Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

W hat the ? —?

I've barely managed to gasp a breath before a storm of mist bursts around me, squeezing my chest so hard that I can't move, let alone voice a protest.

The ground beneath my feet falls away and suddenly, I'm spiraling, jolting away from Emil. I leave his grasp entirely until his hand closes around mine at the last moment.

The process of translocation has never been this unpleasant, not even the first time he tried it.

A sense of dizzying weightlessness fills me and then?—

Smack!

My hand leaves Emil's and I land hard on my hands and knees on a cold surface.

I can't hold on to the book and it hits the ground beside me, sliding a few feet sideways. I'm too dizzy to reach for it, but I take comfort that its most ragged edge remains visible to me within the clearing mist.

Emil's icy scent fills my chest—or at least, I think it's his scent—until a rush of freezing air rages across me, coming from behind.

But worst of all, my family is no longer nearby and I can't make out any hint of them within the remaining mist.

"Anarchy! Lucian! Riot!" I scream for each of my pack members, my heart pounding hard with the fear that Emil left them behind after all.

Panic billows within me, only growing worse until the savage wind finally whisks the remaining mist away.

I make out the shape of a large cave around me—a long one that stretches far into the distance. The walls are black and appear to consist of some kind of rock that glistens with silver flecks.

Then I see my pack members, each of them tumbling away from me across the cave floor, as if the volatile transportation magic was even more unkind to them than it was to me, propelling them across the space.

They come to ragged stops on the sparkly, black stone ground, all of them facing away from me, having traveled a solid thirty feet.

Cries of alarm rise up into my throat as I scramble toward them, trying to hear their heartbeats to know if they're alive.

Nothing .

Then, their hearts all seem to kick into action at the same time, their heartbeats reaching me across the distance.

Thank the dark saints!

The dark elves, Anarchy, Riot, Rumble, and Strife, have landed to my left.

Lucian is closer to Jonah, both of whom are on my right.

Our immediate surroundings don't hold any other visible threats yet, so I take comfort in the possibility that we won't be immediately assailed by danger.

Lucian is nearest to me, and I reach him first. "Brother!"

His inky-black hair falls across the stone beneath his head, the dark strands nearly disappearing against the dark surface. His skin is fair and, like my father's countenance, Lucian's features remind me of the brightness of the stars in a night sky. His eyes, if they were open, are the same golden color as mine.

The edge of a tattoo is visible from beneath the short sleeve of his tunic. In all the time I've known him, I've never seen what the tattoo depicts.

I drop to the stone beside him, conscious that Jonah is also stirring, groaning as he slowly sits up.

Even though I can hear Lucian's heartbeat, he doesn't immediately respond, and I find myself seeking the pulse at his neck.

A moment later, he opens his eyes. "Veda?"

Lucian squints up at me for a moment before he startles upright, quickly scanning our surroundings, catching sight of Jonah first. "Jonah!"

Then Lucian twists in the other direction, his focus falling on the lilac-haired woman lying several paces to our left. "Anarchy!"

He scrambles toward her, calling her name again before he reaches her.

She stirs a moment before he pulls her into his arms and tilts his head to hers.

"Lucian?" Her voice is weak and barely audible above the raging wind that beats across the mouth of the cave behind us.

The freezing cold surface beneath my knees makes me shiver. Our pants and tunics are no match for the iciness of our surroundings.

Lucian's voice is too soft for me to hear what he says as he murmurs to Anarchy, pressing his forehead to hers while her palm cups his cheek.

They formed a bond during our stay on the island where we spent the last month, and it shines through now in their relief.

On their other side, Anarchy's brothers are also stirring, each one sitting up slowly, pressing their hands to their temples as if they're as dizzy as I was when I first landed here.

I sink down onto my heels, incredibly relieved that they all appear okay, even if their faces are a little green.

But…

Where is Emil?

I was sure I sensed his hand on mine while we traveled here, but his intense presence doesn't strike me instantly like it usually does.

I swing back to the mouth of the cave, finally locating him all the way back near its opening.

He, too, is kneeling on the black stone. He has remained in his silver-haired, green-eyed form, and his shoulders are slumped forward, his chest rising and falling slowly. I can't hear his breathing—not over the shrieking wind—but the rise and fall of his chest indicates that it's ragged.

What I see behind him makes me pause.

A storm of white particles rages across the cave mouth as thick as the mist that transported us here.

