“When I see them, my family, I’m going to be destroyed. I will freeze us into the next Ice Age. No acting can cover that up.”
“You’ve made it go away twice since we have been awake. I know you can do it again. Whatever you thought of, hold that image in your mind. Use it as a weapon. You’re right. If they see the ice, they will know you have no control, they will know you are still weak. The transformation gives you control. They’re desperately trying to stop that.”
“They know we are weak because they have Wilder,” I argued.
“For all they know, he’s playing the part, too,” Mason said as he walked over and handed Gavin a sheath for his blade. “Listen, we know each other all too well. We don’t even need words. You just look us in the eye when you get weak, when you need direction. We have to trust each other. You’re going to have to trust us. Gavin is right, we have to follow your demands, and we all have to agree. You will not be alone for one second. I swear.”
Mason tucked his blade behind him as Gavin did the same.
“We are going on stage, Indie,” Gavin said as calmly as he could. “Play this part, and at the very least, we’ll give them something to fear when we return.”
I swallowed my nerves and tried to find adrenaline to hide behind once I thought I was close enough. I turned and went to the doorway. Just outside of it, I was standing where I was in my dream, looking down on the elegant dome room.
“I was there,” Gavin said, nodding to the other staircase.
“I was there,” Mason said, pointing to the opposite one.
“When?” I asked as I struggled with my nerves.
“When we moved the house. This room spun at the speed of light with our energy, and the floor opened and grasped our roots,” Gavin said as he clenched the rail—you’d have thought he was holding on, like the memories were too real to him right now.
“I really think someone would have noticed a house appearing two hundred years ago,” I said, almost to myself. I think I had decided to see this all as some big dream. That soon I would wake up, move through my day, my arguments with Rasure, school, walking through the North Wing, hanging out at the bar, and dream of my two beats.
“It was here before then. I have no doubt. I remember…” Mason said in a whisper that seemed painful. “You had a vision or something. We started plotting to leave as soon as…as soon as Sebastian and Guardian left.”
I looked up at him sharply. As far as I knew, I had never told him Phoenix’s real name, never told him about Guardian.
“We followed them,” Mason said. “We have been here a while. We landed here long before this country was even discovered.”
“One thing is for sure: Sebastian sure knows how to build a house,” I joked darkly. I couldn’t take in anymore of what they were saying. It was too much, and they were making it seem real. The only way I was going to get through this was by thinking it was a dream, or a really extravagant play.
“God, I wish Skylynn had opened our minds before last night,” Gavin said as he stared forward, clearly agreeing with Mason.
“Where have we been all this time?” I asked timidly.
“Trapped, lost. Something stopped us before,” Mason said as anger consumed him, as I felt fire come from his side. “And I’ll be damned if I let it stop us again.”
“Game face on, Indie,” Gavin said to me as we saw Cadence standing at one of the thresholds that led into this room floors below us. It was salted, as were the others. One thing was for sure, Rasure didn’t want us in here. In obvious anger, Cadence kicked the salt line as she rushed past it, still gasping with tears, a wrought iron bar in her hand. I couldn’t tell whether the tears were an act or not, she was just too good at playing roles.
I started to descend the spiral staircase with Mason and Gavin just behind me.
Cadence began to pry out the marble in the center of the floor, and for some reason that made me furious, like I knew she was stabbing a living, breathing thing.
“Cadence,” I said with all the dominance my role called for.
She looked up in shock, maybe relief. “You are going to help him,” she said with a tearful gasp.
“Tell me why the well-being of Wilder has brought so many tears to you?” I said as I continued my elegant descent. I mean, she wasn’t even making eye contact with Gavin, the one boy she did have a relationship with.
“She made me fool him,” she said as she moved her head from side to side in despair. She sucked in a deep breath. “She had me serve him up on a platter to be feasted on and did that because I was terrified, and now they will feast on him for an eternity if you do not stop this. It’s not his fault that he fell for you, that our family drama sucked him in. This is my demon. I killed him.”
“You killed us,” Mason said with scorn.
“Not in the same way. If I had, I would be fighting for you, too.” Her eyes moved to Gavin. “I tried to tell you I was sorry in my own way, to hold you once more, let you know that I was a victim, that she played me from the moment she arrived. She told me she knew my file had been moved, that I was really a runaway and that I had a family that was searching for me.” She locked eyes with me. “I couldn’t go back, Indie, not to that house, not after what my family did to me. I chose the lesser of two fears. The fact that Rasure was less scary than my family has to tell you that I had no choice. I was scared, and now I’m fighting back. I can’t save you, but I can set you free, all of you.”
“Put the iron down,” I demanded.
She let it fall as if my words were a command that she could not disobey.
“Why did you struggle for that key? Why did you take their lives?” I asked with a quick nod to my side. “Why did you take Sophia’s? What did she do to you?”
“How was I supposed to know we would crash?” she yelled in tearful agony. “This was your fault, not mine. They fell for you, so deep and so blindly that they could not see anyone or anything else. They were obsessed with ending Rasure, just as obsessed as you—so much so that weeks before your battle was to be won they helped you stoke the fire of her wrath. You moved the clocks, you threw that in her face. It’s your fault they had the key in the first place, that Rasure tried to kill us all.” She looked down as she raised her arms to her side, like she was being crucified. “I just wanted them to leave it be, for you to leave it be. Stick with the plan. Win your money and kick her out. The human way. The peaceful way.”
