But something fell out of the canopy of roots above, landing before them. Two people, one of whom Kai recognized with painful awareness.
“Emory?”
The name spilled out of Luce’s mouth on a shaky, terrified breath, as if she didn’t trust her own eyes, didn’t trust this to be real. Maybe she thought this was the start of her eternal damnation, a vision of the daughter she had abandoned and set out to save against all odds and would never see again outside of her own tortured mind. But Kai knew this wasn’t a torment of hell; there was no reason for him to be seeing Emory if it was. And Emory’s expression as she took in her mother was too raw, too complex, to be anything but real.
That expression steeled itself, becoming stony determination, as she erupted into light. Warmth spread through Kai, and the pain in his legs began to subside.
She was healing them, he realized. Casting back hell itself to prevent it from claiming their souls. The light emanating from her, enveloping them in its warmth, flared brighter and brighter. Emory screamed at the strain, this big a feat of magic surely taking a toll on her. The boy at her side hovered close, an obscure figure amid the dazzling light, as if he were Emory’s own shadow, the darkness around him growing thicker as she flared all the brighter.
But hell was fighting back with everything it had, unwilling to let them go. Because while Kai’s limbs were flesh and bone once more, while the roots keeping him in place receded, a ring of white-hot flames suddenly erupted around the temple, trapping them in.
Distant, familiar screeches sounded through the hiss of flames. The smell of sulfur that hit Kai was overwhelming, and he knew it meant the wayward souls of the dead were coming—that they were no longer contained to the hellfire stream their ship had sailed through, perhaps called here by the opening of the portal into the living realms or even Emory’s magic.
Or perhaps they still hungered for Kai’s and Luce’s souls, as unwilling to see them leave as the abyss seemed to be.
“We need to get out of here.” The light around Emory had extinguished. She was glancing at the network of roots above their heads, assessing how they might reach it. “Can you get us back up there?” she asked the stranger with her.
Kai wanted to tell them both not to bother—that according to the gods, the abyss wouldn’t relinquish mortal souls, which meant they were trapped here. But just then, the wayward souls of the dead came rushing through the ring of flames around the temple, faces distorted on horrifying screams. And they were all aiming for Emory.
The boy at her side stepped in front of her, shadows swirling around him until he was no longer a boy but a towering umbra with clawed hands and depthless eyes and a wicked crown of obsidian that Kai had seen before,heldbefore.
The crowned umbra pounded its foot on the ground. A crack echoed loudly, full of reverberating power, as dark waves shot the spirits back and created a protective layer of shadows all around the temple, keeping the souls on the other side of the ring of flames.
There was a sound like splitting wood above Kai’s head as tendrils of shadow shot from the umbra to pull at the obsidian roots, tearing an opening in the tangled mass of them. The dislodged roots rearranged themselves to create a ladder they could climb.
Go,the umbra’s voice rang in the sudden quiet.I can’t hold them for long.
Kai wasted no time. He tugged Luce out of her transfixed state, ushering her toward the ladder. But Luce only gripped her daughter’s arm, her face a tapestry of unspoken emotions reflected on Emory’s own face.
“I’m right behind you,” Emory said.
Kai went first, helping Luce over the lip of the opening once he’d made it up. They were on a path of obsidian, in darkness more oppressive than that of the abyss. Kai could feellifefarther up, like a gentle breeze rushing down, and knew it was the portal into the living realms somewhere near.
Maybe they were getting out of here after all.
Luce screamed as dark, spindly roots reached out of the abyss to wrap around her wrist. Kai felt them grab hold of his ankle, trying to drag him back down to hell. Light emerged from the opening as Emory appeared at the top of the ladder and cast her magic at the roots, which shrank back as if singed. Kai scrambled up the path, heart pounding wildly.
A horrible screeching made Emory lower herself back down the ladder. “Sid?” she called out to the crowned umbra below.
There was no answer save for a chorus of ghastly screams. Whatever Emory saw had her going white with terror. Hands still gripping the top rung of the ladder, she turned to Kai and Luce. “Climb up the path until you find Baz. He’ll get you both out of here.”
Kai knew what she meant to do before she did. Luce seemed to guess at it too, for she reached for her daughter with a desperate cry, fingers grazing her wrists just as Emory let go of the ladder and disappeared in the chaos below.
Roots burst through the opening once more, a thousand of them now reaching for Kai and Luce like the tentacles of a great and terrible beast looking to plunge them back into the abyss.
With hell at their heels, they ran.
37BAZ
ALONE ON THE PATH BETWEENgodsworld and abyss, Baz went to work analyzing the complex tapestry of threads coming out of the floating hourglass. He ran delicate fingers through the ethereal, immaterial strands, getting faint impressions of different people through time. He let instinct guide him until his magic found the threads that connected to Kai and Luce, both of them intertwined.
Baz tugged on these threads with his magic, following the now familiar course they took through time. The Wychwood they’d gone through with Clover. The sleepscape swallowing them up. The dark depths of what had to be the abyss. An obsidian path spiraling up, bringing them ever so closer to where Baz stood…
Those threads cleaved again. Fated oblivion. The end.
But the ritual, rescuing Kai and Luce from the abyss… wasn’t it all supposed toavoidthis fate? Baz wanted desperately to let go of his magic and go tearing down the path to pull Kai out of hell himself, to see him one last time before oblivion could come. But thosewhispers were in his ear again, making him reach out to another thread, one that was connected to Kai and Luce but ran back up the path in the opposite direction—in the godsworld. Here, it connected to another’s fate. Someone else Baz was familiar with.
Clover.