Because I spent the first twenty-three years of my life in a dark cell, there's a lot about the world I've never seen or experienced. It was only a month ago that I felt sand beneath my feet. Touched leaves and grass. Ate pizza and hamburgers. Saw a butterfly for the first time.

My mother once described snow to me. A white, powdery substance that she said would fall from the sky in winter and settle like a blanket over the ground. She said it was beautiful, reflective, pretty .

What I see now is nothing like that, which makes me doubt if what I'm looking at is, indeed, snow.

It would certainly explain why it's freezing cold here, but the white particles are raging with a fury that's nothing like the calm powder my mother described.

Emil said he was taking us to hell, but my assumption was that hell was a fiery place, so our surroundings are disconcerting to me.

While my family members find their feet, I take a moment to consider Emil, narrowing my eyes at the way his head remains bowed and the misty transportation magic still clings to his form. It looks like fingers plucking at his sides. The mist has never taken this long to clear from around him before, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

Perhaps he's preparing to leave us here—wherever here actually is.

Then the fingers of hazy energy disperse and I don't have time to consider him longer because the dark elves are racing toward me.

Strife is the first to reach me, leaping across the distance as surely as if he were in his panther form. Like his brothers, he has lilac-colored hair, pointed ears, and bright, blue eyes, but his chin is a little narrower. He is a little more elvish in his beauty. And his smile is far more mischievous than those of the other two.

Well, usually. Not right now.

I catch the fear in his eyes before he barrels into me, lifting me up, all the way from my knees into his arms.

The snarls on his lips are so savage that he really could be in his panther form. "Darkness!"

It's their name for me.

A powerful name.

They've never called me anything else.

Strife's arms are firm around me as he allows me to find my feet but doesn't let go of me. "We sensed the influx of light magic within the church. We thought we might have lost you."

His voice chokes up a little, and I recall the way Anarchy had exclaimed about the fact that I had still been alive right before Emil brought us here.

It's clear my pack was worried about me.

Before I can reply, Riot and Rumble knock into us, their arms somehow wrapping around me, too.

All three of them envelop me in a hug that feeds my wolfish soul with all the feelings of pack that I so desperately need right now.

Anarchy and Lucian soon join them, wrapping me up from behind.

"What happened?" Lucian asks, his voice muffled at my shoulder.

"Did you get the book?" Anarchy's question sounds right after Lucian's, but Riot speaks at the same moment, their questions overlapping.

"Where are we?" he asks.

None of them has any reason to doubt that the keeper is still our ally. When we parted outside the church, Emil was as much a part of my pack as they were. They won't know that they can't fully trust our surroundings like they could when he transported us places before.

He never endangered us before now, but to believe that he won't betray me would be foolish.

My voice sticks in my throat as I try to find a way to tell my pack what happened.

I'm honestly not sure if we should be standing around discussing it. I have no idea what dangers lie in this place or if we should be running for our lives already.

Before I can find the words, Anarchy asks softly, "Darkness… what's wrong with the keeper?"

Her eyes are wide as she tugs away from me. Wide with concern. Not fear. She has always made it clear she doesn't entirely trust him—which was smart, as it turns out—but the press of her lips and the soft light in her eyes tells me she's concerned about his welfare and not the possibility of betrayal.

Emil has remained exactly where he was before, uncharacteristically motionless and unusually quiet, his head still bowed and expression obscured.

I try to tell myself I can't be concerned about his welfare right now. I don't know what his end game is, and his demeanor could be a ploy to soften my distrust.

"The keeper is no longer my ally," I say, hardening my voice. "He is not to be trusted. And so I have named him Emil ."

Names have power.

The dark elves, Lucian, and even Jonah, know this. So the meaning of my declaration won't be lost on them.

Anarchy's lips part. "Enemy?"

She and her brothers and Lucian stiffen where their arms remain wrapped around me.

Jonah, on the other hand, speaks wryly from the other side of our group. "Well, it makes sense now why we're here. Because only an enemy would bring you to the mouth of the Underworld."

The Underworld .

I fight the urge to turn around to check Emil again.

He told me he was taking us to hell, but I didn't imagine he meant literally to the Underworld.

Anarchy's line of sight doesn't waver from Emil, but her voice is filled with new alarm. "We're in hell?"

Oh, in so many ways.

At that moment, the sound of footfalls reaches me from within the long tunnel. They're soft and prowling and can't be good news.

"It seems so," I say. "And now we've got company."