Chapter 3

“There is something I want.” I flashed him my brightest smile.

His cold stare bored into me. “Name your price.”

Looping a lock of hair around my finger, I twisted it until I felt tingles. “Information,” I responded. “Our father abandoned us both, but our mother, my real mother, she could have kept me, but she didn’t. Why? I need to know why she didn't.”

I looked up at Zanthiel and his lips pulled into a hard line. “You're hurting on the inside, and you think that finding her will ease some of it. I understand. But what you need to understand is that sometimes the answers you seek will only bring more pain.” He leaned forward and let his cold breath touch my face, raising a small shiver. “I have seen you in deep pain, Venus. It is neither pretty nor poetic. Is that what you truly want?”

“That is what I truly want,” I repeated. “What would you do, were you in my shoes? If you discovered that Queen Mab was not your real mother?”

“Aside from the celebration?”

I laughed. “Yes, after the party came to a close, and you’d danced on her grave, I know you'd want to learn more. Who she was. Why she left you.” I shrugged one shoulder lightly, although Oberon’s truth weighed heavily upon them.

“As I said, I understand. But your potential disappointment could cause another massacre that their world could scarcely withstand."

I shook my head and pressed my hand to my heart. “I’ll be fine—you have my word.”

He moved closer. For a fraction of a moment, I thought I saw in his eyes traces of the past. Our past. They were fleeting, but they were there. He’d only looked at me with eyes of resentment and wariness lately. To see a rekindling of a very old spark, no matter how small, stirred something in me.

“Forgive me,” he said with his head angled, “but your word carries no reassurance. I would need to be certain of that.”

“Once upon a time, my word meant everything to you. That was why you brought me back from the dead, wasn’t it?”

He did not respond, but I saw something else flash behind those steely eyes.

With a shrug meant to convey my indifference, I said, “Fine. Do whatever you need to do to make this happen. You said the veil was sealed, but there is a way through? That dark beings are passing through as we speak?”

“There is. But—” He paused to examine his hands, “—the piece you should concern yourself with most is that they are dark beings. All of them. Any favor owed to me will not necessarily ensure your safety. I can buy you a piece of time. A fortnight in their world at best. Any longer, and Oberon would notice your absence.”

I scoffed. “My absentee father would miss me? He has me locked in a tower. I hardly think he’d notice if I disappeared entirely.”

“He would. First, he would come after you. And then he would come after me.”

“I know, I know. And what Oberon wants, Oberon gets.” He was the king of colluding and conspiring to get his way. Apparently, I’d come by the trait honestly. I frowned as a new thought crossed my mind.

“If there's a way through, then why hasn't Lorelei left?”

“Because most likely the wizard does not know of this passage. Nor would he trust it if he did. But I do.”

My head fell back as I laughed. “Oh, the company you keep, love. Truly, you need a better social circle.”

Zanthiel frowned. “Are you interested in this bargain or not? I haven't time to idle. And if you will not assist me, then I’ll find someone else who will.”

“Hiding another witchy ex-girlfriend up your sleeve?”

He turned to leave, and I grasped his arm.

“Relax, relax. I haven't said no, have I.” I pivoted away from him to reflect. “What is it exactly that you need me to do in return?”

“A spell.”

“Let me guess... a simple locator spell to find Lorelei’s whereabouts.”

“There is not much that is simple about it. It requires casting in such a manner that no trace of it is left behind,” he said.

I crossed my arms, feeling cheated. “Impossible,” I huffed, seeing my only opportunity of freedom beginning to fade. “It can’t be done. Every form of magic, especially witches’ magic, leaves an imprint. There is no way around that.”

“Octăhvia had a way around it. I need you to tap into her powers.”

This was becoming more farcical by the moment. "And just how do you propose I do that? Do you have some special technique for tapping into my dead surrogate mother’s latent magic? Remember the part about us not being related by blood?”

“You don’t need to, you just need me. I share a connection with Lorelei, and she holds Octăhvia’s magic inside her.”

“Right.” I scowled. “The kiss of memory. How convenient.”

My skin prickled at the memory. She really had stolen everything that was rightfully mine. My gaze lifted to his. “Can you do that? If you can read her thoughts, then why can’t you locate her yourself?”

“I am not reading her thoughts. She’s closed them off to me, for protection. But I can retrieve past thoughts. Delve deep into the moment when the energy shift occurred, when the two forces merged... ” He paused.

“I feel an enormous ‘but’ coming on.”

“But, I would need you in order to do this. And I would need your mother’s ashes.”

“Ha. See? Once again, you’re asking the impossible. She was scattered into the wind the moment of her death.”

“The earth would hold memory of it. You know this.” He frowned. “Or have you forgotten everything your elemental magic taught you?”

“So, let me see if I’m following this. You want to break me out of here, and use your connection to my sister to tap into my surrogate mother’s dying body the moment that her magic, rightly mine, was stolen by said sister?” My brows lifted. “Have I got it straight?”

