I nodded.
“Now,” Cole said. “Let’s try to transition from plastic straws . . . to sparks and flames. Will’s explosives won’t mean much unless you can set them off.”
We worked for what felt like hours, but I was reassured knowing they were only Everneath hours.
By the time Cole took me back to the Surface, I had conjured up an ordinary Fourth of July sparkler. Without him even having to throw a rock at me.
Now all we could do was hope that Will had actually built devices that could be lit with a sparkler and that he and Jack had found something in their research that would make Adonia weak.
THIRTY-FOUR
NOW
The Everneath. Ashe’s house.
Cole sent Ashe up to the Surface to get Jack and Will, and then we all gathered in Ashe’s house.
“We have the explosives,” Jack said, leaning back in the chair at Ashe’s table. “But we don’t know much more about Adonia’s life. She was born in 1831. Grew up in rural England near the Cotswolds. Fell in love with Nathanial Hawking, but before they could be married, he went to serve in the war. That’s when she met her Everliving.”
“Ashe,” I filled in. “When Adonia wouldn’t return with him, he betrayed her to the queen. But we know now Adonia defeated the queen.”
“That’s it. Mostly stuff we already knew.” Jack sighed. “We saw the queen hours ago. Do you remember anything unusual about her?”
I thought back to our encounter in the vault. “Her image oscillates between a petite blonde and a tall redhead. She wears a token around her neck.”
“I didn’t get a good look. What does the token look like?” Jack asked.
I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on the memory. “It’s a wreath with two swords crossing it. Like the medal her soldier wore.” I opened my eyes and shrugged. “That’s all I have.”
Jack threw aside the papers. “It’s not enough.”
I looked down at my wrist. The second shackle was so dark.
Jack looked from me to Cole and back to me again, as if waiting for something. “How was the training?”
“Our best hope are the bombs. They have to work,” I said. “We have to hope the blast will be enough, because right now, if I face the queen, I’ll lose.”
When we left Ashe’s house and stepped onto the narrow streets of Ouros, I really noticed how much the place had changed. The city itself looked as if it had aged a century since we’d last seen it. The building right next to us was missing its facade. The entire thing had crumbled to the ground.
Everliving men and women wandered aimlessly, seeming to search for something they had no hope of finding. Some had given up long ago, and sat with backs against walls, staring dejectedly at the ground.
The scene was one of constant movement, but in slow motion—the still-simmering fallout from the lockdown event.
Jack and I looked at each other, and for a moment the churn of the chaos surrounding us melted away, like a parade going the opposite direction.
“Are you ready for this, Becks?”
I nodded. “Let’s blow up the Everneath. Or die trying.”
He gave me a faint grin, then pulled me close and kissed me in a long, hard, end-of-the-world kind of way.
Ashe broke us up. “Let’s move.”
Jack took my hand as Ashe led us through the streets toward the secret chamber that acted as the Shade launching pad to the High Court, the evidence of the effects of the lockdown on display the entire way. If we failed to destroy the Everneath, the place would still have a long ways to go to reach its former glory.
At the very least, we struck it a blow.
But that wouldn’t be enough for us to survive.
Once at the chamber, Ashe took our hands and we were in the air just like before, gliding through the sky over the elemental rings of the labyrinth. But this time, as we descended toward the High Court, I noticed strange branches emerging everywhere, from the walls and the ground to the windows and the turrets, twisting and turning, entwining in thick braided knots high up into the air.
As we got closer, I noticed thorns sticking out of the branches. Sharp and jagged, and bigger than any natural thorns.
“Slow down,” I said.
“I can’t,” Ashe said. “It’s like autopilot.”
We careened through the gigantic briar patch, the sharp thorns ripping through the material of my pants, cutting and tearing at my skin. I cried out in pain.
There was no way to avoid the thorns. They ranged in size from small needles to spikes the size of railroad nails sticking out of the ground, the walls, everywhere.
“The queen must’ve added this layer of protection since so many of the Shades are abandoning her,” Ashe said. He pulled out his sword and began swinging.
Something on my wrist caught my eye.
“Jack!” I said, holding up my wrist. The second shackle was just as dark as the first now. Which meant I would have to Century Feed soon, or I would die. I wondered how dark the line had to be before that happened.
Jack came over and examined my wrist. Then he lifted his eyes to meet mine.
I was overcome with emotion, the pain of thinking of the life we wouldn’t get to have, the time we wouldn’t get to spend. The pain of the unfulfilled potential was almost incapacitating, and yet I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I wouldn’t give it up.
“I love you,” I said.
“It’s not over,” he said.
“Over or not. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The vault of hearts was completely overrun by briar bushes. They reached inside the red stained-glass door that Jack had smashed in the last time we were there. Past the door, they grew so thick, only something the size of a rat would’ve been able to get through. It was something we hadn’t planned on. Once we passed through the door, we would be stuck.
“Ashe!” Cole shouted.
“I’m on it.” He swung like a knight on a mission, like the prince at the end of “Sleeping Beauty.” Thorns and branches exploded off the end of his sword, and yet our progress was slow.
We took it inch by inch, shuffling forward. I couldn’t help looking at the entryway we’d just come through. When would we be found out?
Ashe swung and swung, slicing through the boughs.
Suddenly, shadows filled the room.
“Shades!” Cole said.
Ashe tossed the sword to Jack, who caught it by the hilt. “I’ll hold them for as long as I can,” Ashe said, and started swinging his fists.
