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I didn’t need to breathe. Not when I was that deep. It was a depth of the Underworld I understood better in theory than practice. I dove anyhow.

Before, when I’d taken control of the Shades, Inarus had been far away. The long distance made it easier to usurp his commands. This time, I had to face Inarus directly.

The nearby Shades faded in the distance, blurring to become single-minded background noise. Ninti and Ayla faded from view.

It was dark here. Cold, like a void.

One light remained—dark purple with blue hues. It was light that wasn’t light, a mimicry of illumination.

Inarus.

I rushed to him, taking a single step to close the distance between us. Distance behaved differently here.

My boot butted against a translucent shield. Inarus sat within the protected bubble, thin legs crossed and eyes closed in meditation.

He held the crystal skull between his palms, a focus for his necromantic work. Thin strands, like marionette strings, bound him to the Shades above.

In the Living Realm, Inarus gave an illusion of weakness, but here, I could clearly see how the black diamond fueled him. It hovered before his heart, the source of the strange light. It surged with energy, ancient and metallic, countless beams of magic radiating from it. The energy was broken, tainted, and expansive.

A thick conduit connected the diamond to an external source, large enough to carry a flood of power. Smaller energy lines connected the diamond to countlesselsewheres.Several strands of power supported Inarus directly.

Everything about the diamond was wrong, only it was off in a way that I couldn’t quite grasp. The power of the black diamond was corrupted, and the abuse had damaged Inarus’s soul.

Despite my sudden arrival, his eyes remained closed. Inarus trusted his shield completely. My Brand throbbed at the sight of its creator. I countermanded it, commanding it to silence, and focused on the task at hand.

Inarus was vulnerable on two fronts: the crystal skull and the black diamond. And before I could approach either, I first had to remove his shield.

There was a tall jar beside the shield, the same type of vessel the Brand used to trap souls. Only this one was much older—the ceramic surface had faded; cracks had formed and been repaired. Inarus’s shield emanated from the jar.

I had read about this technique. Whoever was inside the jar was already dead, but their soul remained as a protector. This soul could guard Inarus from dangers in the Underworld, anchoring him to life. Presumably, the guardian was a soul Inarus had trusted in life.

To remove the shield, I would have to release the soul, sending them deeper into the Underworld, downward to final death.

Who?My hands trembled as I lifted the jar’s lid. It was easy to open.

Nobody burst from the jar. Whoever was inside didn’t respond like a captive.

“Hello?” I whispered into the vessel.

A voice rose from the tomb. “Zayne?”

It had been a long time since I’d heard her voice. An overly floral perfume pulled me back in time, to childhood.

She stood, a ghostly figure rising from the vessel. My childhood nurse. Sandra.

“Zayne, is it really you?” she asked. “Inarus said you would come.”

In some ways, she was like I remembered. Her big brown eyes examined me with curiosity, her kind smile spreading. “You’ve grown up.”

She was smaller than I remembered—or I had grown bigger. Her form frayed at the edges. She seemed tired and weak, nothing like the vibrant caretaker she had been. Once, she had been quick enough to keep up with Eleanor and me. Now she slumped against the edge of the jar, unwilling to rise.

While I had carried guilt like a ghost, she had been trapped here. I choked on my words. “I’m sorry I didn’t save you.”

“I know.”

I examined the jar. Could I break it? “How do I free you?” I asked.

“You tell me—you’re the one who trapped me.”