He didn’t respond at first with anything other than his usual cold stare. Then he lifted his head and stretched out his cold hand. “Well? What say you? Do we have an agreement or not?”

****

The Shadow Court was a frozen city built of ruin and waist, on whim and fancy, sick and twisted. It was a land where the inhabitants did as they pleased, where light had all but abandoned them, and nothing good ever grew. A place void of anything but hollow shadows and pain and suffering. This realm of the damned had been my new home for months. It was utter paradise in comparison to the place Zanthiel was sending me to fulfill his part of our bargain.

I’d done my part and pinpointed as close to Lorelei’s location as I could, given the conditions I was working with. Now, I followed him and his partner-in-crime down smoky corridors and snaking paths, over blisteringly cold floors and through sweltering hot tunnels. Until, when I was certain I could inhale no more soot without blackening my lungs permanently, we were led outside.

It was from there that I went on alone.

Light struck my eyes and I stopped, temporarily blinded by its brilliance. Painful as it was, it was a welcome sight after living in the shadows for so long. I paused to inhale the soft wind, ripe with the smell of damp earth and fire.

I knew there was little time to revel in my new-found freedom. There was a great distance to cover and grave dangers ahead. The beings I was seeking assistance from may well have owed Zanthiel a counter favor, but that did not mean they held any sort of oath or duty to me. They could, if they wished, eat me alive, as they'd been rumored to do, with their massive, jagged teeth and clawed fingers.

I hoped those rumors held more fiction than truth, but still, I was cautious. It seemed a lengthy and indentured cost for the mere sake of spending time in a lesser world, among lesser beings. People I reminded myself. They were humans, although I knew there were witches living among them. Other beings as well, but they were ever fewer in number. And the likelihood of encountering one in such a trivial, remote place as Drearyton Cove... my destination... was minute. I'd been there before and found less than a handful. Why they felt the need to keep it all so secretive, even among their own family lines, I would never understand. How was the craft ever to be successfully handed down to future generations if everyone stopped practicing and kept their talents hidden?

I sighed. I would have to become one of them for the length of my stay. Being stripped of my power was one of the many conditions Zanthiel attached to my request. No magic. No murder. No mayhem. As if that was all I was capable of. No, this trip had but one purpose. To get to know the person... the woman, who had given me life, and then threw me aside.

The cloak of glamor I wore hid my true self. I sort of looked more like her, with lighter brown hair and the similarly pathetic round eyes that always looked a bit startled. I'd make do.

Was darling Zanthiel questioning his promise to me yet? I'd prove he was worrying needlessly. And he would worry. I knew this. As a prisoner in my father's castle, if my absence should be discovered, I was already dead. There was little chance he would stand for such willful disobedience. So not getting caught was number one on my agenda. Not only for myself, but for Zanthiel. He'd risked so much in helping me, and while it was a more than fair exchange, his risk was double fold. Crossing Oberon, by first coming to see me and then again in giving me access to the Shades.

I just needed to see Vivienne, my birth mother, once more. Knowing now who she truly was. I needed to... understand. Whatever it was Oberon did or undid, to unbind Adrius and me, also undid much of my former anger and inner rage. Even if I'd intended to do harm, I doubt I'd find the will to carry it through. That, and the Shaqua band clamed to my arm suppressed all my magic. This was solely a surveillance mission. And Vivienne Alundra was my sole target.

“Enter.” A voice cut through the space around me. Chilling words whispered, filled my ears with many voices at once. In a blink, I was engulfed in their world. The strange, untethered wildness of it set my teeth on edge.

Slowly, one by one, I was surrounded. My body seemed frozen in time, unable to move as terrifying beings gawked at me, their faces pinched and withered and mocking. A hand reached for me. Not a hand, more of a claw, with long bony fingers that came to sharp points. Deathly pale and void of life, much like the face that leaned in closer.

I wasn’t accustomed to feeling fear. Before Oberon stripped away the darkness that coated my soul, stripped away the very essence of my resurrected life, fear used to fear me. My reincarnation was conjured by these very beings. The Shades were powerful Necromancers, more fearsome than any monster.

Now, I could feel fear crawling inside me like a frightened animal clawing to get out. A scream built in my throat, but it could go no further because, although I could feel my fear, I was unable to express it.

“The veil is open,” came a whisper. It was one voice spoken by many.

I blinked, willing my hand to lift, to reach for his and accept what I'd come here to receive. The only way back to the world of the humans was through the portal in this purgatory.

Suddenly the floor beneath me crumbled away, and I was falling. The Necromancer’s hand reached for me. This time I reached for it, grasping at the mangled talons in utter desperation. For a moment he had me, dangling in the black nothingness of space. Then his hand slipped away from mine, and I fell, tumbling through an abyss of darkness, and fear finally found its voice as I drowned in the sounds of my own screams.

Somewhere in the midst of my panic, a deep calm came over me. This was what I'd asked for. This was why I’d come. Recent events had undone me. I had come here to be remade.

I'd come to find the witch who chose my sister over me.

I'd come for my mother.