19. Tyler

I'm in the cave again, standing in the center of the stone circle. My surroundings glow from a light that seems to be coming from within me, and I can now see that this small chamber is a tunnel that climbs up on a gradual slope. Kalistratos is there, and he turns and makes his way up the tunnel towards an infinite blackness.

"Wait!" I call, following after him.

He doesn't stop or slow down, and the tunnel's gentle incline seems to be getting larger. The way ahead is pitch black, and even his back is barely illuminated by the light that moves along with me. My steps are labored. I look down and realize I'm trudging through a dark reflectionless liquid. It swallows my feet and quickly rises to my knees. I look back up, and I'm alone. The cave is gone. I'm standing in a vast black lake under a night sky. I see a distortion in the air ahead of me, like flickering heat waves are warping my view of the stars.

"Kalistratos!" I call. I try to move forward but my feet are stuck.

The shimmering wave takes the shape of a person, and then the stars and everything within it fall away, leaving what looks like a hole stamped out by a man-shaped cookie cutter. A chill goes through my body. I know this feeling. This presence has been permanently scarred into my consciousness.

The black form turns, and a hooded satin cloak hides moon-white skin and long black hair. He pulls back the hood as he glides silently towards me. His slender face is like Aethereos's, but without any of the kindness or wonderful radiance the Great Phoenix has. I feel my happiness and hope being drained away. I'm standing on the edge of sanity and being prodded into the abyss.

"Why are you doing this?" I demand.

He stares at me in silence as a cold wind whips around us. I fight to take a step, pulling with everything I have. I have to get back to Kalistratos. I have to find him.

"You're just a human," Umbrios says. "You're not special. You don't belong. You will always be alone."

"Yeah. I'm not anything special. I'm just a regular guy who got pulled into some crazy shit. But I'm not alone. I have my mate."

Umbrios's cold eyes and expressionless face sink into the darkness as he lifts his hood. "You have nothing."

The wind gusts and everything around me seems to rip away. I see Kalistratos reaching his hand out to me as dark tendrils wrap around him. I shout for him and frantically try to take his hand, but the ground is like tar, and it pulls me down and consumes me until there's nothing left.

My eyes fly open, and I sit up. I'm back in the nest. Kalistratos sits up beside me and is already getting out of bed.

"Something is wrong," he says. "Something has changed."

We hear the elevator car arriving, and Kalistratos steps protectively in front of me. It feels like an agonizingly long time before the doors slowly roll open.

It's Feather. He emerges from the elevator, and though his face seems as calm as ever, it's clear that we are no longer safe here. Whatever Aethereos was doing to protect this place, it's no longer working.

"We must get you out," he says. "Come with me."

"What's going on?" I ask. "Jesus Christ, your arm!"

As Feather turns to usher us into the elevator, I realize his right arm is missing from the elbow. There is no blood or anything—just a jet-black stump, as though he'd dipped it into a vat of oil.

"Umbrios's shadows have breached the shroud," he says. "I and the others were overrun. They come now for Aethereos, and for you."

The doors close and the car begins to rise. Feather's expression breaks, and he clutches his arm in pain.

"Let me see it," says Kalistratos. "Maybe there's something I can do. I've treated wounds before…"

"No," Feather says firmly. "Don't touch it." He turns his shoulder away from us. "I don't know what kind of curse may have been embedded in it."

I want to help him. I feel like there should be something I can do; I just don't know what.

Feather seems to sense what I'm thinking. He manages to smile at me for a moment before his face contorts in another clench of pain. "Don't worry about me, Tyler," he says. "My body is merely a vessel. I'm a flame that lives in eternity."

Suddenly, the elevator jolts to a stop and the lights flicker and go out. Kalistratos and Feather illuminate the space with light from their hands. I grip the doors and pry with all of my strength. Kalistratos helps me, and they slide open. We've not quite made it to the floor. There's a concrete wall with a dark narrow gap at the top, enough for us to squeeze through. Kalistratos boosts me up, and I haul myself through. I quickly offer my hand to Kalistratos.

God, I think. Please don't let this elevator drop.

He jumps and grabs the edge, and I struggle to help pull him up and through. Then we both grab Feather's hand and drag him through the gap.

