“I know why Logan can compel other witches.”
“I know what Callie does when she and Logan are alone.”
“I know why the Lampades attacked you in the Drowned Tower.”
“I know who else uses the secret passages.”
“I know why T was the pilot on your family’s plane, and what she did to you before you passed out.”
Through everything else, the last one cuts deepest. T, who taught me card tricks during long flights. T, who kept those terrible sugar-free candies in the cockpit just for me. T, who complained about air traffic control like a normal pilot navigating the skies.
But normal pilots don’t fly through storms without turbulence. Normal pilots don’t make lightning dance around planes like trained pets. Normal pilots don’t touch your forehead and rewrite your existence with magic.
As if she can sense my intrigue, the spirit who mentioned T leans close enough that I can see through her to the boat’s rotting wood. “She’s been waiting for you since before you were born,” she whispers in my ear. “Watching. Preparing. Your parents never had a choice in hiring her. Do you want to know why, Jade? Ask me why.”
I shake my head no and press my hands over my ears, but their voices pierce through anyway, each revelation more devastating than the last. Each answer could save me or destroy me. Each secret could change everything I think I know about my life.
They scream louder, furious at my silence, swirling around me in a cyclone of transparent bodies and hidden knowledge. The boat rocks violently, threatening to spill us all into the shadow water, but Charon continues his steady poling, unbothered by the chaos.
Time stretches. Minutes or hours or days—I can’t tell. The spirits never tire, never stop their assault of promised secrets that claw at every fear and question I’ve been carrying since arriving at Blaze Academy.
My jaw aches from clenching it shut. My fingernails dig crescents into my palms, drawing blood, the pain the only thing that grounds me amidst the screaming storm surrounding me.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the boat bumps against something solid. The other shore.
I scramble out so fast I nearly fall, and the spirits’ screams cut off, like someone slammed a door between us. Charon is already poling away, the boat disappearing back into the mist with its cargo of desperate secrets.
“Thanks for the ride from hell,” I whisper once he’s gone, needing to hear my own voice to prove I can still speak.
I lean against a twisted tree trunk, my body shaking from the effort of staying silent for so long. That was torture. But I did it. I rode across the river of the dead while shadow spirits screamed offers of forbidden knowledge at me, and I didn’t crack.
But it’s too early to celebrate, because I’m not done yet. According to Logan, that was only the first half of this trial. So, I straighten up, square my shoulders, and turn to face what’s next.
Just like Logan said, a hedge maze stretches before me, its walls made of black thorns that twist upward into the gray sky. It’s impossibly tall, and impossibly sharp.
Three paths branch from where I stand. And of course, because the Underworld has a theme, each path comes with its own nightmare guardian.
A sound like wind through dead trees comes from the left path. A figure in a tattered cloak hovers just inside the entrance, his hands clutching a rusted scythe. The hedge walls near him are withered and dead, and I swear I can hear whispers coming from the blackened leaves. Names of the reaped, maybe, or promises of what’s to come.
The middle path is thick with spiderwebs that glisten with what I’m pretty sure is poison. Something with too many legs comes around the corner—a woman’s torso attached to an enormous spider’s body. Eight legs click against the ground, each one ending in points sharp enough to pierce stone. Arachne herself, according to the mythology texts I’ve been reading recently.
“Come, little witch,” she calls in a voice like silk over steel. “I promise to make it quick.”
I don’t respond, but I do flip her off.
Then, I allow my gaze to drift to the right path. It’s carpeted with bones that darken as something shifts above. Something big. Something I likely don’t want to see.
But because I have a death wish here, I look up, and my stomach drops at the sight of a creature with a woman’s head and a massive bird’s body perched on the hedge, black wings spread wide. Blood drips from her talons, and her too-human face smiles at me with too many teeth.
As I look at her, Logan’s instructions echo in my mind. The ones that start with:
Follow the path of bones.
Because shit.
It looks like we’re doing this.
JADE
