Chapter 3

3

The rest of the day, I didn’t do much.

Thea escorted me to my bedroom.

“In case you forgot where it is,” she joked. “This is your home.” That wasn’t joking, and it once again made me feel stupid and emotional.

That afternoon, I texted Erin and told her to cancel that meeting with the archangels altogether. I bet that by now, she had gotten Drake’s message and could add two and two.

After that, I called Abbie—she had no news for me. I took a short nap and when I was bored, I walked around the gardens outside. Lavinia joined me for a little while.

I heard Thea had gone to the school for a couple of hours, and I made a mental note to ask to go with her the next time. I had seen that place only once, when it was still under renovations and construction, and it had already looked amazing. I bet that now, it was breathtaking.

At night, we all had dinner together, including the rest of the castle’s princes and new princess! Lyra had proved herself and had become the first vampire princess of DuMoir Castle.

“Congratulations,” I told her, feeling proud of her, even though we weren’t close.

She had found her mate, Prince Ward of the Red Dusk coven—a rare occurrence for vampires, but always welcomed.

During dinner, Drake told me he had sent a message to our friends, and they would all be here in two days. We would have a meeting and after we would have dinner.

It sounded more social and friendly than I expected a meeting to go, but whatever. These supernaturals were fancy, extravagant, and filthy rich. I guess they expected parties with everything.

I ended up more tired than I thought, went to bed early, and slept like a rock.

Until about five in the morning when I dreamed about Levi burning into a huge fire and screaming in pain.

I woke up with a jolt, my heart racing, my skin covered with a sheen of sweat.

Taking advantage of the suite that comprised the guest bedrooms in the castle, I prepared the Jacuzzi and relaxed in the hot water for about an hour.

Or tried to. Though I stayed in the water for that long, I felt tense and restless. Just sitting around, waiting for things to happen, made me anxious.

After the bath, I got dressed in training clothes I found in my closet. It was full of all kinds of clothes exactly in my size. I had to ask Thea or Drake how they did that. Maybe it was a spell? It had to be.

When I got out the closet, I came to a stop when I saw the tray with breakfast on the round table on one side of the room. Apparently the cook, Chef Morris, remembered what I liked, and one of the maids had come in here while I was in the bathroom.

Creepy.

While eating, I texted Abbie. I knew she wouldn’t have anything for me yet, but I needed to do something.

I had just finished my breakfast when my phone dinged with new message.

Lavinia: Zad arrived a couple of hours ago. He is going to sleep through the morning, and you guys can start training this afternoon.

I sank into the chair. What the hell would I do until then?

I perked up.

Me: Okay. I’ll be in the library.

I should have known Lavinia and Killian wouldn’t read my message and leave it at that. Shortly after I arrived in the library, they walked in.

“What are we looking for?” Lavinia asked. She wore a dark green gown, making her look like a princess.

Beside her, Killian wore a black suit and burgundy tie, like all the other princes in the castle.

I felt oddly out of place in my tight leggings, vest, and combat boots.

“Any books about the underworld,” I said, pushing those thoughts away. How I dressed wasn’t important. “I need to find out what fiery pits could mean.”

I knew no library would ever match the one at the Great Eternity Hall, but I needed to keep busy. And who knew? I might find something useful in these books.

“We’ll help you,” Killian said. He grabbed a laptop from the long desk at the front and opened it up. “For the last few years, we’ve had some lower-ranked vampires enter all the books in the library in a database. They haven’t finished it yet. There are so many books and there are always new ones, but I bet we can find most of them here.” He took a chair at a squared table.

“Oh, nice.” I sat across from him and Lavinia took the chair to his right.

In no time, we had a list of over fifty books. We each took a third of the list and fanned out to grab what we could carry, bringing the volumes to the tables at the front of the library.

After a few minutes of searching, I glanced at my friends. “Are you sure you two don’t have something else to do?”

Lavinia lifted an eyebrow. “Why? Want to get rid of us?”

“I just don’t want you to waste your time babysitting me.”

“We’re not babysitting you,” she said. “We’re helping our friend.”

“That’s our mission,” Killian said.

My lips tugged up, but before they could stretch too wide, I buried my nose in a book and started working. For about one hour, we skimmed through the books, determining the ones that actually talked about the underworld, not just mentioned it as an afterthought, and also the ones that talked about its structure and space.

The next hour, we choose five or six books from the remaining pile and started making a list of common features we found in them. I thought that we would quickly end up with a lengthy list, granted how big everyone kept saying the underworld was, but it turned out, every book said something different about it.

One mentioned how the underworld was its own realm, accessible only by portals, and how it was so large, we would never be able to explore it all.

