“Reminds me ofyou,” Charlie insisted. “You were the one who thought the Games were going to be a walk in the park.”
I wrinkled my nose and stuck my tongue out at him, but Kallie grabbed my arm. “Never mind that. Ava, you’ve got that spark in your eye when you’ve found something.”
“I did,” I whispered. “Come with me.”
We didn’t go to the Lair— we’d been there too often lately, and I was worried if we kept slipping off, somebody would notice. We headed to the chapel instead. Oberi guarded the door, and Kallie scouted the room with her shifter senses. She gave the all-clear before I started speaking.
“I think the Warden is opening up portals to hell,” I began. “And he’s doing it on Darke Island.”
“What?” Everyone asked at once. Out loud, the accusation sounded comical… but there was nothing funny about this.
I filled the others in on what I’d learned. By the time I was done, I was pacing up and down the pews. “I don’t have any proof, but it makes sense. The Warden isn’t just making deals with demonic beings to get his hands on the crystals. He’s been to hell himself, and it’s been more than once. I thought that portals to hell only opened on Darke Island once a year during the Games, and that’s when the demons come out—”
I stopped pacing as a realization hit me. “Guys, what if the portals on Darke Island don’t open up on their own during the Games? What if the Warden opens themon purpose?”
“I thought that the portals to hell opened up on Darke Island every December because they’re on a magical leyline,” Marcus said.
“I mean, they could, but what if that’s the excuse?” I offered.
“What would be the point of that?” Kallie asked.
“To find demigods,” Charlie said. “He’s looking for people who are strong enough to beat them, people who show off their powers during the Games, so he knows who to target.”
“You think so?” Kallie asked.
“That has to be the purpose of the Games,” I insisted. “The Warden is watching us because he saw our performance, and knows we did well. We weren’t really on his radar before we participated.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, though. He lets the winners go. They get their sentences erased,” Marcus said.
There was a long silence. A mouse scuttled across the floor of the chapel, and Kallie asked,
“Marcus… have you heard from anyone in Octavia Falls about Alice’s return?”
Marcus’ face slowly grew pale. “No, but… I don’t really talk to anyone from home anyway, so I just assumed my cousin didn’t want to speak with me. We weren’t close before I came here. I mean, we’redistantcousins— third cousins or something.”
“Whywouldn’tAlice contact you, Marcus? You saved her life in the Games. She’d want to check on you, make sure you were safe at the Institute, and we haven’t heard anything back from her in months,” Kallie said.
“Maybe she never made it back to Octavia Falls,” I murmured. “Maybenoneof them made it home. I bet they never left Darke Island.”
“If they didn’t go home, where did the Warden send them?” Kallie questioned.
“The Infernal Underground took them to test them for demigod powers,” Charlie said.
“Exactly. And the Warden is putting the angel professors up to making excuses for their absence,” I said. “Remember the Warden told Professor Cusak he needed toget ridof one of the succubus mothers that was questioning her daughter’s disappearance? I bet anything that was Despona’s mother!”
“So… does that mean we condemned Alice, Despona, Carson, and Wesley to be tortured?” Kallie asked hoarsely.
“We didn’t know what they were doing. They were innocent. We were trying to do the right thing by giving them our win and setting them free,” I pleaded.
“We gave up our Darke Games win for their team, so they could get out of the Institute and start a new life,” Marcus said hollowly. “But in doing so, we cursed them to the Warden’s experiments.”
I closed my eyes as the heavy reality settled upon us. The guilt ate me alive, starting from my stomach and swelling over my soul.Me doing the right thing always ended up with the wrong thing happening.It was a theme of my life, and as hard as I’d been trying to escape it once I came here, I was cursed to be haunted by that fact. I could never win either way, whether I tried to do good or not, because what I got in the end would always be evil.
“If we had won, the Warden would’ve taken us, too, and experimented on us,” Kallie said darkly. “It was them, or us. The Darke Games are a sham.”
“Then we have to work hard to save Alice, and the others,” Marcus insisted. “I’m not leaving my cousin to her doom.”
“They have to be in Cellblock 9,” I said. “The Warden is like a god here. He controls everything that happens on this property, but once they’re off Darke Island, he faces consequences for his actions from the other supernatural races.”
