Once the sapphire was pieced back together, there was only one thing left to do.
The book of Alec & Circe remained close to my hip. The chapters were not only facets of their love story, but pieces of a deadly mystery conjured from intense grief, heart-searing pain, and throats full of rage that had been passed down from generation to generation. At last, I’d solved the clues scattered throughout. If we could defeat the Shadows, we would not only save the town but also save Adora’s soul from the horrors that had befallen the women before her.
One final breath, my mind repeated, and the same damp coldness in the tunnels was what slithered inside me. As tragic love would have it, a final breath had broken the enchanted sapphire all those decades ago, and a final breath was what was needed to seal it once again to release the souls.
Upon reaching the Forbidden Cavern, a breeze of wet sulfur rushed past while we stepped out of the tunnel and broke apart in all directions. Golden and silver dripstones hung from the walls like chandeliers as the cavern opened up into a dreary ballroom, where soft ghostly cries were the music to which the nightly hauntings waltzed.
Julian studied Beck from a few feet away. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”
Beck rubbed his jaw with a grin, examining the spring. “Am I up for this?” he repeated incredulously, bending down to unlace and remove his boots. “Does anyone know how far down it goes?” A collection of‘Nos’and head shakes rippled. Beck continued to remove his jacket, shirt, and jeans until he was standing in his drawers, rubbing his palms together.
In the story of Alec & Circe, the author described the water as being a clear, iridescent blue which sparkled as the water moved, light hitting it from all angles. The spring in the middle of the cavern, however, was black, cloudy—a midnight sky.
Beck pointed at me. “If this sapphire is at the bottom, you’re a fucking genius.”
I sat upon a rock and rested the book against my knee. “Remember, it is broken. If I had to guess, I would say into five pieces, so scour the floor.”
“One soul, five shadows,” Julian murmured, leaning back against the cave wall. “Circe was one pissed off witch.”
“If I were locked inside your face for over a century, I would go on a killing spree, too,” scoffed Zephyr, peering up and studying the dripstones hanging from the cave ceiling.
Beck stretched his arms and shook out his hands. “Well, here goes nothing.”
A splash later, Beck had disappeared into the black water.
I zoned out, staring into nothing, Adora’s smile in my mind. “Do you think the rest of the Cantinis are capable of what Circe’s husband did to her?”
“The rest of the Cantinis? It would not surprise me. But not Cyrus,” Zephyr said, sitting beside me, his spine curving to meet my eyes. “Cyrus does not have an evil bone in his body. There are flowers more cruel than him.”
Phoenix chuckled at that from a few feet away. He was admiring the dripstones, too, with his hands in his pockets.
Julian’s attention swung to him. “You’ve been quiet all day.”
“Yeah, well ...” Phoenix turned to us, fidgety, scratching the stubble on his face, then pushing his long hair back. It fell back into place, the ends cutting his jawline. “Any time someone tries to save the world, someone dies in the end.”
“Yeah,” Julian exhaled, “chances are someone will probably die.”
Phoenix pointed at Julian, then Zephyr and me. “Not it, motherfuckers. I already died once this month, and that hurt like a bitch. It’s someone else’s turn.”
“Stone,” Julian called. “What’s next? How is this plan going to work?”
I’d been waiting for him to ask me. “You’re not going to like it.”
Julian and Phoenix moved in closer until we were all huddled together.
“Look,” I said, opening the book. “At first glance, when you start reading the story, you don’t notice anything. It’s just a love story. But then you learn about Circe and find out there’s a method to her madness. Because she demands you prove yourself, you must want it as well as listen carefully to what she is saying. You have to care,” I reiterated, Circe reminding me a lot of Adora, and all the trials we’d been through thus far. “Obtaining thewhatandwherewas easy once I realized there were clues. The clue to the sapphire was in this first chapter here, then in another chapter, it tells us where to find the sapphire, which is what brought us here.”
“Right, we already went over all this,” Julian said from behind his fingers.
“Now,” I said, flipping to the chapter. “Bone Island. It’s in this chapter twice. Here and here,” I said, pointing to the anagram, then running my finger down the page. “The ingredients are all here, but I couldn’t figure out thehow. Until I looked at the story as a whole. Circe cast a spell using the sapphire so that in the event of death, her and Alec’s souls would be bound together for eternity.”
“How romantic,” Zephyr said under his breath.
I smiled, shaking my head, continuing, “When Cantini murdered Circe, the stone was ripped from her neck and broke into five pieces before sinking to the bottom of the spring.”
Julian gestured toward me. “The five Shadows.”
“So, when Circe died, because the thing that had bound her soul to Alec was broken, her spirit didn’t know where to go. All of this is made even more bizarre by the fact that the Curse of the Hollow Heathens happened that very night, causing our curse to absorb her spirit.”