We stand up, and Kalistratos raises his hand so we can see. It's like we've come to a different building. There are bare concrete walls with exposed steel beams like the place is in the middle of construction. The Great Phoenix's magic is slowly dissipating, floor by floor, revealing the bones of the structure beneath.

"There are stairs," Feather says. "Hurry."

All around us are huge concrete pillars that rise from the ceiling to the floor, and as we run through them, the light from Feather and Kalistratos sends shadows sweeping in every direction. It feels like we're fleeing through some monumental tomb. I squint into the darkness and see something moving with us, like a pack of wolves following its prey through the forest. Kalistratos sees them too.

"They're here," he says.

"This way," says Feather, weaving through the columns. His light seems to be getting dimmer. The darkness is closing in.

With an arc of his hand like he's slinging a baseball, Kalistratos hurls a fireball at the ceiling. The flame spreads through the bare metal grating and exposed wires, igniting the rotten insulation pads in a sudden burst of light that exposes the Vantablack masses moving towards us from all directions with their twisting and scurrying centipede-like appendages.

"Oh, shit, shit, shit!" I shout.

The fire is quickly consumed and snuffed out as the shadows overtake it. Kalistratos and I are running at full tilt, but Feather is lagging behind. He stumbles and nearly falls, but I catch him. It's like his vitality is being drained away.

He pushes me forward. "Go," he says to us. "Up the stairs to the top floor. Aethereos's chambers are the last defense. They will not hold for long."

I try to protest. "But we can't leave?—"

"This is what I was created to do."

Kalistratos grabs my hand, and we sprint for the stairwell door. I take a final look over my shoulder. Feather stands up tall and raises his palm in front of him. His silver hair shimmers and ripples as a stark white halo forms around his body, drowning everything in a brilliant light. The shadows surge and tumble around him like boiling tar, and with a final flash, he disappears, leaving nothing but a bright silver feather that crumbles into glowing dust.

We crash through the door.

"Oh boy," I say, craning my neck to peer up through the center of the seemingly endless stairs.

I knew I should never have skipped so many leg days.

Kalistratos and I wind upwards, back and forth, back and forth. He pauses only to hurl a fireball over the railing, and I look down and see the dark shapes trailing us by several floors, consuming the light like a sponge soaking up water. The moment I begin to slow, Kalistratos grabs my arm and pulls me alongside him.

"You can do this," he tells me. "Do not stop!"

The figurine bounces against my chest beneath the chiton as I bound up the stairs. I pull myself along the railing like I'm dragging a thousand pounds behind me. Sweat pours down my face. My thighs are on fire. I glance back and see the shadows right behind us, piling up the stairwell and crashing against the wall like a rising tsunami.

"GO, GO, GO!" I bellow.

I somehow shred through my limits, ignoring my screaming muscles, and make that final sprint with Kalistratos up the remaining floors. I smash the door with my shoulder and tumble into the ground. Kalistratos slams the door behind us, and then picks me up. We're in the entrance hall to the Great Phoenix's chambers. To our left is the elevator, and in front are the rows of museum pedestals. We stagger forward just as the door behind and the elevator doors blow open. The shadows explode from both sides, plowing down the pedestals like bowling pins as we flee to the set of heavy, ancient doors that mark the entrance to Aethereos's chamber. The two black tidal waves have smashed into one horrendous mass, and it fills the room with its darkness, consuming everything.

There's no way to go but forward.

As we near the doors, they crack and swing open on their own, and a searing light shines through and cuts into the monster like a laser beam. It releases an awful sound, somewhere between a howl and the rumble of an earthquake, and the moment after Kalistratos and I throw ourselves through the doors, they pull shut behind us with a thunderous bang.

The ethereal light that'd filled the Great Phoenix's chambers has gone dim. The braziers are empty and the silk white curtains hang in tattered shreds like ghosts in a graveyard. It feels like the place is crumbling apart, rapidly aging into decay.

"Tyler, Kalistratos." Aethereos's voice surrounds us. "Come to the garden."

We find him sitting on the floor in the center of the pathway going through the indoor garden, his eyes closed like he's meditating. He looks up at us and smiles weakly, then slowly rises to his feet, refusing our attempt to assist him.

