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Back Maya and the Lord of Shadows Save as PDF
Chapters (34)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Acknowledgments
  33. About the Author
  34. About the Publisher

I struggled to talk, my mouth opening and closing. The answer seemed too obvious, so completely clear. I had no doubts. I smiled up at Nulan and proudly said, “I serve the Lord of Shadows.” The words sounded all wrong, like they were coming from someone else.

Nulan smiled back at me, victory dancing in her eyes. “You will forget this conversation, and you will pretend to be loyal to your friends until the time comes when our lord calls upon you to act. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said, my head fuzzy. “I understand.”

“We’ll be seeing you very soon,” Nulan said as she backed away into the darkness.

I closed my eyes. A moment later, I was blinking up at a starless night. Of all the rotten times to get dizzy, this had to be the rottenest. Where was Nulan? The last thing I remembered was telling her that the Lord of Shadows wouldn’t stop once the veil came down.

Frankie groaned next to me. “What happened?”

I reached over and straightened her crooked glasses. “You’re safe, but Nulan got away.”

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had forgotten something—something that was a matter of life or death.

Twenty-Five

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THE INTERGALACTIC SCHOOL FOR THE MAGICALLY GIFTED

AS THE LAST of my dizziness faded, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I had forgotten something, but it didn’t matter. Frankie was okay except for a few scrapes and bruises. She climbed to her feet and turned in a circle, looking at the gloom around us and the missing stars.

“I was in the library reading through the public records when I saw the woman in the photo with my first mom,” Frankie said, blinking back tears. “She was a peacekeeper nicknamed Butcher because most of the magical criminals she tracked down ended up . . .” Frankie drew a single finger across her throat. “You know . . . dead.”

“We had the misfortune of meeting her and the other two Azurians in the photo—Crusher and Spike,” I told her. “Charlie and the other peacekeepers captured them, but she got away.”

“Butcher said that my mom found out that she was secretly working for a big crime boss, so Butcher disposed of her.” Frankie swiped hard at the tears on her cheeks. “When this business with the Lord of Shadows is over, I’m going after Butcher.”

My heart ached for Frankie. Butcher had to be stopped before she hurt someone else. “I’m going with you,” I said quietly. “We have to bring her to justice.”

Frankie let out a shaky breath. “Thanks for saving me.” She looked around again. “Where’s everyone else?”

I cut my staff across the space in front of us, but I could feel the gateway resisting me. I frowned. “We were supposed to meet at the school in Azur, but I can’t open a gateway there.”