Authors: Jessica Sorensen
Something had shifted.
And Alex and I were screwed.
Back during my first visit to the City of Crystal,
Dyvinius had explained to me how visions work. He
said that if a vision wasn’t read correctly then the
world as we knew it could shift. I never considered
that we just might be playing with fire when Nicholas
and I had been bouncing around in and out of visions.
And the vision where I took Nicholas and myself to
The Underworld had never real y been finished.
Nicholas had freaked out and made me take us back
to Adessa’s before I was able to see the entire
outcome of the vision. I have been so stupid not
realizing this, and now I have dragged Alex into a
mess he hadn’t known he was getting dragged into.
Crap. I couldn’t believe this was happening. What
other things had changed because I hadn’t been
careful? Playing with visions was such a risky thing.
And now I had no idea what was going to happen.
“I have to say,” said the Queen. “It isn’t every day
that someone voluntarily enters my world. Usual y, it’s
with much force and fussing. And yet you two are
here, entering it on your own free wil . Tel me, what
has brought you here?” She wasn’t being kind; she
was taunting us—I could hear it in her voice.
“We came here to get something,” Alex told her in a
firm voice.
“Ah, I see.” She eyed us over with her empty eyes
and then turned around and motioned to us to fol ow
her.
While she had her back turned, I leaned over and
whispered in Alex’s ear. “This isn’t right.”
He gave me a look like I was insane. “What isn’t
right?”
“This isn’t how I saw the vision go,” I whispered, and
his eyes widened.
We fol owed the Queen back down the tunnel, past
the cluster of floating Water Faeries, and up a set of
marble stairs, which led us to a room that had a long
antique table trailing down the center, and a massive
chandelier hanging from the ceiling. There were no
crystals decorating the chandelier, but pieces of
thorn-covered wire that were bended and turned in
every direction. Covering the dirt wal s were twisted
pieces of vines that looked like seaweed.
“Have a seat,” the Queen told us, gesturing to the
chairs trimming the table.
Alex and I did what she asked, and then she took a
seat at the head of the table. There was a long pause
while she sat, watching us.
“So you’ve come here for something, have you?”
she final y asked.
“
Someone
, actual y,” Alex told her. “Her name is
Jocelyn Lucas.”
I could tel right away that the Queen knew who we
were talking about—you could see it in her face.
“Tel me boy, what is your name?” the Queen
asked.
“Alex Avery,” Alex said with some hesitance.
“Ah, I see. You’re a Keeper.” She moved her
attention to me. “And you? What is your name?”
“Gemma Lucas,” I told her, forcing my voice to
come out steady.
Darkness masked her face. “So you are what? The
daughter of Jocelyn?”
I nodded. God, I hoped she knew nothing of the
star.
“I see.” The Queen tapped her sharp fingernails on
the top of the table. “So what did you expect? That
you would come down here and demand I give you my
best slave, al because you asked?”
“No,” Alex said, “We’ve actual y brought something
to trade for Jocelyn’s freedom.”
“I can assure you, Alex, that you have nothing I
want,” the Queen replied with a disdainful manner.
Alex slipped the sapphire teardrop diamond out of
his pocket and held it up for the Queen to see. “Not
even for this.”
She looked surprised, which I took as a good
sign…at first. But then she started to laugh, the high
pitched laugh that rang sorely against my eardrums
and shook at the chandelier.
I gave Alex a glance, and he shrugged.
The Queen stopped laughing and her laughter
swiftly shifted to anger. “You think that you can come
down here, and try to make a bargain with me with
something the Keepers took from me to begin with.”
She rose from her chair, towering over us. “How dare
you insult me. You are just like your father. Taking
whatever you want and doing whatever you please.”
I wanted to bang my head against the table. Was
there anyone who didn’t have a grudge against
Stephan? Probably not, but stil …
“I have been waiting for the day when I would see
your father again and settle what he started a long
time ago.” The Queen sauntered toward us, her eyes
locked on Alex.
Alex, being Alex, held her petrifying gaze. “I
understand that you may have had some issues with
my father, but I can assure you that—”
“Silence.” The Queen’s loud voice caused the dirt
wal s to quake. “I don’t want to hear any excuses. I
always swore to myself that one day I would get even
with Stephan, whatever it took. And here you are…It’s
the perfect opportunity. A much smal er version of
him, of course, but stil it’l do.”
“He’s nothing like his father,” I said abruptly, and
then shrank back when the Queen focused her
attention on me. My body quivered but I pressed on.
“And he only came down here because I asked him to
—so I could get my mother.”
The Queen’s face was not ful of anger, but of
inquisitiveness. She walked back to her chair, but
didn’t sit down. “You know Jocelyn has never
mentioned having a daughter, so I find it rather
peculiar that someone would show up with the son of
one of my sworn enemies and claim to be her
daughter.”
“Wel , I am,” I assured her. “And I want to take her
back with me.”
“Take her back?” She started laughing again. “Oh,
I’m afraid there’s no way I can do that. You see, you
can’t take her back with you, because you yourself are
never leaving.”
“No, we can leave,” I told her, but my certainty that I
real y could was questionable. “I came here through
the Ira, and you can’t keep us here—there are laws
that say you can’t.”