“Dear sister. I have never been human. We both know that.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It was powerful, confident—everything that I wasn’t.
She let her hands fall as she shamefully raised her eyes to meet mine.
“I thought you saved me, that my divine sister had spared me, but you didn’t. Fate did. I told myself that you would have if you could, that you were not moving on because you didn’t want me to be alone. Rasure told me I was a fool, that you didn’t care about me. I was disposable, damaged goods as far as you were concerned. I didn’t believe her until you proved her right.”
“Exactly how did I do that, Sister?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “You pulled them to you and pushed me away. You wouldn’t let me help you—you planned to let me go and live forever with your ‘almosts,’ the boys that will never know the real you.”
“I pushed you to safety, to peace. That is my purpose. If you knew the real me, that should not be news to you.”
“That is why I’m here. That is why I told you she had him, she had them all, and where. You may never forgive me, but I will fight for my redemption until my last breath,” she said as she balled her fists.
I glanced back to the guys. Neither of them seemed convinced, and I was divided. I didn’t have time to debate my emotions. For the first time in my existence, a clock was ticking. Counting down to my end.
I gripped the key in my hand and gracefully knelt down, thrusting the star point into the center circle.
When metal met marble and powerful volts of ene
rgy weaved through my arm, in that instance in my mind I saw this room, the staircases on fire, wind tunneling around at warp speed, the floor opening to the depths of the Earth. I felt a raw power, it was the power of desperate love, a love that had been divided and would not rest until it was rejoined.
It was a remarkable feeling, one I wanted to relish in so I could understand it, so what I felt for Phoenix would be justified, so I would know that I loved him enough to move universes to find him, that I was strong enough to bring our home to him.
But time was short. Once the energy left, the floor did not open beneath us. Instead, the three spiral staircases began to turn. As they did, the floor underneath them fell, opening the way to more stairs.
Without hesitation, I ran to the one closest to me. When I began to descend the stairs that were still appearing, I had no idea how deep I would follow them or where I was going. We turned and turned, chasing the appearing stairs, finally finding the floor.
When I raised my head and stepped forward, I quickly realized I was overwhelmed. “You have got to be freaking kidding me!”
This was a vast room, as vast as the manor itself, maybe even bigger—and in this room, all within a few feet of each other were thousands upon thousands of grandfather clocks.
In the echo of the room, I heard a bellow. I heard Wilder scream in agony. Cadence grabbed my arm and began to pull me in the direction of it, but Mason stopped her, all but jerking my arm away from her.
“Indie! Come on!” Cadence yelled.
“Not going that way,” Gavin said to her as he nodded toward the way he wanted us to go.
I listened to him, but as I walked away I heard Cadence scream, “You are everything she said you were and worse!”
I turned sharply to face her. “Choose you words carefully, Sister. My compassion is in limited supply tonight.”
“Wilder. You have to help me! I’m not strong enough,” she begged as tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I’m setting more than Wilder free tonight.”
She let a look of disgust fill her innocent image just before she turned and ran toward Wilder’s screams.
Mason turned me and began to pull me through the clocks as Gavin led us.
“Tell me you guys know what the freak you are doing,” I said through clenched teeth. The clocks around us began to creak with ice that was forming on them. I could not handle the idea that Wilder was suffering and his only crime was that he knew me, that he tried to love me.
“We are going to the memorial garden. There has to be a reason she wanted to keep us out of it,” Mason stated sternly.
“What if she was just using it as a decoy?” I argued as I looked over my shoulder at the sound of a new scream.
Gavin stopped and pointed to the key that was clenched in my hand. Now with the missing part, it clearly read ‘Falcon M Observatory.’ “I’m not focusing on her, only the signs. Now suck in those emotions and touch these clocks, as many as you can. Tell me if you see anything—any memory at all.”
“What is it with the clocks? I don’t get it,” I said, desperately glancing to the sea of them around me.
“Time. She takes time from the souls. It’s nothing more than symbolic imagery,” Gavin assured me, “and we are going to give that time back, set free what she has locked away.”
I nodded nervously as I unconsciously let my hand reach for my wrist, to the mark of a falcon under my pearl bracelet. I found my warmth and drew in a deep breath.
Mason picked up a fast-paced jog through the clocks as I let my hands run across the wood of each one we passed. Though I felt the energy of a lost past, the elegance of the piece itself, I saw nothing that said they were mine. That brought me little comfort, though. These were only the ones in our path, but thousands were all around us and the clock was still ticking.
It felt like it was forever before it happened, but we reached the end of the clocks and before us now was a stone wall and one dark tunnel.
“What now?” I asked anxiously.
Gavin and Mason reached for the torches beside the entryway; with a glance from them, fire burned through the kindling.
“Now you are really on stage,” Gavin said, nodding for us to move forward.
