“I did.” I wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry about what happened to him. I don’t know everything, but I know enough to say I’m sorry.”
Layla looked away, lips trembling before she pressed them together. She didn’t speak until we started to cross the lawn. “Did he look...okay?”
I stopped, touching her arm. She faced me, sorrow etched into her features. “He crossed over, into the light, and that means he’s someplace good, with people he knows and loves. He’s more than okay.”
“But he’s back—”
“Spirits can come back. They’re not supposed to do it a lot, but he’s worried about Stacey. I think once everything is resolved with the school, he’ll be more at peace and won’t come around as much,” I explained. “But he’ll always be here with you guys. As cliché as that sounds, I know it’s true. He’s more than okay.”
As she closed her eyes, Layla’s lips moved wordlessly and then she sprang forward, giving me a hug that left me standing there with my arms awkward at my sides. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for telling me that.”
My fingers wiggled. “It’s only the truth.”
She squeezed me. “And it means everything.”
When she stepped back, she smiled at me and then turned. “What?” she yelled.
I followed her gaze to find Zayne and Roth standing several feet away, watching us.
“Nothing.” Roth had his hands in his pockets. “Just that you two getting all handsy was kind of hot.”
Zayne jerked his head toward Roth.
The demon prince shrugged. “Look, I’m just being honest. I’m a demon. I don’t know why any of you would expect anything less from me.”
“It’s a good thing I love him,” Layla muttered as she stalked forward, and I got moving. “And I do love him with every part of my being and then some, but he...he just doesn’t people well.”
I laughed at that, glancing at Zayne, who was watching us with an almost perplexed expression on his face. Having no idea what that was about, I headed toward the copse of trees, steps slowing.
“It was somewhere over here.” I scanned the ground, not wanting to plummet through a hole again. “It happened pretty fast, but...”
Roth was to the right of me. “I don’t see anything.”
“Neither do I.” Zayne had moved farther, head bowed. “And you’re right, the hole was right around here.”
“What the Hell?” I muttered, frowning.
“Hey,” Layla called out. “Is it possible that the hole... recovered itself?”
I turned around. She was a couple of feet behind me, standing inches from where I’d just stepped. “That would be weird, but anything is possible at this point.”
She was staring down as she slowly lifted one foot and then the other.
“You find something?” Roth was heading back to us.
“I don’t know. The ground feels weird here.”
“Like it’s mushy?” When she nodded, I lifted my hands. “You should probably move. That’s what the ground felt like where I fell.”
Layla knelt and placed her hands on the lawn. Without any effort, she lifted clumps of grass. “Yeah, I think the hole totally closed back up.”
“Then you should definitely move,” Zayne advised, coming to stand by me.
“We need to get down there, right?” She lifted her chin. “Unless any of you know a close entrance to the tunnels.”
We looked at Roth.
“I know of no entrances nearby.”
“Then we’ve got to go down this way.” Layla rose.
“What are you going to do?” Zayne asked. “Jump into the ground?”
“Sounds like a plan to me.”
“Shortie,” Roth began. “I do not think that would be wise.”
“How far do you think the drop was?” Layla asked, and I told her. “That’s not bad. I mean, I’ll know it’s coming, so I can brace.”
“You’re really just going to jump up and down?” Zayne looked at Roth like he expected the demon to intervene.
Layla did just that. She jumped. “Yeah.”
“Uh...” I wondered what the four of us must look like to passersby as Layla jumped again.
“Oh. Wait. The ground is getting more mushy.” She looked at Roth and jumped again. “I think I—” She disappeared before Roth could intervene, sucked into the Earth.
“Well,” I said. “Not like anyone didn’t say that was a bad idea.”
Roth dropped to his knees by the hole. “Layla? You okay?”
Silence and then came her muffled response. “Totally worked!” A pause. “And that was maybe a couple feet more than you estimated, Trinity.”
I raised my hands.
“It’s cold down here and really dark,” she said. “I can barely see anything, but it’s definitely a tunnel.”
“Move back,” Roth called. “I’m coming down.”
