I felt strong. I disentangled myself from his arms and stood then reached down to pull Cole up after me.
“We’re making a stand,” I said.
Ashe’s eyebrows shot up, but he composed himself quickly and reached into his pocket. “We’ll have a better chance with this.”
He pulled out a note. My note. My Ever Yours token.
“Where did you find it?” I said incredulously.
“In the maze. The wind had carried it over several corridors.”
“I can’t believe it!” I grabbed the note and pressed it to my palm. “Finally, fate is on our side. We can’t fail now.”
Cole gave me a tired smile. Ashe and Max looked at me as if I were bonkers.
“Whatever you’re going to do, make it fast,” Ashe said. The torch in his hand barely held a flame, and several Shades blocked him from the wall of fire. Max’s torch had already died out, and the three of us were huddled behind Ashe and his torch, which was now more like a candle.
“Can we fight them?” I asked Cole.
“We can’t even grab them,” he replied. “They’re made up of a different substance entirely.”
We backed against the dark stone wall. My tether pointed to the right, but the Shades had formed a semicircle around us. Every way was blocked. Ashe waved the torch wildly, but the Shades were venturing ever closer.
The last remnant of the flame disappeared, and Ashe threw aside the torch, swearing. He pulled the sword out from the sheath at his back.
“Which way do you need to go?” Ashe asked, looking over his shoulder.
“To the right,” Cole said.
Ashe eyed the Shades at our right … and then he charged. He swung his sword wildly. It cut through the Shades as if they were made of smoke. None of them even flinched away enough to give us room to run.
He threw the sword to the ground, and right then the closest two Shades darted toward him.
I don’t know if it was a reflex action or what, but Ashe made a fist and swung toward the place where their faces would be if they had heads.
And he made contact.
The two Shades flew back from the blows from Ashe’s fist. They landed on the ground in a heap.
Everyone froze for a split second. Obviously we weren’t the only ones shocked that Ashe could fight them.
And then Ashe’s fists were flying.
“Go!” he shouted, making an open pocket in the midst of the Shades to our right.
We didn’t stop to figure out what had happened. We just sprinted along the wall, on the wide strip of grass that separated the wall from the Ring of Fire.
My tether grew darker, as if it was urging us forward. “Keep going!”
Up ahead, something shimmered on the horizon. It looked like a small lake.
I started to veer to the right, figuring that the best way to pass it would be between the lake and the stone wall; but as I veered, my tether dimmed, and the pointed end tugged counterclockwise, toward the lake.
Maybe the best way was to the left, between the lake and the Ring of Fire; but when I veered left, the tether dimmed again and tugged clockwise, again pointing to the lake.
“It’s pointing to the water!” I said to Cole, who was running beside me.
He shook his head. “Can’t be. The Tunnels aren’t in a lake.”
The closer we got to the body of water, the more my hope plummeted. The side of the lake butted up against the black wall on one side and the Ring of Fire on the other side.
There was no way around it. But I knew what the water did to people here. There was no way I could swim across it. Even Cole couldn’t. The water would make us crazy, until we drowned in it.
We slowed to a stop just outside the reach of the lapping water.
Max caught up with us moments later. We turned around. Ashe was booking it toward us, followed by several more Shades. I couldn’t count how many because they swirled together, joining and separating as they pursued us.
There was one exit point from the Ring of Fire right near us. I wondered why my tether wasn’t pointing to it.
I motioned to the exit and tugged on Cole’s sleeve. Maybe we could take shelter in the maze for a few moments and then come back out past the lake. We took two steps toward the fire.
Cole saw her before I did. I was watching his face, trying to gauge if he had enough energy to last ten seconds in the maze. His eyes widened as he stared ahead. He skidded to a stop, and I turned to follow his gaze.
Stepping out of the maze in high-heeled black boots and glowing white robes was a woman with fire-red hair, pale white skin, and dark, ruby lips.
I told my feet to stop, but it was as if they were working in slow motion. I slid to the ground at her feet. She glared at me, and I scrambled backward, trying to get my clumsy legs to put as much distance between her and me as I could.
It was the queen.
She smiled, showing teeth that were whiter than the summer clouds in Park City.
Cole grabbed my arm and yanked me to him and away from her. The Shades that had been pursuing us went still. I could hear my own blood pulsing in my ears.
Ashe and Max coiled, as if ready to run for it, but then Max thought better of it and lowered his head toward the queen in a subservient bow. Ashe watched him and then did the same. Cole’s breaths came out in anxious, shallow pants. We stood there, the lake to our right, the stone wall to our backs, the Shades to our left, and the queen of the Everneath in front of us.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her face, and I remembered how she had so calmly obliterated that man in the square.
He became red mist. With a nod from her, I would become a cloud of red mist.
Cole squeezed my arm, and I realized I was shaking uncontrollably.
“I heard someone was trying to come through,” she said in a voice that was amplified as if she were speaking into a microphone. “I had to see for myself.”
Cole pulled me back and stepped in front of me. It was the wrong move.
Her piercing eyes tracked him like a hawk’s. “Who are you trying to protect? Show her to me.”
I peeked out from behind Cole.
She studied my face. “Ah. The human from the Ouros square. Tell me, human. Why did you come here?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My voice was paralyzed in the face of the queen. I had no idea what to say. Telling her about Jack in the Tunnels was out of the question. Who knew what she could do to him?
Then I realized that she had no idea I’d survived the Feed. There was nothing to give me away.
Except my tether.
I glanced down at it. Still pointed directly into the middle of the lake. Cole stood close enough to me to partially absorb the tether and block it from the queen’s view.
