Chapter 38
My heart dropped at Fen’s words. Souls that arrived in the In Between stayed in the Well below Death’s castle until they’d been judged.
The constant ebb and flow of them coming and going kept it from getting too crowded, but if Death had stopped judging them it would eventually fill up, putting pressure on the realm. “Completely?”
Fen nodded. “She won’t be sending her trainees to us anymore either.”
“So much for getting Bea out easily,” Daphne said with a scowl.
Fen’s eyes met mine and a grim acknowledgment passed between us. Death had effectively lit a fuse. Though neither of us knew how long it would take, if I didn’t pass the third trial and challenge her soon the realm would reach a breaking point.
“I need to visit the Guardian,” I said, standing.
“Do you think you’ve passed the third trial?” Daphne asked.
“Maybe?”
Trust what is. It was possible that my finding out about Fen’s addiction, choosing to come back, and trusting that I could handle whatever happened meant that I’d passed the third trial, but last time I’d been sure that I’d passed. I didn’t have that sense this time. I just felt tired.
“We should still pull Bea out,” Daphne said.
“You’ll have to shadow-step to get her,” Marcus said.
Fen pulled out his ring, the twin to Bea’s, and slid it onto his finger.
“Can you sense where she is with that?” I asked, remembering the way Bea had used it to send a message.
“Only if she’s in the process of leaving a message. If I’d left enough of my power on it to be able to always track her location, Death would have known she was a spy.” He frowned down at it. “I’ll need to find out where she is. It might take a while for her to answer.”
I bit my lip, hoping she answered soon. Time was something we didn’t have much of.
* * *
My visit to the Guardian confirmed that I had not passed the third trial, though they offered no help or hints on what it was or how I could pass.
I barely held my tongue, swallowing the names I wanted to call them.
Their creepy presence was overwhelming enough to remind me that insulting them was more likely to end in being shredded than provoking them into letting anything helpful slip.
On the way back, I stopped at the main stairs and dismantled the wall I’d created during our battle with the Wraiths with a wave of my hand.
Fen had placed a couple of shadow portals there so people could pass through.
I hadn’t had the power to remove it right after the battle, and then I’d gotten distracted.
My cheeks heated at the sighs of relief and gratitude of the nearby Tempters.
I didn’t want to be someone who inconvenienced everyone around me just because I was powerful.
Fen and Marcus were gone when I returned. Daphne told me he’d left a message for Bea and then gotten word of new cracks that had formed and gone to fix them. I went to join him, figuring filling them would go faster with the two of us.
We spent the next two days doing just that while we waited for Bea to respond.
Every time we filled one crack, one or two more would form an hour later, like the In Between was fraying at the seams. Both of us felt it.
The realm groaned under the weight of the souls that continually arrived from the World of the Living.
It felt like there was a small balloon under my ribs that kept getting bigger, the surface of it stretching thinner and thinner.
I wondered if this was the third challenge somehow, if there was something I needed to do to ease the pressure, but nothing I did seemed to make a difference.
“Is it normal for Bea to go this long without answering?” I asked as I collapsed into a chair in the corner of Titus’s room.
Since the fire was already doused, we continued meeting here. Plus, with Titus in our midst it felt like our group was complete, even if he wasn’t conscious.
“Yes.” Fen said from the other side of the bed. He looked as exhausted as I felt.
“What if something’s wrong?” My body was tired, but my mind was strung tight. I couldn’t stop imagining Bea being discovered and imprisoned, or worse being shredded by Death.
“There isn’t anything we can do,” Marcus said, his voice gentle. “Nothing but trust her and wait.”
It was the third time one of them had told me that, and it wasn’t any more satisfying than the previous two times. I opened my mouth to argue, but all that came out was a strangled shout as a sharp, slicing pain in my chest made me double over.
Fen groaned across the room, and I knew he was feeling the same thing I was.
Something was desperately wrong with the In Between.
We both shot to our feet, preparing to go to the source of our pain, but another wave of it made my knees buckle as a tremor shook the ground beneath our feet.
“What is it?” Daphne asked, grabbing my arm.
I saw Marcus supporting Fen.
“The bridge,” I gasped seeing agreement in Fen’s eyes.
Without another word we both stepped into light and shadow and emerged at the entrance to the bridge.
My eyes went wide as I took in the cracks that spidered through the walls and windows. There were so many. “Fen.”
“Shit.” He leaned into the wall as the entire structure shook, and I was vividly reminded of what it had been like to stand in the middle of it in this state.