Zayne and I watched him slip into the hole and when we heard the thump of his landing, we looked at each other.
“They’re your friends,” I told him.
He chuckled as he walked forward and stopped at the hole, holding out his hand. “Let me get you down there.”
I shot him a look. “I can make the jump now that I’m prepared for it.”
“I know you normally can,” he said. “But you promised to take it easy, and taking it easy isn’t jumping down ten feet.”
I opened my mouth.
“And you were limping.”
“Was not!”
“You were,” he argued. “A little. I saw you.”
“You were totally limping,” Layla shouted from the hole.
“No one asked you,” I yelled back.
“Trin,” Zayne all but growled. “Let me help you.”
Part of me wanted to refuse, though I knew I was being ridiculous. But I did stomp on the way over to him, which didn’t go unnoticed, because Zayne grinned in an infuriating way when I took his hand. He pulled me to his chest, and I tried not to think about how warm and wonderful and just right it felt being this close to him. I tried not to feel at all as he lifted me about a foot and folded his other arm around me. I tried not to inhale that wintermint scent of his, and I really, really tried to not think about how it had felt the last time we were this close.
“Hold on,” he said, voice rougher than before, and before I could attribute that to what he might be feeling, Zayne jumped.
The moldy, musty smell seemed to reach up and grab us. His landing was hard, but not jarring, and as he straightened, I realized the tunnel wasn’t dark this time. There was a soft orangey glow.
Zayne settled me on my feet, his hands gliding over my back as he let go. Shivery, I turned toward the source of the light.
“Torches.” Roth held just that, a thick stick about half the length of a baseball bat. “They’re spaced every few feet out.”
“I didn’t see them last time,” I admitted.
Layla grabbed one and tipped it toward Roth’s. The top sparked and flames grew. She handed it to Zayne. “Is this where you came down?”
“I think so.” I turned around, spying the greenish-gray stone walls. “But I ended up moving a bit, not sure in what direction.”
Zayne took the torch toward the wall. “I don’t see any writing.”
“Maybe this isn’t the section.”
“There’s a mound of dirt down here,” Roth called several feet to our right. “This could’ve been where she landed, but there’s no writing around here, either.”
The corners of my lips turned down as I went from one wall to the next. There was nothing. “I don’t understand.”
“Let’s keep walking. There’s a chance you ended up farther than you think,” Zayne suggested, keeping the torch close so that I could see.
We walked on, past a couple of halls that branched into other tunnels. “I really hope there are no LUDs down here,” Layla said.
“LUDs?” I asked.
Roth sighed. “Have you never seen The Princess Bride? Little Ugly Demons? Like Rodents of Unusual Size?”
I looked at Zayne and he just shook his head. “I’ve never heard of LUDs.”
“They look like little baby Ravers,” Layla explained, stopping. “Just as ugly and somehow creepier when they’re smaller. They live in tunnels.”
“Oh, great,” I murmured.
“There’s a door here,” she said. “It’s sealed somehow.”
She was right. There was no handle or lock, and when she pushed on it, it didn’t budge.
“There’s another one here.” Roth tipped the torch to his right. “We’re going to see a lot of doors and they’re probably best left closed.”
“It has to be fifty degrees cooler down here.” Zayne looked up at the ceiling as we passed yet another opening into a dark corridor. “Do you feel anything?”
“No. I feel nothing.”
“That doesn’t mean we won’t find anything,” he reasoned.
“I don’t understand, though.” We passed more doors made of stone and easy to miss. “I know I saw something written on those walls.”
“Could it have been dirt?” Roth asked.
“I don’t think so, but Hell, I don’t know. I really thought this would lead us to something.”
Zayne touched my arm. “It did. You discovered who the Harbinger is.”
“Yeah, but...” It was hard explaining the disappointment I was feeling. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting to find, but an endless maze of tunnels wasn’t it.
“One of these tunnels, I’m betting, leads directly into the school.” Roth stopped and stepped back as he looked both east and west. “Probably opens up in the old lower gymnasium and locker area.”