Page 102

Fear is a solid knot in my gut. My mouth is dry, and I swallow. I don’t look at Khaos; I know he’ll follow me. I stand up straight and speak the words my mother implanted in my mind before she left me.

“Light undone, Hell revealed,Shadow calls—let fate be sealed.”

The mirror shudders, cracks spreading like black veins before it swirls open into endless darkness. The air grows heavy, charged with something dark and watchful.

Whispers escape the mirror’s surface, as if something inside knows I’m coming. Which is bad news. I’d really hoped for a chance to do a little sightseeing first.

All the same I’ve got to do this.

I take a step forward.

“Amber.” Khaosti’s voice stops me.

I don’t turn. “What?”

“I love you.”

So, I’m actually smiling as I step into Hell.

My smile doesn’t last.

Chapter 42

Hell Sucks Big Time

“Idon’t think I like it here,” I whisper.

“I fucking hate it here,” Khaos replies from behind me.

He loves me.

I cling to that thought. But it’s hard. I suspect this place sucks the joy right out of everything. The air is heavy, so each breath is hard, and it stinks of burned metal and old blood. And the gravity feels off, like something is constantly pulling me down, the ground shifting beneath me.

The light is dim, it’s nighttime—maybe it’s always nighttime here. The only light comes from a bloated crimson moon directly overhead. There are no stars. Not a single one.

We’re in a glade in what I presume was once a forest. Now we’re surrounded by blackened skeletal trees, branches like claws. Shadows shift and coil in the darkness. In front of me is a dark lake, the water thick and oily, with strange undercurrents.

I turn and whisper the words to close the mirror, and it vanishes from sight. For the first time, I notice that it opened into some sort of pavilion. Long since fallen into ruin, I’m guessing it was once beautiful with graceful lines and white marble walls. Now it’s veined with the dark red of old blood. I close my eyes and whispers echo through my mind.I love you.A soft laugh. A languid sigh.

What was this place?

Maybe Hell wasn’t always just shadows and darkness. Maybe once the stars shone here as they do on all the worlds. Who blanked them out? Was it my father?

“Let’s get away from here,” Khaosti says. “I don’t like it.”

“I agree. And I have a strange idea that things are not going to get better.”

But we have to find my father and then…

I still have no clue how this is going to play out. I know I’m supposed to destroy Lucifer, but no one has even hinted at how. I’m guessing because they don’t actually know. And I’m presuming—maybe that’s too strong a word, hoping maybe—that there will be some sort of divine intervention at the appropriate moment. Like Selene whispering in my head just how I actually destroy Lucifer. Yeah, that would be good.

With one last glance at the pavilion, I turn to go just as the forest erupts around us. Crimson eyes gleam between the blackened branches. The shadows move, and swirl and solidify. Beside me, Khaosti swears softly.

I search my mind for the best choice, but they’re all crap. Should I try and call up the mirror and escape back to Earth? But then we’ve achieved nothing.

“Shift,” Khaosti murmurs. “And we’ll make a run for it.”

Sounds like a plan. But when I reach inside myself for the magic something is blocking it. “I can’t shift,” I mutter.