Chapter 29
Mari
Feather and I stood in the secret cavern Gabe had shown me, where I’d had a moment to recover after Alethea’s death.
“Straight up,” I said. We wore loose fitting sand-colored pants tucked into good boots, light-colored long-sleeved shirts that would hold up to the desert sun above. We each had a bag with necessities, and whatever coin we could gather.
And in my bag, I had the Prism, stolen after I drugged Gabe. As if he were just another Fallen.
Feather started up first. It had taken us less than an hour to get to this point, but I knew we were racing against a clock that had no alarm on it. Once Gabe was awake, he would be searching for us.
I could only hope he didn’t scare Faiza too much. Though she’d seemed almost excited to take part…a dragon indeed.
Feather and I climbed in silence, using the natural outcroppings as easy hand and foot holds. I found myself thinking it was almost too easy, too simple, even if we were out of breath, sweating and bleeding by the time we reached the top…we did reach it.
And just as the sun was beginning to rise in the east, we pulled ourselves out to stare at a world we hadn’t seen since the Veil had fallen, since we’d been taken across an ocean and cast into a pit.
“What now?” Feather asked quietly.
The feeling of something moving through me turned me to face her. Truth was buried and I could feel the edges of it reaching for me. But I needed help. And Feather?
She knew something more about this than she was letting on.
“Feather, we didn’t find the key, which means the world is going to end. Does it matter if we find Harald?”
Her fingers wrapped around mine, squeezing hard as we stared out across the desert. The air here was so much drier and already the heat was beginning.
“Feather? Talk to me, please. I’ve already lost Tulli, I cannot lose you too, even if it is just within your mind.”
She tugged on me and we started walking, headed toward what, according to the few maps we had studied, would be toward the Werewolf Territory.
The original plan was to cross over there and then find a boat.
But now with Harald being the one hunted…
I touched the Prism through the bag at my hip.
Perhaps the power in it would help me pinpoint that monster.
It worked on loyalty, and Harald had more than once sworn loyalty to me.
“We were at Stonehenge when the Veil fell,” she murmured, her voice nothing more than a thread whisper.
“You and Tulli were knocked out but all three of us were hanging onto one another…there was something that, I don’t know how else to say it, but it entered us.
A magic that chose not one of us, but all three. ”
I didn’t stop moving, the shock perhaps not as much as it would have been had I not felt the same something coursing through me, even more since Tulli had been killed. “And Tulli?”
“I think she had the least of it and when she died…her portion came to you.”
I turned and threw up, hands on my knees, heaving until I was empty and shaking. Feather’s hand was on my back. This could not be…and yet I felt it in my body, in my heart that it was true, even if I didn’t remember it.
“I’m sorry, I just didn’t want to lose you either. That’s why I didn’t say anything…the description of the key that Gabe sought was of the real you, Mari, and I think in the trauma of it all, you forgot. Tulli did too. What with the rings…”
“The rings that you found?” I slowly stood. Feather blushed and we started walking again.
“Sometimes there is a voice for me…inside my head.” She didn’t let me go, but clung tighter and I knew in my belly how hard this would be for her, to admit to something she’d been hiding for so long. “It directed me to the rings, said they would keep us safe.”
And they had, for all those years, they had kept us safe.
“Please forgive me, Mari,” Feather whispered.
“Already done.” I squeezed her hand tighter and stared ahead.
But from behind us—
“What the actual fuck are you two doing?”
The bellowed roar spun us both around and with the light to his right, I thought it was Gabe at first.
But we were in luck.
“Luc!” Feather stepped toward him before I could. “Don’t be mad…We have to go.”
“I think the fuck not. Gabe will tear Seventhell apart looking for you, assuming he doesn’t just call you back to his side.” Luc wasn’t angry I realized, he was scared.
Scared for us.
Feather strode over to him and took both his hands. “We are going, and you have a choice. Are you coming with us, or are we going to knock you out and leave you in the sand?”
“Coming with us?” I finally found my voice. “Feather—”
And then I saw the tiny finger prick she was wearing, laying it against his forearm with more of the same draught I’d used on Gabe.
“I can find Harald,” I said, my voice low and pleading. “Luc, I can find him and the wolf he is aligned with.”
Of course that wasn’t the only reason I needed to leave. I needed to figure out what this magic in me and Feather meant. What it meant for the world, and I knew more than ever that it mattered.
There was a huff behind Luc and we looked past him. I could not have been more shocked.
Kevin the hell-hound trotted toward us, but that wasn’t the shocking part. Myrr sat astride him as if he were a small pony.
“The girls are right, this is part of their journey, and I’m going with them. For at least a little while. Maybe I’ll finally die. Or…we could stop for some apple pie when we get to England?”
“England.” Luc did a double blink. “What is happening here? Have I lost my mind?”
Myrr pointed at me and Feather. “Those two are important. They’re going to help find the key, I’ve seen that much, which means you need to just follow them. Keep them safe. And get me a snack here and there.”
I held my hand out to her . “Oracle—”
“Myrr will be just fine, Marinnia. I think we’re past formalities.” She clapped her hands together and grinned. “Now, we’re hunting, aren’t we?”
We.
Luc pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. “Fuck me. Gabe told me to keep you safe and if you take off and I let you go because the Oracle fucking says so…it’ll be my head on a pike.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” I said softly. “You know that.”
“Well, he wouldn’t be fucking happy, would he?” Luc barked.
Kevin gave a woof as he sidled up to me, and I placed my hand on his head, taking some comfort in his and Luc’s presence. As strong as I felt, as sure as I was that this was the route we had to take, I also understood that the world was a changed place since I’d seen it last.
Luc looked behind as if the answer would be inside the wormhole. “We need a ride across the fucking ocean then. And I think I might have something.”
Feather slid her arm through his and he started toward the ports. Kevin and Myrr stayed back with me for a few beats. “Myrr, do you really think we’ll find the key?”
Maybe it wasn’t me and Feather, maybe she had it wrong. I didn’t remember Stonehenge, or the falling of the Veil. Maybe this was just some latent witch bloodline showing up…
“I think we are already starting to,” Her eyes were sharp as she took me in, “But the path to finding the full key will not be easy, nor will it be the same as the two we’ve already found.
But Marinnia let me tell you something.” She crooked her finger and I leaned in. “I’m here for it and the pastries.”
With a cackling laugh, she booted Kevin’s sides and he leaped forward.
I stood looking at the top of the wormhole, knowing what I was leaving behind.
My Doves.
My past.
And what could have been my future with Gabe. That…ironically hurt more than leaving my Doves, more than leaving everything I knew. That hope that had started building and then before it could be more than a few droplets, dried up into nothing.
I would not rest until my sister was avenged, and there was nothing I would not to do to see it done.
Once Gabe discovered the depth of my betrayal, any feelings that might have been growing would be shattered beyond repair. Fallen, like the Doves, did not swear loyalty lightly.
I blinked back a hot sting of tears.
“Goodbye, Demon.”