Page 154

My hair is plastered to my face, and my skin glows. Next to me, Temper snores, her body somehow managing to take up three-fourths of the bed.

I slip off the mattress and begin to rummage around the room, discreetly looking for a swimsuit. When I don’t find one, I settle for lingerie. Changing into the items, I head back for the pool that lingers half indoors, half out.

This time, when I enter the glowing waters, I don’t sink to the bottom. Instead, I flip on my back and let myself drift along the surface. Inevitably, the water moves me to the outer edges of the pool, and I stare up at the stars.

Des …

My chest feels like it’s caving in.

Even the stars seem to mock me. How can they continue to shine when the man that ruled them is gone?

Come find your mate where oblivion lies …

I begin to glow all over again, just thinking about the Thief.

It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to hurt someone this badly.

Let’s sing to him our sweet, strange song. He will know pleasure then—pleasure and pain. We’ll remind him why sirens are known as killers.

The conundrum of it all is how to get my hands on the Thief. Dying is the most obvious way—it’s a one-way ticket straight to the Thief’s kingdom. But that’s exactly what the Thief wants—it’s the very reason he gave me the lilac wine. Because, at the end of the day, once a fairy dies, their souls are under the domain of the King of the Dead.

At least I think he wants me under his domain … he hasn’t tried very hard to kill me.

Come find your mate where oblivion lies …

Said as though I could just fuckingwalkthere.

I glare up at the stars—

My breath leaves me all at once.

Holyshit.

What if Icouldjust walk to the Kingdom of Death?

Whatif?

The Kingdom of Death and Deep Earth is a physical place in the Otherworld, just like the other kingdoms. The fact that you have to die to get there is the most obvious route in, but …

If fairies can spin moonlight into cloth, and Des can put starlight in my hair, why couldn’t the living enter the realm of the deadwithoutdying?

Even on Earth, there were tales of living people entering the Underworld—some even leaving with the dead. Here in the Otherworld, a place where the impossible is made possible, perhaps I could do the same.

Or perhaps grief has made you weak in the head.

I deflate.

I continue to stare up at the stars, the water lapping against my skin. But the longer my thoughts wander, the more they keep coming back to the possibility that there might be a way for me enter the Land of the Dead, one that doesn’t involve dying.

I bet it’s possible.

Maybe then I could face the Thief of Souls without being his subject.

After all, I wouldn’t have been the first person to visit the King of the Dead and live to tell the tale. There was one other who sought him out long ago …

I sit upright in the water, the waves splashing at the movement.

Goddamn it, I haveanidea.