“In all the worlds and all lifetimes, our souls are bound together.”
Rui clapped a hand over her mouth. What was that about? She had no idea why she’d said those words.
The door behind her creaked loudly, and she started with a yelp.
An elegant old lady dressed in a turquoise qipao and perfectly coiffed hair was staring at her.
Rui collected her wits. “Madam Meng.”
“May I help you, child?”
“Can I come in, please?”
Madam Meng pushed the door wide open with her walking cane. There was no one at the concierge desk, and the grand hall was empty. The murals on the high ceilings shimmered sinisterly with depictions of monsters and violence.
Ten murals. Ten figures in black robes, one in each mural. The ten Kings of Hell.
Rui’s heart rattled. Zizi was one of them now. Emotions threatened to overwhelm her again, but she reined them in quickly. The fate of her city was at stake. Taking a breath, she sat across from Madam Meng.
“What is the purpose of your visit?” The slight reverberation in Madam Meng’s voice was uncanny. It sounded as if she was talking through or from someplace else, and the woman sitting there was a mirage. It hadn’t been this way the last time they’d spoken.
Rui was also distracted by the edges of Madam Meng’s qipao and hair. They had lost their vibrancy and looked faded somehow. The last time she had seen something like that was on Seven, during their brief interaction through Nikai’s mirror glass. The little girl’s face appeared in Rui’s mind, her big brown eyes looking haunted.
The Nothing is coming....If the underworld ceases to exist, there will be nowhere for the souls to go....They will wander aimlessly in your realm, and the Blight will take them.
“Is something bad happening in the underworld?” Rui blurted, her heart beating fast.
Madam Meng sighed. “The Nothing continues to expand.”
“But there aretenKings present in the underworld now. Shouldn’t that set things right?”
“Unfortunately, the boy has not assimilated. He fights against it. While that fight continues, there can be no balance.”
Rui remembered the way Zizi’s eyes had changed from black to pale blue in the tunnels that day, and how it had looked like he was suppressing something inside him, as though an internal battle was going on. Her heartbeat tripped. “Why would he fight the assimilation if he’s Four? Are you saying that he’snot—”
“His mortal body will fail unless he embraces everything it means to be a King of Hell,” Madam Meng interrupted.
Rui slumped in her chair. It didn’t make sense. Ten had led her to believe that Zizi and Four were one and the same. But if the Nothing was still causing trouble in the underworld, did that mean the Fourth King was an impostor? What if Zizi was avesselfor Four’s soul, the wayshehad been a vessel for Four’s power? Did it mean she had sent him—a human boy—to his death?
Madam Meng’s owlish gaze fell upon the red string tied around Rui’s wrist. For a few seconds, the old lady’s irises turned a milky gray, like eerie clouds.
“What do you see?” Rui whispered, even though she wasn’t quite sure what her question meant or why she was whispering.
“That is the question you should be asking yourself. You are having visions.”
“No, I’m not.”
“They may sometimes manifest as dreams that feel very real.”
There was an abrupt chime from the grandfather clock in the corner, and Rui jumped in her seat. “How—how did you know?”
Madam Meng nodded slowly. “Tell me about them.”
Reluctantly, Rui shared what she could remember of her dreams about meeting the Fourth King. “The dreams and nightmares are pretty muddled.But I always start off happy in them, and then”—she shivered suddenly, recalling that feeling of dread—“then something awful happens. I’m not sure what, but I think I’ve been dreaming of death.” She swallowed. “Sometimes I think I’m dreaming of my own death, and I think the Fourth King was there.”
Madam Meng’s eyes glinted, as if she had discovered something interesting. “It is believed that sometimes, when a mortal has a stronger than normal connection to their past life or lives, visions may occur periodically.”
“Past lives? Like the cycle of reincarnation and all that?” Rui said, almost laughing at the ridiculousness of it. “Are you saying I’m dreaming about my past life? But I’m dreaming about Four. Why wouldhebe in my past life?”
