“Skye said there were souls touching me!” I ran my hands over my body, brushing off anything that felt weird. It was like watching a spider crawl on TV and then suddenly feeling them all over.
“What?” Gage said.
Skye started laughing her head off. “Okay, I might not have explained that the best way possible. Sorry. It’s not that there’s a soul touching you like I can…” To prove her point, she ghosted her fingers through my face, and I reared away from her. “It’s more like you’re siphoning energy from them. The veil between the Netherworld and Earth is thinnest in cemeteries, and you and your father share the soul sucking gift.”
I frowned. “Never say that last part again.” I would neversucka soul.
Okay, I was going to put the soul siphoning thing to rest, as long as there weren’t a horde of ghosts walking around, I didn’t really need all the details, but I did want to get to the bottom of the Shade thing.
“So, why does it matter that Indigo’s here?”
“Technically, you don’t need a Shade to make the portal,” she went on. “But since Shades’ powers are rooted in the Netherworld, connecting with one of them will help you stabilize your portal, which is important because we don’t want the portal collapsing and cutting anyone in half.”
Horror clutched me in its icy hold. Aurelia once warned me that could happen and here I was just worrying about an arm getting cut off.
“Aurelia never mentioned that connecting with a Shade can stabilize a portal,” I said.
Skye shrugged. “It’s a bit of a cheater method. Aurelia probably didn’t even bother teaching you about it because Shades and Lumens never work together, so what’s the point? But the important thing here is that all you have to do is pull in enough power while connecting with Indigo andbam,you’ll be able to make a portal to England.” She snapped her fingers. “Easy peasy! And when you want to come back, go find a cemetery there and do the same thing.”
Could Skye be right?
I translated her plan to the rest of the group and caught Gage and Indigo sharing a look.
“What do you think?” I asked them.
“We do get an extra burst of energy from places like graveyards. Or rather, I used to,” Gage said. “It feels like small shocks. It’s actually a little uncomfortable.”
That’s what I’d been feeling since I got here. Maybe if Indigo and I teamed up our power boost, we really could do this.
“I’ll bet that’s why Apollyon and Arthur wanted to meet here,” Indigo cut in.
That was a disturbing thought. I also found it interesting that demons couldn’t go to cemeteries but Apollyon could. Maybe it was because even though he was an evil douchebag he was still an angel of Avalon, albeit a fallen one.
I frowned. “Why can Apollyon go tocemeteries but demons can’t?” Gage never told me exactly what would happen if a demon stepped foot in a cemetery, only that they couldn’t.
Gage and Indigo shared a look, as if giving up these Shade secrets was wrong.
“It’s not really that demons can’t come here, but that if they do they get sucked back to the Netherworld,” he said.
Ohhh.That made so much sense, especially if the veil was thinner between the two worlds there.
I glanced at Drea and the others, but they didn’t look surprised by this new development. There was so much information about this world I still didn’t know. Sometimes it was hard not to be bitter that they’d grown up with the truth while I was still playing catch-up, but Gran had given me a wonderful childhood, so I couldn’t regret that.
Gage turned to look at me. “If Shades get extra power from here, I could see why you might too as Apollyon’s daughter. I think what Skye is saying makes sense. Do you want to try making a portal to England?”
“I like him.” Skye winked at me, but I ignored her.
I scanned the faces around me, stopping on Drea. She was our group leader. She picked at her fingernails and bopped her foot up and down in a nervous gesture. The entire group stared at her as she weighed the different options in her mind.
After what seemed like forever, she nodded. “Let’s do it. We don’t have time to waste if Arthur is also looking for Emery’s talisman, and my mom would want me to do whatever I could to save Tatum’s mom.”
I reached out and squeezed Drea’s hand in thanks.
“Just don’t kill us with this portal,” she shot back.
I dropped her hand and groaned. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Skye jumped up and down and rubbed her hands together. “We’re going to England! I’ve always wanted to see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Oh, and Stonehenge, and of course Buckingham—”
