He will be in the Underworld. Waiting for us.
The monsters in the woods are still drawing near. Maeve and Magiano run toward the light. I follow them in a daze, the world still quiet around me, the snow blurring. With the creatures at our backs, gaining on us fast, and the blinding blue-white light before us, I tear my gaze away from him, take a deep breath . . . and step in at the same time as the others.
MEDINA. Have I arrived? Is this, truly, the ocean of the Underworld?
FORMIDITE. Speak, child, for you stand at the gates of death.
MEDINA. O goddess! O angel of Fear! I cannot bear to look upon you.
—Eight Princes, by Tristan Chirsley
Adelina Amouteru
Energy floods me. It fills every crevice in my mind and body, threads of power from every god—Fear, Fury, Prosperity and Death, Empathy and Beauty, Love and Wisdom and Time, Joy and War and Greed. I feel everything at once. It burns my insides with its sheer intensity, and for an instant I think I won’t be able to stand it. I want to scream. Where are the others? I can no longer hear Magiano’s voice or Raffaele’s shouts. I can no longer sense anything but the light and the energy.
I try to open my eye, and in that instant, I think I see a glimpse of the heavens beyond the sky, and the waters deep below the mortal oceans.
Gradually, the light starts to fade. The air turns cold again, but it is different from the winds in the Dark of Night. It is a cold that burrows deep into my bones, a numbness that nestles there near my heart and wraps it in a cocoon of ice. Tentatively, I open my eye. The world around me is hazy and gray. I recognize this gray. It is that of the Underworld.
Under my feet is the feeling of cold water. On one side of me is Magiano. On my other is Raffaele, then Maeve and Lucent.
We have crossed into the world of the gods.
Although the Underworld’s ocean looms at our feet, we do not sink into the water. Instead, we stand on top of it, as if we were weightless. When I look down at the water, I notice that not a single ripple disturbs its surface. A mirror of the eternal gray sky around it, the realm between the heavens and the earth, the space where you are neither here nor there; the water is dark, almost black, but completely transparent. Far below glide the silhouettes of enormous creatures, the same that I’ve seen countless times in my nightmares of the Underworld. Except now we are here.
Adelina.
The whisper echoes all around us, reverberating deep in my heart. It is a voice I know well. I look up at the same time everyone else does. There, some distance away, a pale figure with long black hair walks on the surface of the ocean toward us. As she draws near, I am unable to move. The others remain frozen in place. A chill lodges in my chest.
Adelina. Then she whispers the others’ names too. You do not belong here. You are from the world of the living.
Formidite. The angel of Fear. She has come to claim us.
Her hair trails all across the ocean, stretching on beyond the horizon, so that the sea behind her is nothing but a field of dark strands. She has the body of a child, but skeletal. Her face is featureless, as if skin were stretched tightly across it, and she is whiter than marble. Suddenly I am reminded of the first time I ever saw her in my nightmares, on the evening right after Raffaele had tested me for the Dagger Society.
I bow as she approaches us and the others do the same. Raffaele is the first to address her, his eyes cast down toward the water.
“Holy Formidite,” he says. “Gatekeeper to the Underworld.” We murmur our own greetings to her.
Beneath her layers of skin, she seems to smile at him. Return to the mortal world.
“We are here to save those like ourselves,” Raffaele answers. He must be afraid of her, as are we all, but his voice stays steady and gentle, unrelenting. “We are here to save the mortal world.”
Formidite’s smile vanishes. She leans down toward us. The fear building in me grows, and my power grows with it, threatening to undo me. She looks first at Raffaele, and then turns to Maeve. Something about Maeve catches her interest. She steps closer to the Beldish queen, then tilts her head in what can only be described as curiosity. You have a power, little one. You have pulled souls out of my mother’s realm before, and taken them back to the living.
Maeve bows her head lower. I can see her hand visibly trembling against her sword’s hilt. “Forgive me, Holy Formidite,” she says. “I was given a power I can only say was from the gods.”
I was the one who let you in, Formidite answers. You have learned since then, I know, that there are consequences for channeling the gods’ powers.
“Please let us enter,” Maeve says. “We must fix what we have done.”
Still, Formidite waits. She looks at Lucent, then at Raffaele. Children of the gods, she says as she goes. And then she looks at me.
The fear in my chest spikes. Formidite takes another step forward, until her figure looms over me and casts a soft shadow across the ocean. She reaches down, one bony hand outstretched, and she touches me gently on my cheek.
I cannot stop my power—an illusion of darkness bursts from all around, silhouettes of ghostly arms and red eyes, visions of rainy nights and a horse’s wild eyes, of a burning battleship and long palace corridors. I stumble backward, tearing myself away from her touch.
My child, Formidite says. Her strange, featureless smile returns. You are my child.
I am hypnotized by her face. The fear swarming inside me makes me delirious.
Formidite is silent for a moment. The ghostly calls of creatures from the deep echo up to us, as if they had been stirred to life by our presence. Finally, she nods once at us. When I look down again, the creatures’ shapes are closer to the surface, and they crowd one another. My heart pounds faster. I know what this means, and who is waiting for us beneath the surface. Formidite’s twin angel. ll be in the Underworld. Waiting for us.
