She fixes her attention on me and I stand firm, refusing to cave or show weakness. When she finally reclines back on her throne, hope sparks inside me that maybe this will work.
"If I free these souls, then you'll give me the ring back?" she asks. "Without any stipulations?"
I nod. "All I'm asking is for you to free the souls that were taken during the apocalypse . . . And to give the life back to a half-faerie named Nicholas."
"Give back a life." She erupts with laughter. "I have no control over such things."
"Yes, you do." Alana dares to step up onto the podium. "Through your sister, Annabella."
"I don't have any connection with Annabella or her decisions," the queen snaps. "And how dare you suggest otherwise!"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you do, even if you won't admit it," Alana says confidently. "I know you want your soul back. You've been stuck in that hideous body ever since you lost your own, melting away into a pathetic excuse for a queen. And you can't take that ring from Gemma's hand. Whoever holds that ring owns your soul and can only choose to give it back to you. That's how the curse works."
Helena snarls, her growl ripping through the air. But when neither of us budge, she settles down.
"If I was to speak with Annabella and free this faerie's essence, I'd want to talk to Gemma alone before giving her the lost souls she requests and then letting her back into the mortal world."
"I . . ." I glance at Alana in a panic. The idea of being alone with the queen is horrifying.
"That's my final offer," Helena says, relaxing back on her throne and crossing her legs.
"Fine, I'll do it," I say in a shockingly confident voice.
Alana bows her head and curtsies to the queen. "I'll go, then."
"Don't go too far. You owe me your debt by collecting my souls for me, just like all humans who make the choice to cross over into the Banshee world. Immortality doesn't come without a price, and you've been hiding from your debt for a very long time, ever since I agreed to give you the gift of Banshee blood and preserve your body's state."
"I know what I owe." She backs away and out into the tunnel, leaving me alone with the queen.
Even though I can't see her eyes, I can sense her watching me like a hawk, and I try not to squirm.
"I know you," she finally says. "You're important, filled with an essence I've never tasted before. Annabella would be thrilled to get a taste of you."
"As much as I'm flattered about that, I really don't think I want to be tasted ever again."
Her laughter reverberates throughout the room. "You're clever, but I wonder just how far that cleverness could take you."
"I'm not sure I'm following you."
"You're freeing these lost souls for the purpose that they aren't supposed to be here, but tell me, why not free your own soul?"
I pause as her question really sinks in.
"I didn't realize it needed to be freed."
"Everyone's soul needs to be freed in some way or another," she says. "But yours is different. Yours needs to be freed from the pain you've always carried around."
I place my hand over my heart, but I lack a pulse. "My soul's fine." With everything that's happened to it, though, I'm not so sure.
"It might be okay for now, but not after you die, and you will die very soon."
"How do you know about that?"
"All humans die," she replies. "Your life just ends sooner. But you won't be alone. You'll die with someone important to you, someone you desperately wish you could save."
I swallow the pain down as I think of how Alex will die with me. "Maybe."
"But you can't save others from death," she says, "not without a price."
"What kind of price?" I inch toward the throne. "Are you saying there's a way to save Alex and me?"
"Not both of you; only one of you." She smiles, seemingly pleased. "Only one of you can survive, with a sacrifice. One life in exchange for the other. But the question is, who will live and who will die?"
ALEX
It's been too long. I can feel it in my bones, in my heart, in my soul. I want to run upstairs and wake her up, but Aislin's watching me like a hawk.
"Quit fidgeting," Aislin says to me as she sorts through a box of herbs. "You're driving me crazy."
I flip through the television channels, and each station talks about the same thing: all the madness, chaos, and death happening. It's too depressing to watch and think about, so I turn off the TV and pick up my knife and sharpener.
"You're driving me crazy, too," I say as I drag the edge of the blade along the sharpener. "You've been looking through that box of herbs for, like, an hour. It's taking forever, and we don't have forever."