“Speak, girl. I’m used to having my questions answered.”
I couldn’t let her see the tether. I ducked my head behind him again and closed the distance between me and Cole so the tether completely disappeared.
I showed my face and forced my mouth to make words. “I wanted to become an Everliving … Your Majesty. To be with him.” I tilted my head toward Cole. “But he didn’t want me. So I tried to get down here by myself, through the Shop-n-Go; but he caught me. He promised he would make me like him, then he betrayed me. I escaped to the maze, and I’ve been running ever since.”
The queen looked from my face to Cole’s, then to Max’s and Ashe’s. Her gaze stayed on Ashe’s face for a moment longer than the rest of us, but she quickly turned back to me.
“Then why is he protecting you now?”
Cole spoke up. “Because, Your Majesty, she doesn’t deserve to die just for being foolish. I was going to take away her memories and drop her on the Surface.”
I glanced at Cole. Good thinking.
The queen narrowed her eyes and then shrugged. “Shades, take them away. We’ll feed them to the Everlivings of Ouros.”
“Wait!” Cole shouted. “You have to believe us!”
“What does it matter if I believe you? You still face the same fate.”
“But I love her!” Cole said.
The queen froze. I held my breath.
She took one step toward Cole. Then one more. “Love doesn’t matter here.”
She gestured with her arm as if inviting the Shades to come and get us, and that’s when I saw something dark on her inner wrist. A tattoo. A symbol of some sort. She held out her arm for a few long moments, so I got a good look at the mark.
Two swords, crossed. Embedded inside a circular wreath.
The tattooed swords. The indictment on love. Something clicked, but before I could do anything about it, Ashe charged the queen, his sword drawn in front of him. He swung it back, like a baseball player would swing a bat, and let it fly right for the queen’s chest. It made contact with something, but it wasn’t the queen. It was suddenly embedded in the trunk of a tree that had appeared out of nowhere but now stood between Ashe and the queen.
Ashe tried to pull his sword out of the wood, but his efforts were in vain.
With a snap of her fingers, the queen made the tree disappear, and Ashe’s sword fell straight to the ground.
Why would he charge the queen? Sure, he had success against the Shades, but did he really think he could take her on? She picked the sword up with two fingers, as if she were too delicate to grab it by the hilt, then she tossed it into the lake.
Strangely, it didn’t make a splash. It just disappeared. I stared at the surface of the water. It looked too glassy. Too calm. No ripples from the sword. Nobody else noticed.
The queen stepped closer to Ashe. “I’ll save you for last, brave man.”
She started to turn away, and the Shades moved toward us.
“Wait!” I called out.
She paused with an eyebrow raised. “What?”
I thought fast. “I’m really a messenger. For you, Your Majesty.”
She made a fist, and at the signal, the Shades again were still. “A messenger from whom?” The tone of her voice was skeptical, and I knew I had just one chance. I only hoped I wasn’t mistaken about the tattoo on her wrist.
But I felt the medal in my pocket. I wasn’t wrong.
“From the person who anchored you.”
“And who would that be?”
I took a deep breath, praying that my gamble would pay off. “Nathanial.”
TWENTY-NINE
NOW
The Everneath. The Ring of Fire.
Everything went quiet. Even the crackle from the flames of the Ring of Fire grew soft. Cole looked at me, shocked. He had no idea what I was doing. I wasn’t sure I did either.
I thought back to every conversation I’d had with Mrs. Jenkins, everything I knew about the queen and the High Court.
“Once you reached the High Court, you thought you’d be able to grant your entire ancestral line eternal life. That’s the rumor, right? Did it work?”
She watched me with wide eyes, and I thought she would ignore me; but slowly she shook her head.
But even as the queen affirmed that it hadn’t worked, she didn’t seem convinced. So I pressed on.
“But you haven’t given up hope that it’s possible, right? You didn’t love your Everliving. You didn’t choose this life. All you want is what you’ve lost. The only man you’ve ever loved. But the magic of the High Court doesn’t allow you to raise the dead.” I was figuring it out as I was saying the words.
Her face cracked, and suddenly the image of her flickered in and out, oscillating between the tall redhead and a shorter, slighter woman with blond hair and blue eyes.
I took a tentative step forward. “I know who you are, Adonia.”
Ashe flinched, and his feet stuttered as if he didn’t know whether to run at her or run away from her. “Adonia,” he said, breathless. “It can’t be.”
She turned to glare at Ashe. “Why? Because the queen killed me? When you had me hunted down like a dog?” Her gaze fell on me again. “Nathanial wasn’t dead. He wasn’t killed in the war. They found him, wounded and disoriented in a run-down hospital two days after I’d left with Ashe. Two days!” She pressed her lips together and looked at Ashe. “He was saying my name. He held on for the entire six months I was in the Feed with you. He never gave up hope. I knew he was alive. For the entire century I was with you, all I could see was his face.”
She looked away, her mouth open, her entire body trembling as if she couldn’t contain the pain. I knew that feeling.
“So you Returned to the Surface for him,” I said.
She nodded, still with a faraway look in her eyes. “We were reunited for one whole day before he succumbed to his wounds.” She looked down and blinked. “He died in my arms. It’s like he was waiting to see me so he could say good-bye.”
Everything went quiet. Even the crackling from the fire walls dampened, as if in reverence to the grieving queen.
When she raised her head again there was fire behind her eyes, and it was directed at Ashe. “I was grieving for my love. I was trying to make amends to my family. I was ready to face the Tunnels, but that wasn’t enough for you. You wanted to see me torn apart!”