Chapter 4
The water welcomed me, warm and flowing. Slipped across my body as gentle as fingers. Embraced me like we knew each other. I was submerged but not drowning. Then it spit me out, fast and abruptly, a bad taste in its mouth.
Now I’m on my hands and knees, coughing. My skin is feverish, but inside, ice runs like an aching stream through my blood. Heaviness weighs on my muscles.
Yet, I am…completely dry.
Like I was never in the fountain.
Bile stirs in my belly. Between my curled hands, something soft and grainy slips over my palms. Sand.
Slowly, my eyes blink open. How did I get to the beach?
No. This isn’t the deep brown sand of Leadbetter Beach. It’s salt white. Instead of an indigo sea, the water is black as a starless sky. It sings almost the same—long and sweet as it rolls closer, but there’s an undercurrent of something else in it.
Something wrong.
This isn’t Santa Barbara.
This isn’t home.
Panting, I push to my feet. A warm breeze thick with scents of brine and sugar tickles the back of my neck. I look up. The sky is a vast canvas of pink swimming through purple. Like the edge of sunset without a sun anywhere in sight.
In the distance, beyond the endless water, something glints. The shape is hard to make out. It’s tall and sharp. A blade puncturing the sky, spilling all its colors like blood.
I want to inch closer for a better view.
My feet don’t make it far.
A hand grabs my shoulder. Harsh fingers pinch into tendons. I stumble back, sand flying from beneath my shoes. Fear and adrenaline spike through my body. Another hand grips my shirt, whipping me around.
I’m met with a snarling mouth and dark eyes fringed with gold.
“How did you get here?”
It’s Cary, teeth fully bared. He pulls carelessly at my collar, almost tearing the soft cotton.
“Where—” My throat tightens. “Where am I?”
“Answer my question.”
His breath is hot against my face. In this strange light, his beauty almost equals his wrath. My attempt to wrestle away is useless. He’s stronger. With ease, he drags me back.
“Answer me,” he says again, his voice a low growl.
“Where the fuck am I, Cary?” I spit back.
The margins of his face jump. He’s shocked by my own angry sneer. The way I call him by his name. His hold on me loosens a bit. I take advantage.
I latch a hand onto his narrow hip. The other grasps a fistful of his black shirt. I plant my feet, twisting to throw him off me, but he’s agile and more coordinated.
We tumble into the sandy shore. I land half on top of him. Instinct tells me to flee, but my limbs are still heavy.
Cary kicks and rolls. Within a second, I’m on my back, Cary scowling over me. His hands pin my wrists against soft sand, knees bracketing my thrashing hips.
“Get…off,” I huff.
“Tell me,” he barks. “How did you get here?”
“Where is here?”
Through the slits of his eyes, the gold expands, nearly swallowing every inch of rich blackness I can see.
He repeats, darkly, hands gripping tighter, “Tell me now, and no harm will come to you.”
My arms ache from exertion. From fighting to escape. It’s useless. His body is pressed against mine. I manage to choke out a response before the pain gets any worse.
“I followed you,” I gasp, breathless, confused. “On campus. There was a fountain and I saw you with—” A surge of panic electrifies me. “Where’s the girl?”
“Girl…”
“The girl! From SB State. She was with you.”
Again, surprise smooths the cold edges from his expression. “It is not possible,” he says quietly. “You could not…”
“Well, I did!”
I flail harder, but that doesn’t work either. Even stunned, Cary is in control. Exhaustion holds me beneath him. A prisoner. His next victim.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask, a tremor in my throat. “Like you did Hal.”
He blinks, thick eyelashes beating. “Who?”
“Hal! The man in the alley. Behind the pizzeria,” I elaborate. “You were there. I saw you.”
I watch the small knot in his throat move as he swallows, the motion hypnotic like a metronome. He studies me. I can’t read his expression. Something flashes through his eyes when they stray to my arm trapped behind his hand. With every second of his silence, my resolve grows.
Cary lowers his head. Loose curls fall around his temples. Roughly, he repeats, “It is not possible.”
“I saw you,” I say, defiant.
Frustration casts a shadow across his face. A storm threatening to unleash. It never arrives.
Not far away, a voice says, “Well. This is interesting.”
My head turns. Three people walk up the shore. Two of them are dressed sharply: all-black suits, gold embellishments on their taut shoulders and cuffs, a spiky white flower on their chests. They move like soldiers, cadence synchronized. Gleaming swords in their hands.
My breath hitches, loud and panicked. Until the third person comes into focus.
“You,” I strain.
“You,” he says back, beaming. The boy from the party.
“H-how?”
Amusement crinkles his expression. “When I asked where you preferred to be, I didn’t expect this to be your answer.”
I blink, dazed and lost.
His eyes sweep over me, then Cary. Specifically: Cary on top of me.
“Then again,” he says, the corners of his mouth so high, dimples appear, “I did not expect to find you—our sweet ferrier—in this position.”