"I know, but I didn't mark any of them." She opens a bag and sniffs the green flakes of leaves inside it. "Or, well, I did, but the crazy me pulled off all the labels."
"You know, you're kind of crazy and self-destructing when you're evil," I point out. "You tear the labels off all your herbs. Then you go free a Black Angel and risk getting trapped yourself, all so you can seek revenge on Gemma, and for what?"
She shrugs. "Jealous rage. For some reason, I had it in my head that Gemma was trying to steal Laylen from me, which is crazy."
Jealously twists in my gut. I don't really believe Gemma was trying to steal Laylen from Aislin, but there's definitely a connection between Gemma and Laylen that I hate.
I glance around the living room. "Where is Laylen, anyway? I thought he went to check on Gemma, but he's been gone forever. Maybe something's wrong."
"He's been gone for, like, two minutes, Alex." She seals the bag shut and drops it into the box. "Just chill out, okay? You're making a stressful situation worse."
I point at the stairway. "Gemma's lying dead in her bed, her spirit's in the Afterlife, and you want me to chill out?"
"Everything's going to be okay, Alex. I won't let anything happen to her." She picks up another bag, this time filled with dry, red petals. "What is that?"
I shrug. "Why are you asking me? I don't know anything about herbs."
"No, not this." She sets the bag down and twists around. "That banging noise . . . It sounds like it's coming from the basement."
A ripple of tension waves through me, and my Keeper senses kick into full gear. "This place doesn't have a basement, Aislin."
She leans to the side, listening. "Well, then it's coming from under the house."
When I strain my ears and hear the faintest bang, I'm on my feet in an instant, carrying the knife as I head for the kitchen. The noise grows even louder, and I push my weight down on each tile, searching for a loose one, thinking maybe Marco and Sophia have a trap door.
After checking each one, I drag the table to the side and check the tiles that were underneath it. One feels loose, so I bend down, and with my knife, I chip away at the grout. The tile shifts to the side, and I pull it out along with a few others then discover a trapdoor tucked underneath them.
I contemplate what to do. I'm not sure what could be down there making that noise. Anything's possible, really.
"Hello," someone says from below.
I take a step back, aiming my knife at the trapdoor. "Aislin, get in here."
"Coming!" she calls from the living room.
The trapdoor opens, and a hand appears out of the dark hole.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" someone says from below.
The voice sounds familiar, but I can't exactly place it.
A woman with auburn hair suddenly pops out of the hole and heaves herself onto the floor. Panting, she rolls over on her back and looks up at me.
"Alex, is that you?"
I know who she looks like, but I'm not buying her appearance just yet.
I bend over and grip her throat. "Who are you?"
Her body shakes, scared to death. "It's me . . ." She struggles to breathe. "Sophia, Gemma's grandmother. You know me, Alex Avery."
"Sophia's dead, so you may look like her, but I'm not buying it." M
y grip tightens. "Tell me what you are? A Banshee? A witch?"
"I swear I'm Sophia," she says, trying to pry my hands away from her throat as tears slip from her eyes. "I don't know how to prove it to you, but I'm really her."
Suddenly, a pan comes flying through the air and hits the woman square in the forehead. She gasps one final breath of air before she passes out. Then I let her go and jump to my feet, only to find a wide-eyed Aislin gaping at the woman on the floor.
"What is that? Like a zombie?"
"Zombies don't exist." I lean down to examine the woman, trying to figure out who she really is. There's now a gash on her forehead and a trail of blood running down her cheek. "No, she's alive." I check her pulse to make sure then look over my shoulder at Aislin. "Did you really have to throw a pan at her?"
She shrugs. "I thought it was a zombie, and I panicked." She moves up beside me. "What is it, do you think?"
"I'm not sure, but there's one way to find out if it's really Sophia." I slide the collar of her shirt over, and sure enough, a ring of flames tattoos her skin.
"It's her? How the hell is that possible?" Aislin asks in shock. "I did a Tracker Spell on her, and it said she didn't exist. And Marco, too."
