Chapter Thirteen
CHARLIE
Kallie portaled us from Kinpago to the edge of the Institute’s grounds.
The air was cold on Darke Island, and the cloud cover blocked any warmth from the setting sun.
An eerie silence had settled over the land.
The only sound I could detect was the whistling of the wind through the abandoned wasteland that was Shade Hills.
I’d become so used to the persistent screech of the sirens in the lake that without it, this felt like a different place entirely.
I never wanted to come back here. I’d left this place behind me, but it seemed like all roads led back to the Institute, no matter what we did.
My Air magic searched the landscape for the familiar Gothic turrets of the asylum and the towers of the old cathedral that once stood here, but my powers met only debris of the crumbled Institute remains.
I switched tactics and used my Elf magic to scan for any signs of life. If there was a supernatural being here, my power to siphon their magic would be able to detect them.
I felt nothing, not even the remnants of magic from the Warden’s sick experiments.
Everything had been destroyed in the fire that had consumed the Institute the night we broke free— everything but his inferichite.
I was the one who’d sent my Associates to dig up the crystals and turn them into that damned antidemigod net, which meant the inferichite was gone from the property now, too.
Not a day went by that I didn’t regret my descent into villainy. It had cost me my humanity, my self-respect, and everything I had to get these keys, and we were mere steps away from uniting all seven. We had to keep moving forward.
The silence confirmed what I’d already suspected, that Darke Island had been completely deserted after the Institute burned.
Not only had the Warden destroyed the island when he brought hell to Darke Island that night, but most of Shade Hills’ residents had fled with him and The Mission afterward.
It appeared the rest had left in the months following, once Shade Hills could no longer sustain itself.
We approached the gates that surrounded the Institute, though they were no longer standing. The fence had toppled over, and the twisted metal clanged beneath our feet as we walked over it.
Marcus shuddered from beside me. “I should be relieved to see this place in ruins. I didn’t expect to feel so…”
“Devastated?” Kallie finished for him in a hollow tone. “I feel it, too. This was our home for years, and now it’s just… gone.”
“Weren’t you tortured here?” Danny asked, sounding confused.
“Well, yeah,” Marcus admitted. “But being chained up isn’t all bad.”
I had so many memories of this place. So many forbidden moments stolen in hidden alcoves, cherished recollections of my friends in our secret hideout in the woods we called the Criminal Lair.
We’d spent so much time investigating mysteries, partying down in Ivy’s club, running through the halls and committing mischief whenever we could get away with it.
It had been the best of times, and the worst.
The Institute had been decimated. But unlike Marcus, I was happy to see it gone. This place would never be the same again, never be as it once was. Everything that had been good about the Institute was gone now. My only regret is that the Warden didn’t go down in the flames with it.
As we approached the front of the Institute, my magic hit a wall.
I realized the building hadn’t been completely leveled.
There was a singular crumbling tower still standing.
None of us could step a foot into this structure without it collapsing completely.
This tower was at the entrance of the Institute and housed the entry foyer behind its doors, which were creaking on their hinges in the wind.
Kallie stopped just before the doors and tilted her head upward. “There it is. The Institute’s sigil. The design matches the drawings left with Yuto’s fleet.”
“Let’s get a closer look,” I said.
I commanded my Air magic to swirl beneath mine and Danny’s feet, lifting the two of us high above the entrance doors. Marcus used his warlock telekinesis to fly him and Kallie up, while our animal companions observed from the ground.
I ran my hands over the stone. The carving was nearly as wide as my arm span, and the details of the snake wrapped around a key had been expertly crafted. I searched with my fingers for any clues that could only be found up close, but it felt exactly as Kallie had described.
“Yuto must’ve left something here,” I noted. “Are there any words or clues?”
Kallie ran her hands along the stone as well, as if searching for hidden crevices. “I’m not finding anything.”
“Me, either,” Marcus said.
“Danny?” I asked.
He’d remained quiet, which was unusual for the vampire, because he never fucking shut up. But the Divinity Keys were serious business, and Danny was taking his role in this seriously for once.
