Seven’s phone rings, and I watch all the blood drain from his face as he brings it to his ear.
“Seven, why is Arden at the casino?” I ask again.
He slides the phone back into his pocket and pulls me toward the elevator. “Because she isn’t at the casino, she’s under it. They have her.”
ChapterTwenty-Two
When your kid is in trouble, time stops. Everything in you focuses on one thing—doing whatever it takes to get her back. Right now I understand how those stories about mothers experiencing an adrenaline rush and lifting a car off their trapped children might be true. I’d burrow through a wall if I thought it would help right now. There is no morality. I have no boundaries. I will do anything to get her back.
We descend into the tunnels, and Jericho arrives with the car. Seven takes over behind the wheel and tells him to go home for the night, and then we’re racing toward the casino.
“What exactly did Alicia say to you?” I ask him.
“They have Arden and if we want her back, we both need to come to the mirror. This has to be about Rayrcore. I wouldn’t put it past Alicia to be one of the people working with my dad. She’s exactly the type of power-hungry tyrant he’d trust with something like this. I’m just not sure exactly what she wants from us.”
“That bitch is going to pay, Seven.”
“Yeah, she is.”
Seven is driving fast enough to make me nervous we’ll collide with something in the narrow passageways but not nearly fast enough for my taste. We arrive outside the tunnel, and I practically dive from the vehicle. I start running for the mirror, then realize I can’t get through the wards without Seven.
He’s right there behind me, his eyes glowing emerald, his luck growing larger by the second, like a great sleeping dragon waking and unraveling toward its enemy. We’ve reached the archway, and he doesn’t even pause. He grabs my hand and yanks me through.
The wards are a sharp prickle against my skin, and then we’re in that ancient room again, panting and slick with sweat. We’re not alone. Alicia Faust stands with the staff in one hand and a phone in the other. She holds it up to show me the screen, a picture of Arden and me with the penguins at the zoo several years ago. That’s Arden’s phone!
“She’s not hurt,” Alicia says loudly and clearly. “But she will be if you don’t do exactly as I say.”
Seven’s luck snaps at her, an angry beast, but her dark eyes spark and another presence enters the room. A large, dark spider.
“It was you,” I say breathlessly.
Alicia pretends I’m not even there. “Hurt me and they hurt her. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Seven says.
I don’t understand anything, but I’ll do what I have to to make her take me to Arden.
“Follow me.” She stabs the staff into the silver and starts to stir.
I glance at Seven. She’s vulnerable while she stirs the silver. We could easily take her right now. But I see in his eyes the same concern as my own. I know in my gut she’s not bluffing. Only Alicia knows where Arden is, which means she’s the only one who can direct the mirror. And if Rayrcore is behind this and they’re treating Arden like they did him and Saul, we can’t risk not doing exactly what she says.
The portal opens, and Alicia leaps into the tunnel of falling stars. Seven and I clasp hands and dive in after her. It’s more disorienting this time than before, and I wonder if it’s because I’m the third in and it’s Alicia’s consciousness that’s directing us. I put my trust in Seven. When we finally topple out the other side onto a stone floor, I feel like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me and I roll into a ball on my side, hugging myself.
Stone, yes, but not the same as before. I run trembling fingers over the floor, surprised, confused. I lift my face, still half-expecting to see Rayrcore’s garage and stare up at a man whose face I only know from textbooks and stock photos.
The only way to describe him is golden and filled with light. His hair is white and his skin sun-kissed where it peeks outside his tunic. He’s a tall, large man. But it’s the crown of stars that halos his head that tells me exactly who he is.
“Welcome to Thistlebend Castle.”
We’re in Shadowvale?
“King Kieran,” Seven says through his teeth.
My mind races like a swirling top, but my instincts lead me to Arden. She’s there, chained but otherwise unhurt, although it’s clear she’s been crying.
“Mom?”
“I’m here, baby!” I scramble to my feet, but the two unseelie monsters who guard her step in front of her and stab their spears in my direction before I can reach her. They’re at least seven feet tall with black skin drawn taut over horrific, wolflike forms. Wolflike if a wolf was shorn of all its hair, stretched and twisted. They stand on two legs but look like they run on four.