Another mentioned how the underworld had several levels, like a tall building, and no one knew how exactly each level was reached. By ranking? By power? By portals? And what granted entrance to each level? It was all a mystery.

A third book said the underworld was fluid and kept changing. Good-hearted supernaturals saw more of it, had more access to unusual places; bad supernaturals only saw a prison. But even then, two different good-hearted supernaturals would see different places. Only a limited number of places were the same for everyone.

“This is crazy,” I whispered, closing the eleventh book that mentioned only those who died could reach the fiery pits.

And even that wasn’t unanimous—so far, some books suggested the fiery pits were a myth, while others said it was a prison, or the real heaven, where dead souls went to rest.

“You’re not giving up, right?” Lavinia asked as she turned the page of the giant tome she was studying. “It’s too soon.”

“Not giving up, but I need a break.” A break and a drink. No, it was too damn early for that, but I could use some water. “I’ll go to the kitchen and?—”

A young page entered the library, his head low. I remembered when I first saw one of these teenagers, I was worried they were slaves, but Drake assured me that there were no slaves.

The teenagers who worked in the castle were either children of the old slaves who didn’t want to leave, or orphans they found and offered a new life. They were humans sworn in secrecy about our world, and one day, when older and deserving, they would be given a choice to join us by becoming vampires and entering the official ranking of DuMoir Castle.

“Miss Ariella, Chef Morris sent me to ask what you would like for lunch,” the young man said, looking at my feet.

I glanced at the time. It was almost noon. “Hm, I don’t know. Why ask me?” Wasn’t he cooking for most of the non-vampires in the castle.

“He said you’re the special guest of the day and you get to decide the menu,” the page said.

Oh, I liked that. “All right, how about one of his famous lasagnas?”

The page nodded and left the library.

“His lasagnas are really good,” Lavinia said. “Shame they don’t taste the same anymore.”

Since she had become a vampire, her taste buds had changed.

All right, I could do this until noon. With a sigh, I grabbed another book and continued researching.

* * *

The hours stretched as if they were years, and I was going out of my mind. I tried focusing on the words I was reading, but nothing stuck to mind. Lavinia and Killian tried entertaining me by taking me to lunch—which had been delicious—then a walk around the castle’s maze, but all I wanted was to have Zadkiel help me get a hold of my magic and find Levi and kick Rhodes’s ass.

In the middle of the afternoon, Zadkiel and Elisa entered the library.

I shot to my feet and my chair almost fell backward.

I had first met Zadkiel in New Orleans, when I was contacted by Norah and asked to help an angel. I took him to the Midnight Cauldron, where he met Khalisa.

Then, we met again while fighting with our friends against Paimon. That was when I asked him about Elysium and what was going on there, but he didn’t know anything. After staying for so long in the underworld, Zadkiel had gone back to Elysium, talked to his mentor, Archangel Muriel, and she had sent him back to Earth to stay with Elisa and help the supernaturals at DuMoir Castle.

As far as I knew, Muriel wasn’t involved with Ylena and Rhodes, and she probably didn’t know anything. I had subtly asked if he had heard about the stories involving me, and he said no, but it was probably because he hadn’t stayed up there long enough.

Since then, he didn’t have much contact with Elysium, and from what Lavinia had told me, ever since the bounty on my head was announced, his mentor had been quiet. The only thing she had told him was to stay put and continue working for Lord Drake.

“Hi there, Ariella,” Elisa said, always the diplomat. She was Queen Thea’s right hand and a powerful witch. “It’s so good to see you.” She walked up to me and gave me a brief but strong hug.

“You too,” I said.

“I hear you've been looking for me,” Zadkiel said. He was the perfect angel: with longish blond hair, blue eyes, and a serene aura to him. Though, like me, his wings were black.

“Yes.” I quickly explained that I had gotten my magic back, but it hadn’t been the same. “I need to train to get it under control.” Before I bought myself a fight with some demons in the underworld or some angels in Elysium. “And I thought you could train with me.”

He probably had already heard all of this from Drake and Thea, as I assumed he already knew everything else I had told them, including what was going on in Elysium.

He nodded. “Of course. Why don’t we go to the training grounds and see what we can do?”

I perked up. “Now? Sure.”

Waving goodbye to Lavinia and Killian, I followed Zadkiel and Elisa out. I hoped the vampires didn’t feel like they should continue working without me and took a break from research.

“I need to go talk to Thea again,” Elisa said. She leaned into Zadkiel and I averted my eyes as the two kissed. “You two have fun.”

She turned on her heels and disappeared down the stairs.

Zadkiel turned to me. “Are you ready?”