“Excellent.” The receptionist pushed her dark-framed glasses up her nose and peered at the contents of the folder on her desk. “Your guides will be ready shortly. You were informed that weapons are expressly forbidden, correct?”
“Yes,” Clio answered. Luckily, Kassia and Eryx were deadly even unarmed.
The door to the left of the desk swung open and four daemons entered: three men with dark hair and one with silvery hair at odds with his young face. They wore dark, casual clothing as though they were on their way to a pleasant evening on the town. All four stopped to stare at Clio in her fantastical outfit. At least they weren’t laughing.
Kassia shifted closer to Clio. “The pale one,” she whispered. “He’s a reaper. Watch your back.”
Clio’s gaze darted over the silver-haired man again. A reaper. Hades was a territory of reapers, so the presence of one wasn’t unusual, but she’d hoped to avoid interacting with them as much as possible.
“I will be your guide this evening,” the reaper said in a low, clipped voice. Clio opened her mouth to offer a polite greeting but the reaper plowed on without pausing. “We’ll be traveling by car to the ley line, then we will guide you through the line to our destination in the Underworld. From there, it will be an hour to Asphodel.”
An hour? She hid her frown, not keen on that much extra travel but understanding why. In the Overworld, most towns were built at a distance from ley lines, and it seemed the Underworld had done the same.
“The moment you set foot in the Underworld, you will be within Hades territory and expected to act accordingly. We in no way guarantee your safety, especially if you stray from your guides. Asphodel is the seat of Hades rule and the family estate. We have arranged accommodations should you need them, but as per your proposal, your business should conclude within twelve hours, at which point we will return you here to the embassy. Do you have any questions?”
Clio quirked her lips. Talk about attitude. She folded her hands neatly in front of her. “Is there anything else we should know about visiting the Underworld?”
“It will be dark.”
“Helpful.” The snappy response slipped out before she remembered she was supposed to be a mysterious and regal envoy.
“Your visit will be limited to Asphodel, and you will return directly to the ley line.” His upper lip curled. “I suggest you focus on your business. As I said, we do not guarantee your safety, so it would be in your best interest to restrain your curiosity.”
Clio stared him down from behind her mask, wishing she was taller—barely clearing five feet was such a drag sometimes—then nodded. “We’re ready.”
“This way.”
After an unpleasantly thorough weapons search, the reaper directed Clio, Kassia, and Eryx to a large van with blacked-out windows. A heavy panel separated the driver’s compartment from the passenger seats, creating a claustrophobic cave on wheels.
The ride was long and uncomfortable, the air stuffy and the silence oppressive. Clio wished she could have talked to Kassia to distract herself, but with two Hades guides sitting in the back with them, she didn’t say anything. Instead, she tried, and failed, to not think about what was coming.
Asphodel. The family seat of Hades. Eryx had already briefed her on it—a huge estate that was more like a small town populated by hundreds, or maybe thousands, of daemons. A decent percentage of them would be reapers, and a few of those reapers would be actual Hades family members.
She, Kassia, and Eryx wouldn’t be tangling with any reapers if they could avoid it. Chrysalis, though located in Asphodel, was semi-independent from the rest of the estate. Their mission was simple. Go to Chrysalis, engage in some pretend negotiation for spells, get a read on as many weavings as she could, then leave. In and out. She’d be back on Earth in time for the next sunrise.
Over an hour later, the van stopped. The side door opened and bluish light spilled inside. Clio clambered out to find the reaper and the other assistant already waiting, the latter holding a glowing sphere for illumination. The downtown skyscrapers were long gone, replaced by scraggily pine trees and windswept hills. A decrepit dirt road wound through the hills and vanished into the night.
But they weren’t here for the forest. Clio could feel the soft rush of nearby magic flowing through the earth. Adjusting her clothes, she turned toward the nose of the van, and there it was, fifty yards away.
The line of light surged upward like an aurora borealis anchored to the ground. Greens, blues, and purples shifted in a ceaseless dance, rippling like reaching hands for the sky that would forever be out of reach.
