off.
“I’ll get us another,” I cried desperately to Memenion, more to reassure myself than him. I felt my grasp on the king slip once again.
“Ashbik.”
I looked directly at the king, showing him that I was listening, but not daring to speak.
“This is the work of the entity.” The king spoke softly, calmly. “My son is one who set this in motion. The fault is mine. Perhaps this is the best way.”
“No! No, it is not the best way. Nevertide needs you, Memenion—I need you!” As the words left my mouth, I realized how true they were. How would I deal with all that was to come without him? I had no one to turn to, no one who could guide me if he was gone. I couldn’t do it alone. I wouldn’t.
“HOLD ON!” I shouted down to him, determined that I wouldn’t lose him.
“This is too good an end for her,” he breathed, glancing in the direction of Queen Trina. “She needs to be brought to justice. Take her back with you.”
“And you,” I argued, as Memenion released his hand from my arm. Without the extra grip, his robe slid through my fingertips. Memenion fell through the air, his hand reaching out to mine in a silent, final salute.
Memenion.
Another crash of rock ricocheted nearby, and I scrambled to my feet. Grabbing the dead weight of Queen Trina, I lifted her over my shoulder like a sack of grain and tore off toward the trees. I focused on reaching out to Tejus’s bird. I had thought that the vultures seemed like a hysterical mass, but perhaps it was the other way around.
I kept running, trying to glance in all directions as I scanned the ever-moving land for the bird. Just before I reached the trees, I heard a familiar squawk. My heart leapt as a large shadow loomed behind me. A second later, talons wrapped themselves around my waist, lifting both me and Queen Trina up in the air.
I wished dearly that it was Memenion’s body I held instead of the queen’s. There was no value in her life, and so much in his. The fact that he was buried at the earth’s core while Trina remained above it made my blood boil.