Alex shot me a look that warned me I was treading
on very thin water.
“Oh I’m afraid that’s where you are wrong,” The
Queen said. “The Ira was created for the leader of the
Foreseers to enter The Underworld. Therefore the law
of releasing only applies to him.” She smiled a big
empty smile before gesturing her hand around the
room. “So Gemma and Alex, let me welcome you to
your new home.”
“Let me welcome you to your new home.” The
Queen’s words kept running through my head like a
plague. You could see it on her face that she got
some sort of sick, twisted pleasure when she told us
we couldn’t leave. Which wasn’t surprising. She was
the Queen of a world that ran on fear.
But don’t get me wrong, I stil tried to get us out of
there. I tried so hard to blink us out of that horrible
place that I gave myself a splitting headache.
After the Queen declared we were never al owed to
leave, she locked Alex and I in a cement chamber that
had a single bed in it. It was like being in a jail cel ,
except there were no bars on the door.
The Queen was probably going to keep us here
until she was ready to begin our torture sessions,
where we would end up being faerie food. Or at least
our fear would. Fear was not a new emotion for me—I
have felt it many, many times. So I knew that in order
to bring it out of a person, something bad had to
happen.
“I’m real y starting to wonder just how long the list of
people who my father has pissed off is,” Alex said.
We had been sitting on the bed, staring at the
cement wal s for awhile, so the sound of his voice
startled me a little.
“Probably pretty long,” I said, and he shot me dirty a
look. “Sorry, but it’s probably the truth. I mean, he
walks with the Death Walkers, betrays the Keepers,
forces faeries to help him al because of a Blood
Promise made ages ago. And he’s also pissed off
the Queen of the dead for who knows what reason.
That list, right there, is real y long.”
Alex let out a sigh. “Yeah, you’re probably right. We
probably wil be running into a lot more people who
hate him.”
I was right. What the…
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
I kept looking at him the same way. “Like what?”
“Like I just shocked the heck out of you.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know…because you said I was
right.”
He stared at me perplexedly, as if he was trying to
figure something out.
“So what are we going to do?” I asked. “I mean,
are we going to be able to get out of here?”
He let out a loud breath as he ran his fingers
through his hair. “I don’t know Gemma. I don’t even
know what exactly happened. I mean, do you have any
idea why this didn’t work out like how you saw in the
vision?
I massaged the sides of my temples, trying to force
my headache away. “Because I didn’t finish seeing
the vision, at least that’s what I think happened.
Nicholas forced me to take us away before I saw the
whole thing play out.” Someone screamed not too far
away, and I shivered. “I’m sorry,” I said.
Alex cocked an eyebrow at me. “Sorry for what?”
“For messing this up.”
He shook his head, dragging the knife he brought
with along him on the frame of the bed. “You didn’t
mess this up. I did, by being my father’s son.”
“Wel , I think we can also put a little bit of the blame
on Nicholas.” The mention of faerie boy’s name
caused an acidic taste to burn in the back of my
throat. “For not giving us al the details about how the
Ira works. Although, we never should have trusted him
to begin with.”
“Yeah, I know,” Alex leaned back against the
cement wal and folded his arms across his chest.
“What wil they do to us?” I asked quietly. “The
Water Faeries—what wil they do to instil fear in us?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, and I knew he was lying by
how he avoided looking at me.
“Just tel me,” I said tiredly and slumped back
against the cement wal . “I think I need to know what
I’m in store for.”
He locked eyes with me. “You real y want to know?”
he asked, and I nodded, even though I felt like I was
being choked. “Okay, wel to put it simply you’re in
store for a lot of pain.”
I nodded, the choking feeling practical y strangling
me to death.
It got quiet. Noises of dripping water fil ed our little
concrete prison in a way that was almost maddening.
Pain. I was going to be in a lot of pain. But, was he
talking about the physical kind of pain or the
emotional kind?
“Look,” he said, before I could ask him to clarify
which kind of pain he was referring to. “No matter
what happens, I need you to hold on, okay? No matter
how bad things get, don’t give up.”
The idea of not giving up was suddenly eating away
at me. “But wouldn’t it be better if I didn’t hold on? If I
just let myself go?”
He looked alarmed. “What’s that supposed to
mean?”
“I don’t know…” The prickle was starting to poke at
me. Poke, poke, poke. I scratched viciously at the
back of my neck. “It means, wouldn’t things be better if
I was gone?”
His eyes widened, and he looked as if he was
freaking out. Not the reaction I was expecting, but
okay. “Wh—why are you saying this?” he asked.
The prickle was real y going at it. “Because, it
would be better for a whole lot of people if I was. I
mean, if I might be the one who’s going to open the
portal instead of closing it, wouldn’t that make me be
responsible for everyone’s deaths?”
“Where did you get the idea that you’re what’s
going to open up the portal.”
“It’s kind of obvious, once I real y thought about it. I
mean Stephan’s working with the Death Walkers,
bares the Mark of Malefiscus, and I saw him in that
vision where the world had ended in ice. What do al
those things have in common? They’re al bad. So
why would Stephan want the star’s power for anything
good.”