She stared at the ley line, mesmerized. Only when the reaper stepped in front of her did her trance break. He held out a thick strip of black fabric.
“You will be blindfolded from this point onward until we reach the outskirts of Asphodel. If you remove the blindfold, you will be killed.”
Her hand froze halfway to the scrap of cloth. Eryx no longer appeared confident or amused as he lifted his blindfold and tied it into place. Kassia held hers tight in one fist as she glanced at Clio.
Last chance to turn back.
Clio looked down at her blindfold. She understood the reason behind the threat; the locations of ley lines were closely guarded secrets, and Hades didn’t want visitors knowing where their lines were. But the simple, blunt promise of death had chilled her.
Last chance.
Slipping the cloth under her mask, she tied it tightly and pitch blackness closed over her. She feared the Underworld would be even darker.
Chapter Seven
The first thing she noticed about the Underworld was the smell. The crisp air carried so many unfamiliar scents. It wasn’t a disagreeable odor, just … alien.
The blindfold was spelled to block all vision. She couldn’t even peek out the bottom edge at the ground. Since they’d stepped out of the ley line, her fear had evolved into burning curiosity. She was in the Underworld—one of few Overworlders to visit it and possibly the first nymph—and she wanted to see it already.
Their guides, however, were keeping to their word. They’d loaded her, Kassia, and Eryx onto a cart pulled by some sort of hooved animal she could hear—and smell. The cart moved at a decent clip, bumping along a dirt road.
In the Overworld, modern Earth technologies were almost entirely shunned. Her home realm was one of lush, beautiful wilderness, and there was no place in it for smoke-belching power plants or concrete jungles or loud, stinking gasoline engines. Daemons did just fine with magic, and though there were a few small territories that had adopted industrial-style practices, she’d never seen a place like that herself.
Judging by the animal-drawn cart and dirt roads, the Underworld was the same. She wasn’t quite sure why, but the realization was a relief. Maybe because it made this foreign world more familiar.
She, Kassia, and Eryx didn’t speak as they rattled along the unseen road. Clio kept her face tilted up as she sorted through the different scents. She could definitely smell plant life, and the prospect of seeing new species that no nymph had ever seen before was strangely exciting.
She could do this. It was an adventure, like Eryx had said. An experience of a lifetime. She just had to make sure she survived it.
Around the time she was thinking an hour had definitely passed, the cart rolled to a stop. An animal grunted noisily.
“You can remove your blindfolds.”
Clio yanked at the ties and pulled the fabric off her eyes. Disappointment stabbed her—it was too dark to see anything. Then she looked past the heads of the two horse-like creatures pulling their cart and saw the lights.
It had to be a valley, though she couldn’t see the shape of it. Far below in the distance, a thousand lights twinkled in the darkness, revealing the shapes of exotic buildings and tangled streets. The reddish-gold tones were surprisingly charming.
The driver of the cart snapped the reins and the not-quite-horses started forward again. Squished between Kassia and Eryx, Clio tried to mainta
in her dignity as she bounced along on the bench. The reaper and another guide rode alongside the cart on saddled beasts.
Clio peered at one through her mask. It looked mostly like a gray-spotted horse, but …
It turned its head, one ear flicking toward her. Then it opened its mouth, baring predatory fangs. She jerked back and resolved to stare straight ahead.
They rolled down a winding road, their path murky beneath the guides’ hovering light orbs. As the estate’s warm blaze grew closer and closer, she surreptitiously lifted her mask to peek out at the road ahead. Torches awaited them, illuminating a large, smooth stone arch guarded by shadowed figures. Beyond them was … a bridge?
The cart slowed again as the dark silhouettes came toward them. She was expecting soldiers, but these … men … sent a visceral shudder deep through her body.
Long black cloaks wrapped their lean bodies, and deep hoods cast impenetrable shadows over their faces. They carried curved sabers, the wide blades gleaming in the spell light. With eerie, gliding steps, the six daemons circled the cart.