Cary sighs, exasperated. “It is not what you think, Henri.”
“And what am I thinking?”
“Excuse me,” I grunt out. “What the hell is going on?” I buck like a wild animal trying to escape a cage. “Also, you can get off me. Like now.”
Cary does, though far slower than I’d like.
On my feet, I brush sand off my clothes and out of my hair. “You still haven’t answered my question.” I turn to Cary. “What is this place?”
The boy from the party—Henri—lowers his eyebrows. He looks at Cary. “He doesn’t know?”
“No,” Cary says, flatly. “He claims to have followed me—”
“I did,” I protest.
“Right…” Henri scoffs in disbelief. “Lovely. I can’t wait to see his face when he hears this.”
Cary’s eyes widen. “He knows already?”
Henri nods, his smile shrinking. “I have orders to bring him the mortal.”
“Who?” I demand, stomping forward. The light flickering off the point of the guards’ swords stops me in my tracks. I inhale shakily. “Wait…mortal?”
“Wow.” Henri almost contains his laughter. “You truly have no idea, do you?”
I bite my lip, then shake my head.
“Precious.”
Like earlier, Henri’s tone isn’t cruel. Or mocking. He surveys me like I’m a puzzle he’s trying to fit together. Sighing, he tilts his head at Cary. Waving his hand theatrically at the rolling black sea, he says, “If you will.”
Annoyance sparks in Cary’s eyes. At least I’m not the only one he looks at that way. He walks away from us.
Into the water.
The waves slosh against his ankles, up to his calves. My breaths catch in my throat.
Kneeling, Cary plunges one hand in the sea. A second passes before I see light spreading beneath the dark surface. It pools around him. The singing tide quiets as Cary says something, low and soft. Then the water rises higher.
No, he rises.
I startle backward. A nearly transparent bridge lifts from the dancing ocean. It stretches all the way to the onyx structure in the distance.
My heart sits plump in my throat. “What the—”
“Show-off!” Henri yells, dimples pronounced by his grin.
Unamused, Cary shakes droplets from his fingers. “Shall we?”
I balk. “I-I’m not,” I stammer, all my nerves lit like wildfire. “I’m not going with you.”
He turns his back to me. “Fine, then stay.”
“Trust me,” Henri says, surprising me by his closeness. His smile isn’t as comforting anymore, but, for some reason, it doesn’t bother me either. “You don’t want to stick around here. There’s good reason to follow him.”
His eyes peer behind me. “Many good reasons.”
That’s when I hear it. Them. The scratchy chorus of moans and pleas that weren’t there before.
Past the two guards, I see bodies, gray and haunting, shifting up the beach. In our direction. Their blue mouths are cracked open, calling, begging. Wide arms stretched toward us.
“They might be slow,” Henri calls, “but they are determined!”
Prickly coldness rushes up my skin. I don’t wait for another warning. I run onto the bridge.
When I finally catch up, I say, “What are they?”
“Shades,” Henri says, openly, honestly.
Cary gives him a long glare.
I rub my arms, unable to shake off the chill from seeing them. “Are they dead?”
“They are souls,” Cary corrects. As if I should know that. As if any of this makes sense. Of course, he doesn’t bother offering any explanations.
We follow him across the long bridge. “Careful,” Henri warns in a mock-whisper, “you don’t want to offend the ferrier.”
An indignant frown slides across Cary’s pink mouth.
“What are you, anyway?” I say, too fast to think through my words.
Cary spins around. “What am I?” he snaps. “I am not a thing, mortal.”
“We,” Henri says in a melodic, cautious voice, “are Deathless.”
“Come again?”
“Deathless,” Henri repeats cheerily while Cary grumbles, “He does not deserve to know.”
I bristle. I’ve never been in a fistfight, but punching Cary is suddenly very high on my priorities. Instead, I half turn to Henri. “I don’t understand.”
Cary snorts, a first.
Henri, however, beams like a starburst. He rests a friendly hand on my shoulder as we continue walking.
“We are known by many names in many regions and cultures and languages,” he says, grandly, like a tour guide reciting why the Mona Lisa appears to be smirking. “We prefer Deathless. Guardians and lords of Aides.”
That last word slides beautifully off his tongue: Ay-deez.
“Lords,” Cary says mockingly.
Henri presses a hand to his chest, offended. “What? It sounds elegant. Regal.”
“Arrogant and incorrect.”
“According to whom?” Henri asks.
“The books,” Cary says under his breath.
Henri waves him off. This clearly isn’t the first time they’ve had this argument.
My heart skips as I parse through their conversation. I whisper, “Wait…Aides?”
Henri nods.
My feet slow. Am I dreaming? No, I can’t be. Sleep these days feels like drowning. And I’m walking on an almost-see-through bridge, a swaying black sea below, with people who are what? Magical? Deathless?