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But because there was a reason that some spirits hung around after death.

In fact, there were thousands of them, each as unique as the spirit itself.Lost loves, old regrets, children they wanted to watch grow up, or, as had been the case with Billy Joe, ambitions left unfulfilled.But one overriding reason showed up more than all the rest combined.

It was one that these spirits knew better than any other, having been thrown into the afterlife in a torrent of godly rage that was nothing compared to the one they felt now, haunting the desiccated corpse of the world they had once called home.

Revengewhispered through the air all around me.

Revengeburned in a thousand thousand ghostly eyes.

Revengethrummed in dead heartbeats and then howled through the air so suddenly and so loudly that even the group at the top of the hill heard it, as the countless ghosts in the skies over the camp all fell on us all at once.Causing Jonas and company to look around in confusion as a sudden windstorm sent their maps and papers scattering on the breeze.And then obscured my view entirely, the mass of spirits around us so thick that they blotted out the stars.

REVENGE!

It was a roar to me, although I couldn’t tell if the others heard it, although they looked spooked enough.Yet, it was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.It was the sound of hope.

“Then take us there,” I whispered back.“And you will have it.”

And then we were gone.

Chapter Thirty

The world changed abruptly, turning gray as if a veil had been flung over the top of it and then whiting out entirely.Only to be replaced with a very different landscape that slowly emerged from the fog, one of swift-moving, pale outlines of desert outcroppings, rippling sands, and squat bushes, as we were borne through non-time on a rushing torrent of ghostly power.I could just make out our surroundings, but I couldn’t concentrate on them because they were whizzing by too fast.

Our pace far exceeded what the jalopies had been able to do and was frankly terrifying—and unexpected because ghosts could barely lift anything.I was used to them having to exert a marathon’s worth of effort to knock a pencil off a table, which is why most didn’t bother.But these were bothering, and there were so many of them that they could bear us along on a white cloud of power like a magic carpet worthy of Aladdin.

It was like the necromancer I’d seen in Stratford being borne aloft by the ghosts he’d enslaved, only in our case, it was a multitude, and they’d volunteered.Which was great except that I couldn’t control them like he had.Or even see properly with the ungodlyspeed.

“Where are we?”Bodil yelled, looking frantic.I guessed this was another thing a few thousand years of life hadn’t prepared her for.

Me, either, I thought, trying to figure out how to explain with the ghostly wind tearing my words away.

In your head!She yelled back mentally, and so loudly that my ears hurt in sympathy.

“Where the devil did you bring us?”Æsubrand echoed, his hand on his sword before I could answer.

“Oh,” Enid squeaked while Zara and crew just stared about with shining eyes, looking like they were having the time of their lives.

I was glad somebody was enjoying it.

“The Paths of the Dead!”I yelled to be heard over the wind.“Don’t resist, and don’t stray off!”

“Stray off?Stray off?” That was Alphonse.And it looked like whatever Mircea had done really had been temporary because he was vocal again and loud about it.“How the hell do we do that?Can you even stop this ride?”

No, I thought, as the city loomed ever closer.

“Why are we not to stray off?”Enid shouted, staying on point.Because the girl had developed a good set of survival instincts.Or maybe she’d already had them from growing up at the poisonous fey court.

“Some of the ghosts here are on our side!”I said, wondering if I had ghost particles in my mouth because it kind of felt like it.I spat them out.“But the rest…”

What about the rest?Bodil hissed in my head.

“They’re hunters!This is where ghosts go who run out of power and can’t maintain their hold on our world anymore!The rest come here to feed!”

“They cannibalize each other?”That was Enid, looking shocked.

“Only the weaker ones,” I said, which didn’t seem to help.

Alphonse had a lot to say about that, but most of it was borne away by the winds before it reached me.