Clio huddled in her seat. Reapers. They had to be reapers. And unlike her guide, they weren’t in glamour.
“State your business,” a soldier said. Despite his bored tone, his hissing voice sent another shudder through her. At her slight movement, his head turned to her and his cloak shifted. The lights should have penetrated the shadows of his hood, but his face was completely obscured—except for the glint of one blood-red eye.
Their guide wordlessly pulled a sheet of paper out of his coat. The soldier reached up, the long sleeve of his cloak swinging, and took the paper with a pale, skeletal hand, his skin waxy with horned ridges running along the protruding bones.
He glanced over it, face still hidden, then handed it back. “Very well. Continue on.”
Their guide nodded and, as the soldiers returned to their posts, the cart rolled forward again. Clio tipped her head back, taking in the arch as they passed beneath it. Magic whispered across her skin. As the thud of hooves on the dirt road changed to the clack of stone, she looked over her shoulder, bringing her asper into focus to see what sort of ward stretched across the arch.
An enraged shriek cut through the other sounds.
Clio jerked straight, clutching Kassia’s arm. A strange thundering came from above them, then another harsh cry like a woman’s scream amplified by ten. A huge shadow plunged out of the darkness, and giant feathered wings flared wide.
The horse-beasts snorted and one reared, almost throwing its rider. The monstrous winged creature swept by, banked sharply, and dove again. An orb of fiery red light appeared in the reaper’s hand, and he hurled it at the giant bird.
The attack exploded against the creature’s underbelly. The bird wheeled away with an irritated cry. The beat of its wings in the darkness faded away.
Calming his mount, the reaper twisted in his saddle. “Next time, get off your asses, would you?” he shouted back at the guards.
The nearest one, leaning against the arch, called back in his sibilant voice, “It was just one. We chased off the rest of the flock earlier.”
The rest of the flock? Clio shrank down in the cart. One had been terrifying enough.
“Lazy,” the reaper muttered, then kicked his mount back into motion.
The cart rolled after him onto the wide, gradually arching bridge that appeared to span nothing but darkness.
“What was that?” Eryx asked their driver.
“A roc. Bloody oversized pigeons. They have a taste for the deinoses.” He nodded at the horse-beasts.
It hadn’t looked like a pigeon to her. More like an impossibly mammoth eagle.
Eryx glanced at the sky. “Do they attack daemons too?”
“Sometimes, but they don’t like magic. That one was trying to spook a deinos off the bridge for an easy meal.”
No railings or barricades protected the bridge’s edge, and the splashing rush of fast-moving water, scarcely audible over the clatter of hooves, sounded very far below. What a fun place to get attacked by flying predators.
“Are the rocs that intelligent?” Eryx asked in amazement, not sounding horrified enough. “What do you—”
“Quiet down,” their friendly reaper guide interrupted in an irritated snap.
They crossed back onto the nice, solid, bumpy dirt road, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The lights were so near they filled the horizon, and she leaned forward, impatient to see the infamous estate town. A twelve-foot wall of colossal stone blocks surrounded it, the barricade interspersed with tall watch towers. Another arched entryway awaited them, protected by more cloaked reaper soldiers who checked their guide’s paper before allowing them to pass.
Inside, the light was almost blinding. The road changed from dirt to cobblestone, and the spacious boulevard was lined with streetlamps that flickered with warm firelight. Buildings bordered the streets, wood or stone with large peaked roofs and elegant, curling eaves. The center of the street was divided by a broad median planted with strange trees—thin trunks that shot straight up before forming tight, round clusters of branches with leaves that looked red in the lamplight.
As much as Clio would have loved to hate it, she couldn’t deny its beauty.
They rolled down the boulevard before reaching a broad circle with a fountain in the center. Across the circle was another arched gateway leading to a courtyard. And at the far end of the courtyard was …
“The Hades residence,” their guide informed them tonelessly.