"Well, something went wrong, obviously."
"How? I never mess spells up."
I lift my brows, giving her a really look, and she smacks me in the back of the head.
"So if it is her," Aislin says, glancing at the trapdoor, "then where's Marco? And why was Sophia down there?"
I turn around and lie flat on my stomach, looking down into the area the trapdoor leads to. "There's only one way to find out."
With a deep breath, I lower myself into the hole. It reeks like someone has been down there for a long-ass time. Other than some food supplies and the stench, there's not really anything else down there, so I climb back up into the kitchen and fill a cup with water.
"Go tell Laylen who we just found," I order Aislin. "And make sure everything's going okay with Gemma."
Nodding, Aislin heads for the doorway, calling over her shoulder, "Be careful."
Once Aislin's gone, I crouch down beside Sophia and sprinkle some water onto her face. "Wake up." When she doesn't move, I give her face a pat and sprinkle some more water on her.
Her eyelids flutter open. "Alex," she croaks, touching her head. "What happened?"
"You jumped out of a hole in the floor," I tell her. "Then Aislin threw a pan at your head because she thought you're a zombie."
She winces, blinking dazedly. "A zombie? Why on earth would she think I'm a zombie?"
"Because apparently you're supposed to be dead, and clearly you're not."
As she glances at the knife in my hand, I can see her mentally calculating whether to steal it from me or not.
"Choose your next move really carefully," I warn. "I won't hesitate to kill you if I have to."
She shakes her head, sitting up. "You're just like your father," she bites out as she wipes some dirt away from her cheeks.
My eyelids narrow to slits. "See, now that's the kind of thing to say if you want to get killed."
She shakes her head, glancing around her kitchen, looking disoriented. "Sorry. I'm so confused. I can barely remember anything except"--her brows knit--"Aislin and that vampire showing up."
"What are you talking about? When were they here?"
"I don't know." She massages her temples. "My brain feels so foggy . . . I can remember Gemma disappearing and Stephan yelling at me for letting it happen. Then he went on this rampage and started murdering Keepers. Marco and I were going to run, but Aislin and that vampire showed up then threw me through that trapdoor and used magic to seal it. They said they needed my gift of unus quisnam aufero animus to detach Gemma's soul again. When Stephan found us, I was stuck behind that door, but I could hear him . . . killing . . ." Tears flood her eyes as a sob rips from her throat. "He killed Marco."
"Okay." I try to be compassionate, but I've never really been that good at it. "Why didn't you just bang on the trapdoor to begin with, though? We could have freed you weeks ago when we first showed up here."
"Because of this." She jerks up her sleeves, revealing the triangular mark on her arm. "It's begging me not to keep quiet any longer."
She lunges for me, bearing her teeth, and I clock her in the face, knocking her out again. Her body slumps to the floor as Aislin and Laylen come rushing in.
She catches sight of the unconscious Sophia and stops dead in her tracks. "She's still passed out? I thought I heard her talking."
"She was, but I had to knock her out again because of the mark," I say then quickly add, "And I think you two have some explaining to do, because she says you two are the reason she was stuck down there."
Aislin scratches her head, glancing confusedly at Laylen. "She's lying. She has to be."
"What happened during that time you two disappeared?" I cross my arms. "And not just recently. I mean a month ago in Colorado. When Aislin transported Gemma and I to the cabin then went back for you"--I point my knife at Laylen--"you guys just disappeared."
"We already told you we were running from the Death Walkers in Nevada." Laylen leans against the doorway, his face laced with confusion. "That's where we were." He looks at Aislin. "Weren't we?"
Aislin's face contorts in perplexity. "I really don't know."
"You two seemed pretty confident when you showed up in Colorado to save us, and now you're saying you have no clue what you were doing? Seems a little bit odd if you ask me."
"Well, you seemed pretty confident when you told us the Death Walkers just picked up your dad and left," Laylen counters. "Seems just as suspicious."