I could only assume we were following the path to the memorial garden. I felt my heart beating out of control, adrenaline seized my body, and my breathing fading. I kept telling myself that at any moment Phoenix would appear, that he would feel my unrest and come for me.
When he didn’t, I feared the worst. I feared that no matter the outcome of what was before me that I would live on in grief and agony.
Before long, light emerged at the end of our tunnel. As we approached, in the distance across the open room I saw another clock. A few steps later, we were at the threshold of this room. It was rather large. One clock was on the wall before us, another to the right. On the mantle of an enormous fireplace was the other. In the center of the beams that ran across the ceiling, there was a dome, no larger than five feet. The warm, flickering orange glow from it gave the room a wicked ambience, but not as wicked as the overstuffed leather chair that had Rasure proudly perched in it, with two guards behind her.
Chained from the ceiling with his arms above his head and his shirt off was Wilder. His strong, lean body was glistening with sweat, and blood from his wrist was raining down his arms.
Rasure slowly adjusted herself in her seat as a sinful smile echoed on her thin lips. “I assumed you would run to the echo of his screams. I suppose you are smarter than that runaway trash you call a sister.”
It took every ounce of my strength, but I held in my anger. I held in the cold. Every emotion I had was sucked into that ice rock that remained in my core.
“I am but a servant to my family. I have been told that they are not resting in peace, that you are the reason behind that.”
Her dark eyes gleamed with malice. “And who has been filling your head with such lies? The same souls that have convinced you that you—of all people—matter in the great scheme of things?”
“I’m not convinced. But I figured what the hell. I’d kill you for kicks and giggles, see where that gets me.”
I stepped forward but halted as she stood.
“Well, then. If we are going to play this game, let’s put all the pieces on the board, shall we,” she said coolly.
She sharply turned to her left and walked to the fireplace. With each step, with each staccato echo of her heels against the stones, I felt my heart pound, my control struggling to be set free.
Once Rasure reached the clock on the mantle, she opened the glass face, whispered something into it, and an instant later a light burst from it, connecting to lights that were now beaming from the other clocks. Rasure stepped to the side as her guards came to her and wind filled the room. The floor vanished beneath a dense fog, an intense bolt of energy exploded in the room. It was so fierce, I had to close my eyes and bow my head.
When I dared to look up again, I saw my worst nightmare: my family, my parents, my sisters, and my uncle were suspended in the air as deep blue flames surrounded them. They were silent in their screams, but Wilder wasn’t. He was now dangling, trying to keep his bare feet off the stone floor, which was causing his chains to cut deeper into his wrist. When I looked down, I saw a thin coat of salt along the stone. It almost seemed like the fog had delivered it. The stone floor was darker, almost wet where the salt was.
“You seem divided,” Rasure said confidently. “Is it the salt in the water across the floor, or this?” she said as wrought iron bars rose from the now wet stone floor and blocked my path to my family. “Or is it the fact that you are not who they have told you? Is it not true that you want to leave your adored in agony, your family to the damned—for the sake of revenge, for the sake of satisfying that self-loathing, cold, vindictive soul of yours?”
All at once, Mason and Gavin threw their torches at Wilder, but they barely landed at his feet. Wilder was at least twenty feet from us.
“If I were looking for evidence that you are only playing a part, your adored have graciously given that to me,” Rasure said smugly.
I knew Mason had an aim that was never wrong, that he had an undeniable strength and accuracy in every physical thing he did. Mason didn’t miss. He’d purposely let his torch fall along Wilder’s body, and when he did no flaming wings appeared—telling us without a doubt that he was not part of what we were. That really didn’t solve much, though. I cared about him, enough to save him, to make sure he was safe.
Wilder must not have understood what the guys were doing. He glared in their direction. It was a look I’d never seen come from him, one that was near terrifying. There was no telling what Rasure had done to him. If my Wilder even still existed.
We all knew we would not be able to withstand the salt long, that we had one of three choices: either go after Wilder, my family, or Rasure.
“Tick tock…smart move. Let the clock run out so you will not be forced to commit a sin as you perish,” Rasure taunted me.
I made it seem as if I were looking into the souls of the ones I loved as I surveyed the room, where the stone became wet, how heavy those floating bars that were around my family seemed, how I could do everything I wanted to do with one swift act.
There were only three bars, all horizontal, and there was a beam above me.
I was out of time and out of choices. The only way out of this was straight up and over.
I glanced to my side at Mason. He held his hand out flat, a common gesture between us. He agreed, and he was telling me to go up, that he was planning on thrusting me up.
I let my eyes meet Wilder’s across the room just as I used Mason’s hand to jump up and grab the beam.
There was no room above the beam for me to stand, and barely enough for my hands, so I pulled myself across until I knew I was close enough to swing my body over the iron. I only had a few feet to squeeze my body above them.
My anger, shock, and doubt caused ice to form as I fell to my feet, but that wasn’t a mistake. The ice froze the fire around the souls of my family, but they were still trapped. Before I could think of what to do next, Mason had charged forward, jumping into the air and grasping the top iron bar. He flung the bar at the chains around Wilder, and they went right through the hook. Gavin was already there, climbing up behind Wilder so he could reach the bar and turn it to set him free.