Death was on the other side, light already trailing from her fingertips. Her face was a mask of concentration.
“What do I do?” I asked.
“Follow my lead,” he said, reaching for my hand.
Our fingers twined as we delved into our power and let it loose. Light and shadows wove together, racing along the bridge into every fissure.
I could feel the texture of every stone and plank of wood my power touched. Sensing there was more, I let my sight go hazy and sank beneath the surface of walls and floor. The fabric of the In Between lit up like a heavy blanket of stars. I could see it bulge and stretch along every seam.
Our power poured into every breach, knitting them back together.
My light twined with Fen’s, following his lead, but the cracks filled more slowly than they had when he and Death had healed the bridge in the past. It was because I was pulling power from Fen rather than wielding my own, I realized.
There were so many cracks, like strands of a rope fraying faster than we could grab them.
Fen’s and Death’s powers were strongest working together.
He and I would be better off working separately.
I gently pulled back, untwining my power from Fen’s, and reached instead for as many frayed threads as I could gather.
“What are you doing?” Fen asked.
“Combine your powers with Death’s. It’ll work faster. I’ll try to stem the tide.”
He blew out an aggressive breath, but his shadows reached for Death’s light.
Her jaw tightened, but she followed his lead. Their combined powers snaked behind my light, pouring into the gaps I was holding together.
The three of us fell into a rhythm. Catch.
Hold. Knit. Release. Over and over. Power flowed easily between Fen and me.
There was no strain or resistance. I didn’t see any of his memories, but that was probably because we weren’t drawing that much power.
Knitting the realm back together was more time consuming than power draining.
If we lost the battle, it would be because we’d run out of time.
Immersed in our task, everything else faded away. I let go of anything that wasn’t my awareness of the bridge, our powers, or the fabric of the In Between, and slowly, so painfully slowly, we started to catch up. The breakage slowed to a pace we could almost keep up with.
A yell broke my concentration, and my sight flickered, the surface of the bridge coming back into view. I looked up to see Bea running down the corridor of Death’s castle towards us.
Two Judges chased her, pushing people aside in their haste to get to her as she dodged and weaved through the crowd that had gathered.
My breath caught as she broke through, passed Death, and ran onto the bridge.
Her pursuers balked, pulling up short just behind Death, but Bea didn’t stop.
She kept running, weaving slightly to keep her balance as the floor shook.
My eyes flicked to Death. Her mouth flattened, but she otherwise ignored Bea.
“Maeve.” Fen’s voice pulled me back to the task at hand. If we didn’t save the bridge, Bea would be lost.
Sinking back into the state of heightened awareness, I redoubled my efforts. Catch. Hold. Knit. Release. But my momentary distraction had cost us, and the progress we’d made started to slip. I tried to concentrate, but a loud crash made me jump.
Bea’s scream made me look up. She clung to the wall, a chunk of the ceiling inches from her feet.
Cursing, I poured my attention back into catching the fast-fraying threads, trying to ignore the way my pulse raced and the sinking feeling in my gut. We were losing ground faster than we could gain it.
I glanced up to see Bea push off the wall and keep running. She was still less than halfway across. I didn’t know what would happen to the In Between if the bridge broke, but Bea would stand no chance if she was on it when it did.
“Fen.” My voice shook.
“She’ll make it. Keep working.” He squeezed my hand in reassurance, but I felt his doubt through our bond.
Catch. Hold. Knit. Release. I tried to lose myself in the rhythm, but it was clear that the bridge wasn’t going to hold together much longer.
My eyes flicked to Bea, calculating the distance. “She’s not going to make it.” There was only one way I could think of to get her to safety.
“She will. We can’t stop.” Fen’s grip tightened on my hand, sensing my intention.
“It’s over.”
“No, it’s not.” He forced the words through gritted teeth.
I looked over at Death. Panic bled into her expression as she saw what I had: the bridge was as good as lost.
“I’m sorry.” Pulling my hand from Fen’s, I dropped the ribbons of my light holding onto the bridge and took a step forward through a rent in the air. I landed a few feet from Bea as she raced towards me.
The bridge shook violently, nearly knocking me off my feet, but I managed to stay standing.
A tinkling sound to my right set my teeth on edge as the windows cracked, bulging inward.
Opening my arms, I grabbed Bea and spun, letting her momentum pull us forward as I light-stepped us off the bridge, landing not far from Fen.
A deafening crack rent the air, and we were thrown forward several steps as the bridge shattered into pieces behind us.