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Did it?
And did Cole know what Ashe had done? Did he know Ashe had essentially killed his Forfeit?
Did he know Adonia?
“Mrs. Jenkins, do you have any more information about her? Anything that would tell us what exactly made her so special? Special enough for the queen to kill?”
She set down her teacup. “Everything I have on Adonia, and all of the Daughters of Persephone, is in the basement. I doubt we’ll find anything. I’ve been through it so many times. But we can try. ”
I followed her down the stairs and paused when I reached the bottom. The entire basement was filled with stacks and stacks of books and papers and boxes. New-looking moving boxes butted up against ancient-looking wooden crates.
How were we supposed to find anything?
Mrs. Jenkins navigated the mess as if she had memorized it. She held up a framed picture box with two small circular paintings inside of it. They looked like cameos. I’d seen similar ones in period movies set in the late eighteen hundreds.
“This is Adonia,” she said. “And this was her soldier, Nathanial. She kept this cameo with her always. They fell in love in England, but he went missing during a colonial battle. In India, I think. He’d been gone for months when Adonia met Ashe. She was a wreck. ” She held up the cameo of the soldier for me to see. “When Nathanial was found, he asked his rescuers to send the cameo to her, along with a medal he’d been awarded and a few of his other possessions. ” She handed me the frame and started thumbing through some of the papers in a box at her feet.
The painting of Adonia was beautiful. She had blond hair and blue eyes, and skin the color of porcelain. I pictured the current queen, with her fiery red hair, hunting Adonia down and draining her so completely that all that was left of her was a jar of ashes.
“If Adonia had become queen and had granted her ancestral line eternal life, would you even have been born?”
She looked up. “The queen can only grant eternal life to those who have passed on. The Everliving can’t have children. We are descended from Adonia’s sister. ” I shrugged and nodded, and she went on with her search. She flipped through a series of grids with dots mapped out on it. Some of the dots connected into shapes that I recognized.
“Are those constellations?” I asked.
Mrs. Jenkins nodded and continued rifling through the box. “Adonia had a passion for astronomy. ”
I thought back to Ashe’s house and the telescope in the corner. He’d said it had sentimental value. Was it Adonia’s?
Mrs. Jenkins straightened up. “Here it is,” she said, holding out a metal object in her hand. “Nathanial’s medal. ”
She handed me a worn brass medal that weighed heavy in my hand. It was two swords crossed together inside a wreath. The tips and handles of the swords poked out beyond the wreath, giving the medal a distinct, pointy shape.
“It’s beautiful. ”
“I don’t know what it’s called, but I think it’d be worth a lot today—” Her voice cut off in surprise. “Is that … ?” I followed her gaze to the floor, where a ghostly, tattooed hand appeared.
I glanced back up at Mrs. Jenkins. “It’s Cole. But I’m not done asking you questions. ”
“Don’t go,” she said. The worry in her eyes told me she was concerned about my interaction with Ashe too.
“I have to,” I said. “I have to find Jack. Besides, Ashe is missing. ” I found myself whispering, even though I was pretty sure Cole couldn’t hear us.
His hand made a rolling gesture, as if to say Get going.
“If I don’t go now …”
She nodded. “I know. I’ll try to … see what I can find out. I’ll go through my things here. I can look …” She shrugged.
“Thank you. ” I walked over to the hand. “But I think that if I come back without Jack again, it will be too late. ”
She didn’t protest.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Yes. ”
“Why are you helping me?”
She gave me a soft smile. “Living without earthly attachments has … begun to lose its charm. ”
I smiled too. I knew that feeling. “I’ll be back. ”
“Here,” she said, pressing the medal into the palm of my hand. “Take this. May it bring you luck. ”
The hurried nature of our parting seemed to make us promise things to each other that we probably wouldn’t have promised otherwise. Or maybe Mrs. Jenkins was beginning to like me.
Or maybe she still hoped that I would one day be queen and that I would remember her.
Nothing in either world was as it seemed.
As I grabbed Cole’s hand, I had a moment to consider the symbolism of the whole thing. Cole was dragging me down to the Everneath. Over and over. And I was letting it happen. In fact, I was begging him to do it.
I landed on the ground, the debris-filled walls of wind surrounding me and reaching into the sky.
“Sleep well, Nik?” Cole said, stretching as if he was working out the kinks he’d just gotten by reaching to the Surface to get me.
His question weighed heavy on my heart since Jack hadn’t appeared in my dreams. But I didn’t want Cole to know. If he found out, then maybe he would give up—and I couldn’t give up until I was inside the Tunnels. Until I had Jack’s hand in my hand. Until I could give him my tether and help him find his way out, like Ariadne did for Theseus.
Jack wasn’t dead. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. But his absence last night had left a dark specter on my soul, like some Grim Reaper coming too early to claim something I wasn’t about to give up. The ominous shadow entreated me to abandon my hope. I closed my eyes, willing it away. No. There was some other reason he wasn’t there last night, something beyond his control. But if Cole and Max knew about it, they might think our continued trek was useless. Especially Max. He was always ready to quit.
“You okay?” he said since I hadn’t answered him.
I nodded.
“What’s that?” He pointed to my hand, at Nathanial’s medal that Mrs. Jenkins had given to me.
My discovery at Mrs. Jenkins’s house came rushing back. Ashe. Adonia. Betrayal.
“How well do you know Ashe?” I asked.
Cole seemed surprised at my question. “Well enough. ”
“And you trust him?”