“I’m just thinking,” Danny said. “The rest of the Institute has been completely destroyed. Isn’t it a bit convenient that the one piece you need is still standing?”
“You think it’s a trap?” Marcus asked.
“I’m saying that perhaps what you’re looking at is a clue itself,” Danny suggested. “Take a look at the scorch marks on the stone.”
Kallie snapped her fingers. “There aren’t any scorch marks on the sigil! It’s like the fire couldn’t touch it.”
“Like it’s magically protected?” I reached my hand out again, splaying my palm over the stone. I funneled my Elf magic through it until my power brushed up against something unfamiliar, meeting resistance. My magic seemed to grow and dim like the sparkling of stars. “There’s something here!”
I spread my arms wide and pushed my friends back. A blast of Air magic shot forward, and a massive crack echoed across the island. The ground trembled beneath us, and several pieces of stone broke off the entrance and tumbled downward.
“Charlie, what the fuck!?” Kallie snapped. “You’ve broken the sigil in two! That was our only clue!”
I smirked as I flew forward. “That’s exactly what I intended.”
This time when I ran my hands over the stone, I found a wide crevice running through it, just wide enough to stick my hand into. I reached inside the crack. My hand curled around a small, cool object that emitted a low, electrical frequency.
I withdrew it from within the walls of the Institute, and my friends gasped. “It’s the Astromancer key!” Kallie cried.
I lowered myself and Danny to the ground, and Marcus and Kallie followed.
Well done, Charlie, Oberi praised. Well done indeed.
The Astromancer key shook in my hands, and the reality of what was at my fingertips was enough to send me careening to my knees.
I fell before the doors of the Institute, overwhelmed by the realization that we’d actually fucking made it this far.
We’d been through so much to obtain these seven keys, and now that they were united, I struggled to believe it was done.
After everything the Warden had done to try to stop us, and all the lives he’d slaughtered in the process to gain control of the Divinity Keys, we’d fucking won.
We’d gotten here first, and that sorry fuck of a man would tremble before us and beg for mercy he wouldn’t receive when we unleashed the gods from the Elven Gate and finally put an end to his tyranny.
I reached into my pocket to pull out the rest of the keys we’d taken from the royal vault, and held out the seven Divinity Keys to my friends. “Guys… we did it.”
Danny reached out to take the vampire key. Kallie took the fae and merfolk keys, while Marcus lifted the witch key in one hand and the angel key in the other. I held on to the Elementai and Astromancer keys.
Danny counted under his breath to seven. “I’ll be godsdamned. All seven are here… united.”
His words roused a response within me that I wasn’t expecting. This should’ve been a moment of immense triumph, but all I sensed was intense dread. I never could’ve guessed this moment would feel so… hollow.
Deep down, I’d expected these keys to fix everything, to undo all the devastation and loss, to turn back the hands of time in ways we demigods had never been able to do.
At the very least, I thought achieving this dream might mend the wounds of the past. Instead, they seemed to tear open even winder, because those wounds ran too deep for even the divine to touch.
We’d been tortured for these keys. We’d nearly lost each other multiple times, and we’d been subjected to the horrors of Cellblock 9 for this.
Hell, Ava had died for these keys. She’d come back to me, only for me to lose her all over again.
My marriage was in shambles because I’d sacrificed it to get my hands on these damn keys.
Now that they were here and I’d gotten what I wanted…
I realized how much I’d given up to get here.
Even with these keys united, I’d never get any of that back.
We’d win this war, but we’d forever be broken from it.
Oberi nudged me with his nose. Charlie, we have to keep moving.
My Familiar had sensed how I was feeling, and he was there to remind me that if we gave up now, everything we endured would be for nothing.
And maybe it wasn’t worth it in the end— not for me, and not for the other demigods who’d been crushed beneath the weight of all we’d endured. But there was still a world out there full of people who had a chance to mend what the Warden had destroyed.
Maybe in a way, the Warden had already won. He’d broken us just as he’d promised he’d do all those years ago. But I’d sooner be damned to this empty existence than allow him to break another soul the way he had ours.
He could have my spirit for all I cared, but I wouldn’t let him take this world.