My skin prickles as I clutch the mud, feeling deeply unsettled by the silence. Something’s wrong. This place has disconnected me from everything I am. My magic doesn’t work here. For the first time in my life, I am cut off from everything I know and love. Will I be able to rescue Fynn without any magic?
Another screech.
I hurry to my feet, running toward the dark line of trees. Water slides down my arms and legs. The sweatshirt I’m wearing weighs dozens of pounds. It does nothing against theunnaturally cold air, and it’s starting to rain. A droplet lands on my lip, and it tastes metallic. Wrong.
I slip between pines. The bone-colored bark scrapes against my wet clothes as I press my back against a tree. Despair claws at my chest, amplifying my worry. This place feeds on hopelessness. I need to stay strong.
Where would the Dullahan take a small boy? To Kosac, but where is he?
Don’t ghosts inhabit this place? My research shows Mictlan has nine levels of suffering, which are similar but different from Hell. This must be the first level, but with two centuries of uncrossed souls—thanks to the persecution of Lunar Witches preventing them from fulfilling their ancestral duties—where is everyone? Either I’m alone or they’re all hiding from me… or from something worse than me.
“If I stay here, I might as well give up now,” I mutter through chattering teeth.
I trudge through the forest, ducking from tree to tree. The creature’s wings still beat overhead. My skin prickles, not just from the cold, but from the whispers that seem to drift on the wind, speaking words or warnings I can’t quite catch.
The mud gives way to a gray grassy terrain that crunches beneath my feet like brittle bones. It’s as if all life has been leached from it, leaving death masquerading as growth.
I look up and see an open field where the Thistle Maze would be in my world. The clouds part, revealing a single spire breaking through the mist—Traum Castle, but different. Thorns and vines choke its crumbling walls. It looks malevolent and abandoned.
That’s where Kosac is; where Fynn is. I’m sure of it.
I pause. To reach it, I have to cross this open field. Except, I’ve seen enough movies to know stepping into the open is suicide, but the route by the river will take too long.
I have no choice but to make a run for it.
Using the elastic around my wrist, I pull my hair back and burst into a run.
My lungs burn with each breath. I pump my arms, eyes fixed on the distant tree line, trying to ignore the whispers following me.
Almost there.
A screech pierces the air, and I speed up. Beating wings rush toward me, and something that reeks of decay and sulfur breathes down my neck.
No. This isn’t how my story ends.
I ran track at Sussex Prep. To block out my terror, I pretend I’m in the final stretch of a 400-meter, not running for my life.
The screeching becomes deafening. My limbs ache with exhaustion, but I can’t help it—I glance back.
A bloodcurdling scream rips from my throat.
The creature has a woman’s head with short black hair and a lean, muscular torso, combined with the wings and talons of a giant bird.Harpy. Agents of punishment, and I’m trespassing on their land.
Something stabs the bottom of my shoeless foot, and I fall face-first into the dirt, cursing as jagged rocks rip open my palms and shred my jeans. Blood wells up, hot against the cold ground.
A thunderous boom shakes the earth, followed by a high-pitched whistle.
Shit. I struggle through the dirt, debris grinding into my wounds.
The harpy lunges with its talons extended, eyes burning with ancient malice.
I push myself up, muscles howling with fatigue. Blood drips from my hands and knees. Still, I run. Run like my life depends on it.
Almost at the trees?—
Thornlike talons sink into my shoulders, and piercing pain explodes through me. The wind rips away my scream as I’m yanked skyward, blood spattering the gray grass below. I flail and twist, but we only rise faster, swallowed by the swirling storm.
The darkness consumes my voice, and Mictlan welcomes another into its depths.
