All of this made sense to Silvie. Symbols from Other Earth. Colored candles on wood symbolized the Colored Forests from the legends. Water symbolized Elyon’s water. But two other objects on the end of the table were less obvious to her. A framework that looked somewhat like the drowning gallows that the Horde used, and two crossed planks.

At the center, lit clearly by the wavering flame, lay the seven Books of History, side by side. The black one Michal had first given them on the left. Then the brown, the blue, the green, the purple, the golden, and another black.

Alucard stood across the room, watching Darsal quickly prepare the table. He turned with her wherever she went, as if he feared turning his back to her for even one moment. It was the way evil worked, Silvie thought. Distrusting.

So this was it? All they’d fought for came down to this moment, far below the earth, in the Romanian mountains? The search for the six missing Books of History, the love that had blossomed between Silvie and Johnis, the . . .

She swallowed at the lump gathered in her throat. “Why haven’t they killed us?” she whispered.

“They’re going to drown us.” Karas’s eyes glistened with tears. “Either that or crucify us. It’s how he does it.”

“You can’t know that,” Johnis said. “He’s gloating after two thousand years of waiting; he’s relishing—”

“Silence!” Alucard thundered.

The beast glared at them with yellow eyes. His mangy black coat looked like it hadn’t been groomed once in the two thousand years since he’d vanished from his lair in the Black Forest—a few days ago for Silvie and Johnis, ten years for Karas and Darsal.

“How could you do this?” Johnis’s voice cut through the room, heavy with bitterness. He was speaking to Darsal. “How could you betray Elyon?”

A roar crackled through the air; Alucard’s wings spread wide, his jaws tilted to the ceiling. Rather than feeling any fear at his display of rage, Silvie felt some consolation in the fact that he still reacted so strongly to the name of their maker.

“And who betrayed Billos?” Darsal snapped, ignoring both Alucard’s order for silence and his roar.

“You!” Johnis cried. “You’re betraying him right now!”

Darsal faced him, her expression drawn and red. “Who made a mockery of the Great Romance by stealing the one love I’ve known for the sake of these cursed books?”

“You. You’re making a mockery of the mission.”

“Shut up!” she screamed. But she couldn’t hold back. “If it weren’t for these books, none of us would be here!” She stepped closer, jabbing the air to accentuate each point. “There would be no Shataiki or Horde. I would have died for Billos! Do you understand that? He was my life!”

“And you blame Elyon? Don’t be a fool!”