Cole raised an eyebrow. “Implicitly. Where is this going?”
I thought about it. I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to handle this yet; I wasn’t even sure exactly what it meant.
At my hesitation, Cole said, “Look, Nik. We can talk about it on the way. But right now, we have to get moving. I think we’re almost to the Ring of Fire. ”
“How do you know?”
He lifted his head to the sky. “Smoke on the horizon. Let’s get your tether and go. Tell a story, and make it a good one. ”
Suddenly every other worry faded away, and I wanted nothing more than to get closer to Jack. Ashe wasn’t even here, so what did it matter if I trusted him or not?
Jack hadn’t shown up in my dream, and that was all that mattered. I needed to get my tether back, and fast; and there was one short, sweet story that I knew could succeed the fastest.
I grabbed Cole’s hands in mine. “Did I ever tell you about the very first time Jack kissed me?”
SOPHOMORE YEAR
The Surface. Park City High School.
The hallway was filled with students, but they all faded into the background. Jack had just confronted me about my feelings for him. In my mind, nobody else existed anymore.
“Tell me, friend,” Jack said, his fingertips grazing mine as people shuffled past us in the hallway. “Is there more for us?”
I looked at my feet. “There’s everything for us. ”
He didn’t answer. The bell was about to ring. I could tell because the hallway began to clear out, and yet Jack remained quiet.
Despite the butterflies that had expanded ou
t of my stomach and now filled my entire body, I ventured a look at Jack.
He had the funniest expression. He smiled in a knowing way, as if he had suddenly gotten a glimpse at our entire future and it was amazing. I wasn’t sure he would ever move from that spot.
I tugged on his hand and said, “We should—”
“Yes,” he interrupted.
His fingers closed around mine, and he pulled me down the hall.
“Um, we’re going the wrong way,” I said. “My English class is that way. ” I pointed behind us.
He didn’t let up. With his fingers in a death grip around my hand, as if at any moment we would be ripped apart, he led me around the corner, down a side hall, and finally into a dark nook that held a drinking fountain.
The walk to this point had given me exactly enough time to wonder what I had just agreed to. What I had just done to jeopardize the most important friendship in my life.
He faced me, and I backed against the wall.
“Wait,” I said.
“What?” He immediately dropped my hands and stiffened, as if we had been discovered doing something illegal.
I let out a shaky breath. “I just … Your friendship is everything to me. ”
He smiled and took a step closer. “I feel the same way. ”
I put my hand against his chest. “But …”
“But?” He raised an eyebrow.
“But …” I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t figure out how to express my concerns; and I’d waited for this moment for so long, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “But …”
His lips turned up in a sly smile. “Becks, can we move on from ‘but’?”
I bit my lip and tried again. “We could go back. ”
“Back to where?”
“Back to ten minutes ago. Back to before you said anything. ”
His smile fell, and he pulled away a little bit. “You don’t want this. ” It was a statement, not a question.
I leaned my head back until it rested on the brick wall. How could I explain that it was all I ever wanted? It was all I’d been able to think about for months now.
I looked at his face again. His bright eyes had become dull; his shoulders, which could’ve carried the world two minutes ago, now slumped.
What was I thinking? I was thinking too much. That was the problem. That was always the problem.
Before I could think anymore, I grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward me. I kissed him. Lightly. Quickly.
I sank back, but he gathered me close to him again, and then his lips were on mine. He pulled me tighter against him, his hands pushing against my back; but he wasn’t satisfied with our nearness until he pushed me right up against the wall.
I was clawing at him just as much. My fingers tangled in his hair, then grabbed at his shirt, pulling him closer. His kiss became deeper; his lips urged my mouth open.
I didn’t care that we’d caught a few stares from students passing by. I didn’t care that the bell to begin class rang. I didn’t care that everything between us had changed.
All I cared about was the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get any closer to Jack.
NOW
The Everneath. The Ring of Wind.
When I finished my story, Cole’s face was blank. He wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was looking at my tether, which was stronger than it had ever appeared before.
We all stared at my tether. Which is why none of us noticed the Wanderer at our backs.
“Run!” Max said.
We took off running, following my tether.
“Why weren’t you watching?” Cole shouted at Max.
“I took my eyes off our backs for two seconds!”
We darted right, then left, then right again; and then a wave of hot air struck us, searing my face with its intensity. I slowed for a moment, but Cole shoved me ahead.
“Keep going!” he commanded.
One more turn, and the dirt-colored walls of wind gave way to the strangest sight I’d ever seen.
We’d reached the Ring of Fire.
TWENTY-SIX
NOW
The Everneath. The Ring of Wind.
The final ring before the bull’s-eye. The only thing standing between me and Jack.
And it was a furnace, with burning walls as high as the Grand Canyon.
My toe caught on a divot in the dirt, and I went flying to the ground. Within a split second, the Wanderer had caught up to us. But then he stopped, mesmerized by the walls of fire. His eyes traveled upward as the flames reached into the sky, dancing and crackling toward the middle of the pathway. It was as if he’d forgotten we were even there.
Cole had his hand on my arm, ready to help me up; but at the Wanderer’s reaction, he paused and watched.
Keeping his eyes on the burning inferno surrounding him, the Wanderer turned to the nearest wall, took two steps toward it, and then jumped in.
I flinched as I heard a grotesque sizzling sound; then the flames engulfed him completely, and we couldn’t see anything else.
He was gone.
I looked up at Cole with my mouth open, panting. “What happened? Why would he do that?”