EIGHTY

Stephanie

I broke from Charlotte, running ahead with a cry after I caught sight of movement through the broken windows of the conservatory—a fluttering of red rose petals.

Without stopping, I crashed into the rickety metal-framed door and pushed my way through only to find myself in a room of shattered nothing.

Shards of dingy glass littered the mud-caked stone floor along with dried brush and broken bits of wicker. I whirled under the domed ceiling, searching its exposed frame for some sign of night.

The sun glared down on me instead, its unwelcome heat drawing from me a sob.

A shout echoed it. One I heard partly with my ears and party—more clearly—within my mind.

Erik’s.

I sprang away from the center of the room, back to the open door through which Charlotte, Patrick, and Wes, standing at a distance, watched me unravel with helpless despair.

Grasping the doorframe, I hung my head and fought the urge to collapse. Instead, I passed through it again, imagining where I wanted to be—where I wanted this doorway to take me. To a place I made myself believe it could take me. To the other Moldavia. His. Ours.

When I looked up again, though, I found my friends still there.

I would have broken down then, if Patrick hadn’t stepped forward to point at me. Or rather, at the doorway behind me.

“Stephanie,” he said.

Turning, I saw that the scene within the doorway had changed.

Green tattered vines clung to the walls. Rose petals flew.

And there was Rastin. And Lucas.

And . . .

EIGTHY-ONE

Lucas

A breeze arose from nowhere to shake and stir the heads of the innumerable blooms, amplifying their already heady scent to a nearly noxious status.

The monster—who’d disconcertingly yet to behave like one—said I’d made a promise to him.

He must have been talking about something I’d said to him in the graveyard. Trying to remember what words I’d used, I wrapped a hand more tightly around the dagger he’d proffered to me. And as the cold metal of the handle bit into my flesh, I recalled exactly what I’d said.

I’d promised I’d be the one to send him to hell.

A glance toward Rastin showed him putting his hands out, palms up, like a sage preparing to raise the dead instead of a medium preparing to do the opposite. He closed his eyes. At the same instant, the monster—Zedok—doubled over, contracting into himself.

This was happening. All without my say-so. I’d taken the dagger. I’d taken it, but . . .

Another rush of air gusted through the waxy leaves of the roses, strong enough to tear whole heads free. Petals filled the air like confetti, funneling into a whirlwind.

At the center of the vortex stood Rastin, who murmured to himself, lips moving, voice silenced by the flutter of leaves and the whip of wind. Lowering one hand, the medium opened his eyes, a glower of determination setting his features as he extended the other hand toward Erik.