"Why are we even arguing about this?" Aislin asks. "It's in the past, and we should focus on the future. You know, the one we're supposed to save."
"It's important," I say, "because we might have a traitor in our midst."
GEMMA
The queen's liquid body slides like a blob down the tunnel as she leads me to her sister Annabella. White wisps of ribbon dangle from the ceiling around us and brush against my head as we duck into an open area lined with blooming tulips and roses. Petals float through the air as a light breeze sweeps across the garden.
"She's going to want something from you," Helena explains to me, running her fingers along the flowers as she passes them. The petals instantly wilt from the contact and crumble to the ground. "An essence would work well if you have one on your hands to give."
I flick a dead rose petal off my arm. "Okay, but what exactly is an essence?"
She twirls around on the path, making the petals dance with her. She laughs as she stops, and all the petals drop to the ground.
"An essence is a spirit or a ghostly form of a once living being. The person is still themselves in the sense that they possess a soul, can move, and can communicate. An essence is what humans turn into after they die. They're not like my lost souls who have disconnected their minds from their bodies due to dying before they were supposed to."
I think of Nicholas and how he walked the world. He has to be an essence. "But why do you torture your lost souls?"
"Why does anyone torture?" Her silvery lips curve into a grin as she crushes a tulip with her fingers. "For power."
"But you lost your own soul," I point out. "Doesn't that make you want to be . . . I don't know . . . more sympathetic toward those who've lost their souls?"
"Sympathy is weakness, something you should keep in mind before you make your decision." She dances around again, her silvery body shimmering in the light peeking through the tree branches canopying above us. "You're a powerful girl, Gemma--I can sense that from you--but your compassion for others makes you weak."
"I don't agree with you," I say, touching my stomach and thinking of how I would throw down my life in a heartbeat to protect my daughter. "Compassion makes me strong."
Her lips twitch as she spins around and snarls at me, "You're a stupid girl, then."
I don't
reply, not because I agree with her, but because I know there's no point in arguing.
As we near the end of the garden, the queen glides to the side where the path dead ends at a willow tree. Below the drooping branches is a woman with hair like cotton and silvery eyes that sparkle.
"Annabella," Helena says coldly to the woman.
Annabella smoothes her hand over her floor length dress and bows her head. "Helena, I sensed you crossing here."
"Of course you did." Helena stretches her body to rise taller than her sister. "You always do."
Annabella's eyes land on me. "And you've brought someone with you who seeks something from me."
"I have." The queen's voice is like an arctic breeze.
I warily step below the branches of the willow tree and join the two of them.
"I've come to ask you for a favor."
"I know why you're here," she says, her tone lacking emotion. "You want me to free an essence." She moves around her sister and steps in front of me. "But I don't understand why you ask for their freedom. I can feel your dislike for this person immensely."
"I feel guilty over his death," I admit.
"But Nicholas isn't a lost soul," she says. "Therefore, no one is responsible for his death."
The willowy branches brush against me as the wind picks up. "I still feel guilty for what happened to him."
She tilts her head to the side, her hands resting in front of her. "Why do you feel responsible for things that are out of your hands?"
"He died because I exist." Guilt twists in my stomach. "Many people have."
"It's not your fault," she insists. "Everyone has a path in life, even the lost souls. They're there because they're lost, but that's still where their path led them." Her silver eyes carry my gaze. "You're a better person than you think you are. Your soul is so pure." She holds out her hand, and her skin begins to shimmer gold as an orb forms in her palm. "Nicholas's essence."
I hesitate. "You're just giving it to me?"
She smiles kindly. "Not everything is complicated. Sometimes the answers are right in front of us."
I graze my thumb across the scar on my palm. "Yes, but not everything is uncomplicated, either."
She urges the orb at me. "But sometimes our questioning the answers makes things even more complicated."
"Maybe." I pick up the essence, noting its warmth against my skin, like sunshine.