The voices are incrediblyunhelpful as we navigate this cold, barren, grayscale city.
Watch out! Over there!they shriek.
I quickly check over my shoulder for the hundredth time. For the hundredth time, there is nothing but empty streets flurrying with snow and steeped in shadows, thanks to the thick clouds suspended over Manhattan. Ghosts drift past now and then, wandering as they search helplessly for their afterlives.
Aside from us, the only other living things here are the ravens watching us from various perches.
Something is coming for you,other voices giggle in my head.We’re just trying to help.
We’re here for you. We’llalwaysbe here for you.
They took you out here to kill you, you know,another giggles.
They never fucking shut up. Now they’re chanting, laughing, singing, whispering?—
“Weird,” Maven muses, and I could weep with gratitude that her voice finally cuts through the menaces living in my head. “We’re well behind enemy lines, but I don’t sense fiends nearby.”
“You cansensefiends?” Douglas asks from where he walks behind me. “You know what—no, of course, you can. Why the hell am I even surprised anymore?”
Everett, Maven, and whatever remains of Baelfire are walking in front of me. Even smeared in dirt and grime with his dark blond hair far more unkempt than usual, Baelfirelookslike the dragon shifter I’ve known all my life. He’s even wearing only shorts despite the freezing temperatures, which is something Bael would do.
But instead of flirting with Maven or being annoyingly optimistic or anything else our dragon shifter would typically do, he’s just taking in our surroundings. His lips pull back from his teeth on occasion, and his eyes remain the telling slits of the dragon that lurks beneath his skin. Now and then, he tries racing off like a stray mutt that’s scented a cat, only to get yanked back by Everett so he won’t get himself killed by the fiends lurking in this abandoned city.
The shifter is gone. Only the beast remains!the demons in my head cheer.
Baelfire and I didn’t always agree, but the idea of him being utterly gone to his curse is…tragic. Aside from him being a necessary member of my quintet, I once started to trust the shifter. And other than Maven and myself, I’ve trusted so little in my lifetime that losing that possible future is unexpectedly depressing.
Trust is for fools,my father hisses in my head.
Trusting you is what led to my death,Maven agrees.
But no. That’s not Maven. My true blood blossom walks in front of me, scanning this area carefully as we get closer to Arati’s high temple.
She told me she loved me.
That was real.
Thisis real. I try to focus, carefully stepping over a multicolored snake before realizing it’s not there. Still, the blood amulet and ground artemesian blossoms I carry in my pockets seem to be helping marginally.
Feeling even the slightest bit more sane is a relief. I want to be useful to my keeper. I can’t be a psychotic burden to the woman I love.
Speaking of psychotic, we all stop in front of the abandoned temple wherein Maven has insisted Crypt will be found. The stairs leading up to the front doors are just as ornate as the rest of the exquisite temple of the queen of the gods.
I notice a few more skeletons nearby. There have been quite a few littering these streets.
“You’ll be a skeleton soon,” something hisses nearby. I almost stop to search for the source before realizing that, too, came from my broken mind.
We ascend the grand stairs leading up to Arati’s even grander temple. When Everett steps forward and tries opening the massive front double-doors, they don’t budge. No ice prevents their movement, so he finally steps back and glares at the entrance.
“I’ve always hated this fucking building,” he mutters.
Ah, right. Thanks to his horrid parents, he once received a false translation of a personal prophecy in this place.
But it’s interesting. He was always so mindful of the gods, yet here he is declaring his hatred on the Queen of Paradise’s doorstep. That haggard scar marring half his face must not only be physical.
“Let me try,” Maven says, stepping up to the doors and handing Everett Baelfire’s leash.
We all watch as she places her hands against the doors and frowns. Moments pass with nothing, until she curses and looks over her shoulder at Douglas.