Clio shook her head. “Residence” was a gross understatement. It was a palace. Towering main doors, elaborate architecture, multiple connected wings that she could see from the street. Definitely a palace.
Their guide turned left, leading them away from the palace, and the streets grew narrower. The lamps disappeared, filling the cramped boulevard with darkness, and alleys hardly wide enough to walk through intersected their route. The buildings leaned in close. Was it just her imagination, or were there human-shaped shadows moving in those dark alleys?
The thought had scarcely popped into her head before a shadow ambled out of an alley and into the road. Stubby legs supported a broad torso with long arms that it used to brace itself against the ground in a rolling, gorilla-like gait. But its face looked like a squashed goat, and a mess of antlers sprouted from the top of its head.
It lumbered into the middle of the street and stopped, nostrils flaring as it gazed at the cart with slitted purple eyes. Then it grinned, displaying long fangs.
“Fresh meat, reaper?” It raised its head, snorting in a deep inhalation. “Those are no Underworlders, eh?”
“Get out of the way,” their guard ordered coldly.
It barked a deep laugh and meandered the rest of the way across the street. The reaper urged his mount forward and the cart rolled after him. Clio glanced back as they passed, and the creature met her stare, its forked tongue extending from its fangs. She shuddered.
“Was that a daemon?” she whispered to Kassia. “Or a monster?”
“A daemon,” their driver answered. “Not the kind that visits Earth.”
She could see why. Human tolerance for daemons would dry up in all of five minutes if people saw creatures like that wandering around in broad daylight.
They crossed a short bridge over a canal, and the buildings changed again. She was reminded of the industrial district of a human city—large, rectangular buildings with few windows, concrete facades, and minimal greenery.
The cart rolled around a sharp bend, and she knew they had reached their destination. A small courtyard preceded the largest building she’d seen besides the palace: bulky and gray, several stories tall with a flat roof. Light shone through the windows of double doors in a recessed entryway. The building had no sign, no logo or name, but she knew what it was.
Chrysalis.
The cart stopped before the courtyard.
“This is as far as I take you,” their guide said. “They’ll summon me when y
ou are ready to return to Earth.”
Rising stiffly, she climbed from the carriage and dropped onto the cobblestone road. She stared at her boots. Her feet were resting on the foreign earth of a different realm. Kassia hopped down, her face pale in the lights, and Eryx joined them. They clustered together, silenced by the shared realization that they were stranded in an alien world at their enemies’ mercy.
With a snap of the reins, the driver steered the cart away, and the two mounted guides trotted briskly after him. Clio carefully arranged her clothes and adjusted her mask, then looked questioningly at Kassia and Eryx. They nodded grimly.
This was it.
She strode toward the broad double doors of the imposing gray facade. Eryx darted ahead of her and grabbed a door, pulling it open. Harsh light spilled out and Clio squinted, momentarily blinded. She stepped across the threshold, and for a second, she thought she was somehow back on Earth.
The reception area was excessively roomy, with scattered groups of comfortable chairs, and half a dozen different corridors and doors joined the large area. White-tiled floors, white walls, and white fluorescent lights gave the whole space a sterile feel, but the effect was softened by a dozen potted plants and the dark wood of a large reception desk where three female daemons sat. This building was not electricity-free, though Clio had seen no signs of modern technology on the ride through Asphodel.
Two people sat on nearby chairs, bent over a sheet of paper and talking in low voices. Another group of three—two men in white lab coats and a woman—stood near a wide corridor, chatting casually. Another handful were crossing from one hall to another, and Clio guessed this area was an intersection of multiple wings of the sweeping building. To her relief, they all looked perfectly normal—daemons in proper glamour, with no skeletal hands, antlers, or forked tongues.
At her appearance, however, every one of them stopped to stare blatantly. The silence was thick enough to choke.
With Kassia and Eryx flanking her, Clio did her best queenly glide to the reception desk. The woman in the center, her brown hair cut in a short bob that didn’t complement her plain features, watched them approach with her mouth hanging open.