The monsters in the woods are still drawing near. Maeve and Magiano run toward the light. I follow them in a daze, the world still quiet around me, the snow blurring. With the creatures at our backs, gaining on us fast, and the blinding blue-white light before us, I tear my gaze away from him, take a deep breath . . . and step in at the same time as the others.
MEDINA. Have I arrived? Is this, truly, the ocean of the Underworld?
FORMIDITE. Speak, child, for you stand at the gates of death.
MEDINA. O goddess! O angel of Fear! I cannot bear to look upon you.
—Eight Princes, by Tristan Chirsley
Adelina Amouteru
Energy floods me. It fills every crevice in my mind and body, threads of power from every god—Fear, Fury, Prosperity and Death, Empathy and Beauty, Love and Wisdom and Time, Joy and War and Greed. I feel everything at once. It burns my insides with its sheer intensity, and for an instant I think I won’t be able to stand it. I want to scream. Where are the others? I can no longer hear Magiano’s voice or Raffaele’s shouts. I can no longer sense anything but the light and the energy.
I try to open my eye, and in that instant, I think I see a glimpse of the heavens beyond the sky, and the waters deep below the mortal oceans.
Gradually, the light starts to fade. The air turns cold again, but it is different from the winds in the Dark of Night. It is a cold that burrows deep into my bones, a numbness that nestles there near my heart and wraps it in a cocoon of ice. Tentatively, I open my eye. The world around me is hazy and gray. I recognize this gray. It is that of the Underworld.
Under my feet is the feeling of cold water. On one side of me is Magiano. On my other is Raffaele, then Maeve and Lucent.
We have crossed into the world of the gods.
Although the Underworld’s ocean looms at our feet, we do not sink into the water. Instead, we stand on top of it, as if we were weightless. When I look down at the water, I notice that not a single ripple disturbs its surface. A mirror of the eternal gray sky around it, the realm between the heavens and the earth, the space where you are neither here nor there; the water is dark, almost black, but completely transparent. Far below glide the silhouettes of enormous creatures, the same that I’ve seen countless times in my nightmares of the Underworld. Except now we are here.
Adelina.
The whisper echoes all around us, reverberating deep in my heart. It is a voice I know well. I look up at the same time everyone else does. There, some distance away, a pale figure with long black hair walks on the surface of the ocean toward us. As she draws near, I am unable to move. The others remain frozen in place. A chill lodges in my chest.
Adelina. Then she whispers the others’ names too. You do not belong here. You are from the world of the living.
Formidite. The angel of Fear. She has come to claim us.
Her hair trails all across the ocean, stretching on beyond the horizon, so that the sea behind her is nothing but a field of dark strands. She has the body of a child, but skeletal. Her face is featureless, as if skin were stretched tightly across it, and she is whiter than marble. Suddenly I am reminded of the first time I ever saw her in my nightmares, on the evening right after Raffaele had tested me for the Dagger Society.
I bow as she approaches us and the others do the same. Raffaele is the first to address her, his eyes cast down toward the water.
“Holy Formidite,” he says. “Gatekeeper to the Underworld.” We murmur our own greetings to her.
Beneath her layers of skin, she seems to smile at him. Return to the mortal world.
“We are here to save those like ourselves,” Raffaele answers. He must be afraid of her, as are we all, but his voice stays steady and gentle, unrelenting. “We are here to save the mortal world.”
Formidite’s smile vanishes. She leans down toward us. The fear building in me grows, and my power grows with it, threatening to undo me. She looks first at Raffaele, and then turns to Maeve. Something about Maeve catches her interest. She steps closer to the Beldish queen, then tilts her head in what can only be described as curiosity. You have a power, little one. You have pulled souls out of my mother’s realm before, and taken them back to the living.
Maeve bows her head lower. I can see her hand visibly trembling against her sword’s hilt. “Forgive me, Holy Formidite,” she says. “I was given a power I can only say was from the gods.”
I was the one who let you in, Formidite answers. You have learned since then, I know, that there are consequences for channeling the gods’ powers.
“Please let us enter,” Maeve says. “We must fix what we have done.”
Still, Formidite waits. She looks at Lucent, then at Raffaele. Children of the gods, she says as she goes. And then she looks at me.
The fear in my chest spikes. Formidite takes another step forward, until her figure looms over me and casts a soft shadow across the ocean. She reaches down, one bony hand outstretched, and she touches me gently on my cheek.
I cannot stop my power—an illusion of darkness bursts from all around, silhouettes of ghostly arms and red eyes, visions of rainy nights and a horse’s wild eyes, of a burning battleship and long palace corridors. I stumble backward, tearing myself away from her touch.
My child, Formidite says. Her strange, featureless smile returns. You are my child.
I am hypnotized by her face. The fear swarming inside me makes me delirious.
Formidite is silent for a moment. The ghostly calls of creatures from the deep echo up to us, as if they had been stirred to life by our presence. Finally, she nods once at us. When I look down again, the creatures’ shapes are closer to the surface, and they crowd one another. My heart pounds faster. I know what this means, and who is waiting for us beneath the surface. Formidite’s twin angel.