Now it was me, Jack, Cole, and Will. Jack had Ashe’s sword. He swung it wildly again, and we were halfway across the room. I could see the vault door with the ship’s wheel through the thick of the branches.
But at the rate we were going, Ashe wouldn’t be able to fend off the Shades before we got to it.
I glanced frantically at Will. He closed his eyes, and suddenly energy leaked out of him at an alarming rate. He was making it happen, mentally forcing all the pent-up emotions inside him to spill out. He ran from the room, and every single Shade followed him. Cole looked at me. “I’ll help him,” he promised, and then he ran out after Will.
Jack swung against the branches, but they were too strong, and the sword broke. We’d gone as far as we could.
“Attach the explosives!” I said.
Jack reached through what was left of the briar patches. The thorns didn’t give at all; they simply dug into his skin and tore giant holes in it.
I held his other hand, trying not to imagine the pain he was feeling at that moment.
He winced, but he didn’t make a sound.
Blood ran down his arm, falling in large drops off his elbow and splashing onto the branches below him. And yet he stayed, attaching the device just as Will had shown him on the Surface. So much damage had been done while he inserted his arm, and the thorns were facing away from him. They were like a thousand fishhooks. How would he ever pull it out again?
And yet he still worked at the device.
A bead of sweat ran down his forehead, down his cheek. The pain must be excruciating.
“One more turn,” he said. I could hear the pain in his breathy voice. “And . . . got it.”
The way the device was made, Jack needed to hold the button down while I created the spark to light the fuse, and then we would have twenty seconds to get a safe distance. But now, looking at Jack’s arm, I knew it would take longer to get his arm out. Gingerly, I grabbed one of the nearest branches and tried to pull it apart, but it didn’t budge.
Jack just shook his head. “There isn’t time. Ready?”
My eyes went wide. “We can’t do it yet.”
“We have to,” Jack said. “Get the spark in your head. Ready? Count with me. One . . . two . . . three!”
He pressed the button. I shut my eyes and focused on the spark that Cole and I had worked on, but I couldn’t get the image of what we would have to do to free Jack’s arm out of my head.
“Becks,” Jack said, “you’re worrying about me.”
I opened my eyes and saw that all I had created was a couple of inches of extra space for Jack’s arm.
“Stop worrying about me,” he said.
I pressed my lips together. “Never.”
He grinned. “Okay. Then stop worrying about my arm. Instead, worry about my life.”
That was what I needed to hear. I thought about the spark and instantly heard the click of the fire starting.
“You did it,” Jack said. “Quick. Help me.” He started to pull out his arm, but even he couldn’t bear so much pain.
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
“Pull me.”
Three seconds ticked away. Four.
I grabbed his hand and, bracing my feet against some of the branches on the ground, I sprang in the opposite direction.
He grunted loudly as his arm came free. The blood poured from the gashes there.
“Run!” he said.
We ran out the doorway and through the corridor and out the entrance. I hoped to put at least a football field of distance between us and the explosion. Jack slammed the door shut behind us and then tackled me to the ground, lying on top of me, shielding me.
The crack of the explosion pounded my eardrums, the aftershocks vibrating through my chest.
I was panting. Jack was breathing hard on top of me.
“We did it,” he said. At least I think that was what he said. I couldn’t hear him.
We pulled ourselves up to a standing position. My ears rang with a high-pitched tone. I tilted my head and shook it, feeling frustrated by the foreign sensation of being unable to hear.
“Becks?” Jack was saying my name, but I couldn’t hear him. Are you okay? He mouthed the words.
“I can’t hear,” I answered. At least I hope I did. I couldn’t tell if I was making noise.
But then I realized what was more wrong with the picture than me not being able to hear. The Everneath was still here. It hadn’t disappeared.
Something behind me caught Jack’s eye. He didn’t look at me, but his lips moved. I could see he said one or two words, but I couldn’t tell what they were.
“What?” I said.
He glanced at me and tried again, this time enunciating each syllable.
The queen is here.
THIRTY-FIVE
NOW
The Everneath. The High Court.
I turned around, and there she was in all her red-headed glory. But that disguise lasted for only a few moments before she turned into Adonia with the blond hair again. Maybe since we knew who she was, she didn’t feel the need to hide.
Her face looked pale and ghostly. She glanced around her, and with a quick snap of her fingers, she conjured a cage around Jack. Then she turned her attention to me. “Why did you do it?” she asked.
“Do what?”
“If you wanted to rule the Everneath, why did you destroy it?”
I shook my head. “I told you. I never wanted to rule the Everneath. I just wanted my life back.”
“You wanted your life back by destroying mine. You wanted your life back by killing thousands of Everlivings.”
“I’m not killing them. I gave them their mortality back.”
She smiled. A wide, sharp smile that seemed much closer to a sneer. “You don’t know what happens, do you? When Everlivings lose both of their hearts?”
What was she talking about? “They lose their immortality.”
“So naive.” Her eyes narowed, blazing with the anticipation of a fight.
She closed her eyes, and her lids fluttered. I couldn’t feel anything, so I thought this would be the perfect time to strike; but when I went to think of some sort of weapon, I suddenly had no control over my thoughts.
Involuntarily, the memory of my mother dying flashed inside my brain. I tried to think of anything else. Jack’s face. Tommy. My dad. Even my school. Anything. But I couldn’t navigate my own memories. My eyes flew open to find the queen staring at me with her vicious smile.
“Did you know your mother didn’t die from the crush of the car that hit her?” The queen said. “At least not directly. She suffocated.”