"You made it," he says. "I knew you would."

"But, Aethereos, I don't have powers," I reply with desperation in my voice. "I wasn't able to figure it out. We're trapped here. I can't get us back."

"No, Tyler," Kalistratos says. "There's always a way. We still have time. We're not dead yet."

"Your Guardian is right, Tyler," Aethereos says.

A deep boom sounds from back where we came—the shadows beating at the door.

"I can't do this," I say. "Dammit, I don't know what to do."

"You can." Kalistratos grabs my hands and squeezes them tight. The pain is somehow comforting. It means we're together. I squeeze him back.

The boom shudders through the room again, rattling the windows. Aethereos points upward.

"There's a ladder which extends to a platform to the roof," he says. "Take it."

"And then what?" I ask.

He gives me a silent look. And then it all falls on me.

Another boom, louder this time. The doors are weakening.

"Remember," he tells us both, "nothing is written in stone."

It's hard to tell whether he's warning us or reassuring us.

I hear the doors splinter apart. A deep rumble shakes the ground and quickly builds into a violent tremor, and I see the black wave break around the Great Phoenix's elevated nest and come crashing through the chamber, swallowing everything in its dark void. Aethereos advances toward the oncoming monster, and a sphere of light snaps out as fast and brilliantly as a camera flash. The monster collides with the barrier and is pushed back as the light expands like a glowing forcefield. For a split second, I'm ready to celebrate. It feels like we're saved, like Aethereos can turn back the shadows and win.

He turns and looks at me and Kalistratos. His face is calm, with only the smallest hint of a smile. He's telling us to go.

Kalistratos grabs my hand, and we turn and run through the garden. I see the ladder ahead, close to the steel framework of the greenhouse dome. Kalistratos urges me up first. Through the rain-pelted glass is a gray horizon and the faded lights of the city far below. All I can do is climb, even though we're going to a dead end. There will be nowhere else we can run to.

Through the ladder rungs, I see the light fading. Aethereos glares defiantly into the darkness as if looking directly at his brother and telling him this is not the end. And then the forcefield breaks. The shadow crashes down around him, swallowing him up in an instant. The building shakes, and the clean steel and gleaming windows around me rust and deteriorate. The plants in the garden wither and brown before the monster tramples across them, and Kalistratos and I snap out of our dismay and scurry up the rest of the ladder to a high catwalk at the top of the structure.

We rush along the wobbly steel grating to a latched window, and I push it open. A gust of wind blows stinging raindrops against my face. Below us, the monster begins to slide upward along the glass like a slug climbing a wall. We climb outside to a service walkway with a dizzying view of the street fifty stories down. I grip the railing and hurry to another ladder that climbs up to a helicopter landing platform on the very top of the building. We run across the platform to the ledge.

"Nowhere else to go," I shout over the rain. "Now would be a great time to get your phoenix back."

Kalistratos takes me by the shoulders. "I can't get us out of this. Tyler, you have to try again."

I close my eyes and clasp the pendant in my hand, searching for some feeling or sign. I'm looking for a phoenix inside of me, caged and waiting for me to free it, but there's nothing. I'm not a phoenix.

"I don't know," I say, giving him a pleading look. "I'm sorry, Kalistratos. I just don't know what I'm looking for."

He wraps his arms around me and hugs me against his chest. The figurine pushes painfully into my chest, but it doesn't stop me from holding him even tighter.

"I'm sorry," I cry.

Kalistratos kisses the side of my temple and strokes my hair with his palm. His hand is trembling, but he holds me with such reassuring strength.

"Listen to me," he says. "No matter what happens, I will always find you."

I can feel the shadow monster coming. There's a change in the air, like every last bit of warmth is being sucked away. I want to look over my shoulder to see it, but Kalistratos stops me and holds my eyes with his.

"I will always find you," he says again.

The force of the impact pushes us off the ledge. Dark tentacles wrap around me, pulling me away from Kalistratos. His fingers tighten around my hand as the void envelopes him. I'm slipping out of his grasp. He looks at me once more before the shadow falls across his face, and everything is gone.