He barked out a laugh. “Noted.”
Turning away from Gage, Indigo looked back at me.
“Indigo, what are you doing here?” I asked as I threw my arms around her. She held herself stiff for a moment before returning the hug, but she wiggled out of my grasp after a few short moments.
“I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it,” she said. “So I came here to check out what was going on just in case. Ever since I saw what Arthur could do to his own son…” Indigo’s eyes started to shine, but she sniffed and rubbed them, not allowing any tears to fall. “I never questioned my decision to become a Shade. Humans aren’t perfect, and they can be downright evil, so what was the point of devoting my life to protecting them, right? I never thought we were really causing any harm, but now…” She shook her head. “Maybe I’ve been wrong all along, and now it’s too late.”
A single rebellious tear leaked from Indigo’s eye and streaked down her face. I couldn’t help but tug her back into my arms and hug her tight. “It’s never too late.”
“She’s right,” Drea said from behind me. I pulled away from Indigo and we both looked at Gage and my Angel Gang. Marlow, Dash, and even Jacob were nodding their agreement. My heart swelled.
A small but hopeful smile started to lift the corners of Indigo’s mouth, but then it flatlined as her face filled with concern. “Did you hear all that? Tatum, Apollyon wants to kill your mom. I’m so sorry.”
“We heard it,” I confirmed. A tight fist of trepidation squeezed my heart, but I tried not to let it show. “We were just talking about how to stop that from happening.”
Jacob retracted his wings and his angel marks stopped glowing. “We just need to figure out how to get to England to visit a Shade and then back again without the head of the Lumens figuring it out,” he said as he returned his sword to a tattoo that started on the back of his neck and ran down his spine.
Drea frowned but didn’t immediately shut down the idea of going without notifying her mother.
Skye poofed into the group then, surprisingno oneexcept me. “I think I can help with that!”
“How?” I asked after getting my heart rate back down from her jump scare, and everyone looked at me.
“That’s exactly the problem,” Jacob said.
“No, sorry. Skye’s back and says she can help us with getting to England,” I said.
Understanding dawned on everyone’s face except Indigo’s, and I took a quick minute to explain the highlights of Skye’s death and current ghosty state. She looked kinda freaked out, but I didn’t have time to deal with that now.
“Okay, Skye,” I said turning toward my spirit friend, giving the rest of the group an idea of where to look. “What do you suggest?”
“Just open a portal and go there,” she said.
I sighed, my shoulders and hope sinking. That wasn’t a viable suggestion. I was still working with Aurelia on my portal making abilities, and I certainly wasn’t at the place where I could make a portal to the UK and transfer seven people and one ghost across. What if I totally lost concentration and cut an arm off?
“What did she say?” Drea asked.
“She told me to open a portal to England. But I can’t. I don’t have that much control over my powers yet. It was a bad idea.”
“Hey,” Skye objected. “I don’t have bad ideas. Every idea that comes from my beautiful head is utterly brilliant and foolproof.”
I cocked a brow at her.
“Listen,” she went on. “I get that you’re still flexing your portal making powers or whatever, but there are three very important things you have now that you didn’t before.”
“And those are?” I asked while the rest of the group waited patiently for me to talk to her.
Lifting her hand, she ticked a finger in the air after listing each thing. “One, you are Apollyon’s daughter so you have extra juice from being here in the cemetery. Two, there are a crap-ton of souls that are connecting with you right now, and three, you have a Shade.”
Souls that are connecting with me?
“What souls?”
“Don’t you feel them?” Skye asked. “You’re in a cemetery with the remains of hundreds of people. Their souls are reaching out and touching you from the Netherworld.”
I let out a yip and jumped back, swinging my head back and forth looking for all the invisible souls Skye was talking about. “Where are they?” I shouted.
“Tate, what’s going on? What’s wrong?” Gage asked.
