I looked over at Marlow and she couldn’t meet my eyes. The tips of her boots were smoking. I felt sick. I’d almost burned my friends alive. Dizziness washed over me, and my strength marks lit up, but I was disgusted with myself and the way I’d almost allowed my power to hurt people I cared about.
“Marlow… I—”
“It’s fine. Go get your mom!” Marlow reached out and shoved me, and I pushed the guilt about what I’d just done into the Pandora’s box deep inside me, and kicked off the ground, heading into the skies.
Peering behind me, I saw that Indigo still had the portal open, and relief washed over me. When Dash and Jacob flew next to me, they both wore curious looks. They’d seen everything, and I felt like a monster. This was probably how Gage felt in the courtyard after he had returned, and the Lumens looked at him like he was a demon.
For a split second it had felt like the power was controlling me… versus the other way around… and that was terrifying.
“Go through the portal! I’m right behind you,” I told them. I couldn’t let anyone else get hurt. What if I did that again and killed my friends?
“No, we’ll go with you, you might need help,” Dash pressed as he continued to fly alongside me.
“No. I can’t do this if I have to worry about you guys. Just go. Make sure everyone gets through the portal, including Indigo. I’ll make a new one and get my mom back to Lumen Academy.”
I didn’t wait for a reply. I zoomed through the sky toward the top floor of the tower, where a single light was on.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Itouched down on an open balcony that was hewn into the side of the tower. Up close, I could tell that the tower wasn’t constructed from black rocks, but rather was carved from one mammoth stone that shot skyward like an oversized pillar. It was like the old-fashioned cousin of the modern black tower in Shadow City.
Without a thought, I sucked my wings of mist and smoke back into my body and rushed through the open archway and into the interior of the structure.
“Mom!” I called as I took in the room before me. There was one tiny window on the other side of the room, which wasn’t big enough to exit out of. A cloaked figure stood in front of it and turned toward me. Just like the last time I saw my mother, her cloak covered her from head to toe, but she was fast to pull back the hood this time and show her bruised face.
“Tatum,” she said, shock apparent in her voice. “You can’t be here!”
I ran to her side, tugging her into a quick hug and ignoring the twinge of hurt at her immediate dismissal. She was stiff in my arms for only a single breath before she wrapped her thin arms around me and returned the gesture.
I pulled back from our hug with a smile on my face. I’d found her, I’d actually done it. I was standing before my mom, and in a few minutes we’d be back at the Lumen Compound with all my friends. I almost couldn’t believe it.
“Mom, I’m here to take you home,” I said, my grin so wide my cheeks were starting to ache.
My mom’s eyebrows furrowed, and she shook her head. “No, Tatum. I can’t go.”
“The hell you can’t,” I argued. I’d fought my way through the Netherworld for her. I wasn’t taking no for an answer, even if I had to swing her over my shoulder and carry her through a portal back to New York.
“Sweetie, you don’t understand.” Her eyes pleaded with me. “I can’t leave. I’m tethered to Apollyon and this place. As long as these chains link me to Apollyon, I’m as much a part of the Netherworld as he is, bound by even stricter rules to remain in it.”
I looked down, seeing the length of chain that peeked out from under my mom’s cloak and snaked across the black stone floor, leaking wispy shadows.
She cupped my cheek with infinite care. “That’s why I didn’t go with you last time. I’m stuck here. Until death.”
Shock ripped through me at her words. “What? How?” We didn’t have time for a long conversation, but I needed to know what I was dealing with. She couldn’t leave? Like at all?
My mom swallowed hard. “I came to kill him all those years ago and I failed. Instead he dragged me down here and tortured me for your whereabouts.”
Anger rose up inside of me as I looked at the bruises on her face. I was going to kill him.
“When he realized I wasn’t going to give you up, he tried to kill me.” A darkness passed over her features. “I panicked and did a very dark spell. One I didn’t know I was even capable of; one I don’t know how to break. I bound myself to Apollyon in an effort to survive, and now I can’t leave, and he can’t kill me unless the spell is broken.”
My heart sank. She really was bound to him. Bound to this place. Forever.
Break the spell.
But that’s why Apollyon was looking for her talisman.Me. To break the spell over her and kill her. But what if I could break it first and get her out of here?
“No, Mom,youdon’t understand. I’m getting you out of here right now. Apollyon is looking for your talisman so he can break the spell and then kill you.”
