CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #2
Her tone made Cyrus bristle. Before he could intervene, I said quickly, “Ariel is right. We do have an advantage we didn’t last time.
Several, actually. Maybe we could talk to Gwyn.
If she’s not willing to help, what happens to one happens to both, right?
Lucifer may be in Hell, but … but Oliver isn’t.
Does he still have the tracker on him, Laurie? ”
Laurie nodded at the same time someone said, “Haven’t we already established that the Beast is invincible?”
My attention had gone elsewhere, though. Nym now stood near the counter, and the others hadn’t seemed to notice him. He stared at me silently. I gave the faerie a quizzical look. “Hi, Nym. Do you want to say something?”
“Time,” he said, as if that was an answer.
“Oi. You hear that?” Gil muttered. Everyone went silent, and stillness rang in the loft. I glanced at Gil, on the verge of shaking my head in confusion, but then it hit me—the stillness. It was never this quiet, even when I was here alone.
The clocks, I thought suddenly. All of Nym’s clocks had stopped.
They weren’t broken, as they’d been in that dark, dingy room at the Unseelie Court.
I turned in my chair, finding each one. Many were scattered on surfaces throughout the room, and there were several mounted on the walls because we’d started running out of places to put them.
Nym had been bringing the clocks home gradually these past few months, filling the loft with them, and Emma had happily helped him find a spot for every new find.
If a stranger was to come in, they would probably think an old man with an obsession for antique clocks lived here.
The constant sounds they made had become so normal they’d become background noise to me.
But now, all the ticking and moving hands had just … frozen.
I refocused on Nym, and my heart picked up speed, pounding in my ears. “What does this mean?” I asked.
The faerie rested his palm on my shoulder, pressing down briefly, as if to say, Wait. Then he looked at the door. We all followed his gaze, the air thick with tension.
Savannah Simonson stood in the doorway.
The necromancer wore a grim expression, and she was dressed all in black.
The outfit reminded me of what I had put on for my battle with the Leviathan.
I looked between Savannah and Nym, my brow furrowed.
She fixed her gaze pointedly on the Time Walker, as if they’d agreed that he would handle all the questions.
“We are going back,” Nym told me.
“Going back?” I frowned and shook my head. “Going back where, Nym?”
He held his hand out to Savannah, who crossed over to us and took it silently. Then Nym looked back at me and just repeated, “Time.”
Did he mean … time travel? Right now? As I frowned at him, I remembered what Nym had said when I’d asked him to save Finn. I have one more journey to make.
My gaze lowered to where he still held Savannah’s hand, and understanding flared in my mind. “Wait, you can take people with you?” I blurted.
“Now wait just a second—” Laurie began.
Before he could even finish his sentence, Nym’s other hand fell from my shoulder.
I had a second to register the sensation of his cool fingers wrapping around mine before the world imploded.
Everything fell away in a rush of color and white noise, and we were moving so fast I couldn’t even scream.
Vomit spewed from my mouth and I felt like I was tumbling through nothing like Alice in Wonderland.
Nym, I tried to say, but all I could do was hold onto his hand like it was a lifeline.
Pain vibrated through my knees as I landed on all fours.
A small groan slipped past my lips, and I swayed there for a few seconds, trying not to throw up again.
My eyes were squeezed shut, but I heard soft sounds around me—hopefully that meant Nym and Savannah had gotten here, too.
Wherever here was. Once I felt strong enough, I leaned on my haunches, holding a hand against my forehead.
I took in the room we’d arrived in, and though my skull was pounding from the shock of time travel, I recognized it immediately.
A fire crackled on one side of the room, and a huge desk stood on the other.
We were in Lucifer’s study … in Hell.
My stomach dropped. I looked around again, half-convinced this was a hallucination or a dream. Maybe I was dead. But what if I wasn’t? What if Nym really had brought us to another dimension? If this was real, I’d never fully realized what an awesome power he had.
The thought made me pause. Some of my awe faded as something else occurred to me. I whirled on Nym, my eyebrows lowering in confusion again. “If you could do this the entire time, why—”
The door opened. All three of us turned in unison, and I froze at the sight of Lucifer. He froze at the sight of me, too, his brow knitting with confusion.
Nym recovered first. He moved faster than I’d ever seen him, producing a knife that glinted in the firelight.
He went straight for Lucifer’s heart. The taste of Savannah’s terror filled my mouth as I cursed and launched across the room to help.
Lucifer deflected the faerie’s assault effortlessly.
Nym was in no physical state to fight, I thought as I snatched up a poker.
Guess it was a good thing he’d brought me.
But I was still just a breath too far away, and as Lucifer’s hand rose, I knew he was about to rip my friend’s head off.
“No!” I shouted, shoving the closest thing I could reach to buy me precious seconds.
The sound of the chair slamming to the floor drew Lucifer’s focus for an instant, and that was all I needed.
I flew at him and swung the poker at his head.
Nym fell backward while Lucifer dodged my blow.
At the same time, he grabbed my wrist and wrenched my entire arm around.
I bit back a cry, but air hissed through my teeth as he let go.
I cradled my arm against me and whirled to face him again.
Lucifer’s eyes flashed with something—regret, maybe—but then Savannah appeared, taking advantage of his distraction.
Her hand flew out, and a cloud of dust hit the devil in the face.
He stumbled back, his face going slack, his eyes dulling. Everything seemed to slow down again, and I watched in stunned silence as Lucifer sank to the floor. His breathing was fast. Perspiration gleamed at his temple. After another moment or two, he curled onto his side like a child.
In exactly the position my other self would find him.
Awareness shot through my veins, and I couldn’t contain a faint, startled breath. That night I’d assumed Lucifer was crying out from a bad dream, a night terror. When I’d gone in to comfort him, he hadn’t corrected me.
Another truth tore through my mind like a bright, roaring car on a dark night. Lucifer had to have known he would lose me after this. He must’ve known the entire time we were together.
But that didn’t matter right now. With effort, I refocused on the task at hand.
Savannah bent over Lucifer, and there was a brief stillness as she did something I couldn’t see.
My gaze kept darting to the door. It took everything I had to stay still knowing that, any second now, another Fortuna would come in.
I couldn’t shake the sense that I was supposed to be doing something.
Agitation roiled in my stomach, and I held my injured arm so tightly that pain shot through it.
In a matter of seconds, Savannah spun around and darted past me. “Got what we need. Let’s go,” she said.
What we need? I thought, nonplussed. There was no time to ask her about it. I began to follow, but that feeling inside me only got worse. I slowed, frowning. “Hold on, guys.”
“If we don’t go back now, we don’t go back at all,” Nym said, his voice surprisingly firm.
Ignoring him, I ran over to Lucifer’s desk.
I still didn’t know what I was doing or what I was looking for as I opened the top drawer.
But then I looked down at what was inside …
and I knew. Instinct guided me now, and I pulled a piece of paper out, along with one of Lucifer’s fancy pens.
I put the dark tip to the blank surface.
I didn’t think about it. I didn’t question it.
The words appeared in my head like magic.
Don’t trust him, I wrote.
Then I crumpled the paper into a ball, spun from the table, and tossed my message onto the floor, next to the door, where I knew my past self would find it.
If this played out exactly how everything happened the first time around, I knew my note would end up in the fire eventually, burned completely to ash, but that didn’t matter.
It would plant a seed of doubt. It might’ve even been what kept me from giving myself fully to Lucifer, even when we were at our happiest.
“Fortuna!” Savannah hissed. I rushed back over to them.
No wonder I hadn’t been able to read my own handwriting, I thought as Nym grabbed hold of me again. I’d used my left hand.
Then I felt that terrible whooshing sensation again, and Lucifer’s study was gone.
But the feeling only lasted for a second.
When we stopped again, I looked around in bafflement.
We were still in Hell. We were still in Lucifer’s tower, in fact.
Nym had brought us outside to the column-lined walkway, and familiar red skies churned beyond.
“I apologize,” the faerie said thinly, pressing his fingers against his chest. “I am … I am having difficulty …”
Savannah and I reached out at the same time to steady him, and we both held Nym beneath his arms as he leaned against the wall behind us, trying to catch his breath.
A line of perspiration gleamed at his temple.
He was in no shape to travel, much less take two passengers with him.
The realization made my stomach sink. What if we were stuck here? What if Lucifer captured us?