Page 26

T he air in Elsewhere was not meant for the living or the dead. It scraped down my throat like rusted metal, sinking into my bones with a hollowness that was more than exhaustion.

I placed my fingers to my wrist. Nothing. Then on my neck, just below my ear. There it was, the faintest flutter, like a bird trapped under skin. That couldn’t be right. I was being paranoid. Imagining things.

The city loomed, its skeletal structures rising and crumbling in tandem, as if time had abandoned this place long before we arrived.

Shadows stretched thin and clung to doorways, wraiths, whispering in tongues I didn’t understand, their voices curling through the stagnant air like fraying threads.

But they weren’t the worst of it. No, it was the Daemons, the beautiful ones, that unsettled me most. They were the Luminari who had chosen to Fall.

“Any other bright ideas?” I called ahead to Dorian. He did not turn, but the scowl on his face was palpable.

“Yes.” He didn’t look at me. “Survive. ”

“About that,” I asked. “Say we make it. After we graduate, if we become immortal, is it true we can never die?”

“No,” Dorian shook his head. “We become immortal in the sense that our lives lengthen. We become stronger. Death is a very real possibility. It’s just… harder.”

“Listen, mate,” Hugo interjected, voice hoarse. “Maybe we should just—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “If we head back now, if we apologize, maybe Verrine will resurrect all three of us.”

“Great idea.” Dorian let out a humph . “Resurrecting three students at once, that’ll be easy.”

I let out a sigh. “We’re not leaving. Dante didn’t sell the cards, which means he still has them. How far could he have gone?”

“I doubt he’s left Avernus, the capital.” Dorian nodded. “Let’s split up, attack the city from the four quarters. Arabella, you take the lower right. Hugo, lower left. I’ll take the other two.”

“Wait,” I felt my heart clench. “Is it a good idea to venture off? Alone?”

“No.” Dorian’s expression remained neutral. “But we are running out of time, fast. Who knows when Dante will leave Avernus, or if he already has?”

I rolled my eyes, the weight of Elsewhere pressing in around me.

“Cavendish is right.” Hugo shifted beside me, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I don’t like it.”

“We have to?” I asked as he reached for my waist, pulling me close, his brows furrowed.

“I think so.” Hugo’s grip tightened, one firm squeeze before letting go. “Be safe, Arabella.”

I swallowed hard. “You too.”

Dorian let out an impatient sigh. “As riveting as this conversation is, unless you want to stay here for eternity, I’d suggest moving.”

My hands balled into fists at my sides as I strode away from them.

My footsteps were silent as I wove through the city, ducking beneath overhangs and out of the reach of overzealous wraiths.

I felt an unnerving prickle peel down my spine like someone spilled icy water.

Breaths weren’t necessary when you were dead, but they sure as hell helped to calm me down.

A few faded black metal signs etched with silver writing led me to the right quarter, and soon, the narrow streets opened into a center district that looked more lively.

Outside, wraiths and Luminari dined at shady cafes along the street and beneath the light of flickering gas lamps.

I jumped out of the way as a darkened carriage rode past, pulled by two steeds of deepest black, the curtains twitching shut.

A notice board leaned crooked beside a lamplit café, plastered with overlapping sheets. One flyer caught my eye, edged in silver. “Day Fourteen: No Archangel Sightings.” Someone had inked over it. Let them rot. Let him rise.

The farther I walked, the more the city seemed to pulse, like something just beneath its surface had taken notice of me. A faint pressure settled against my skin. My fingers brushed absently against the hollow of my throat, catching the chain of my necklace.

I stopped abruptly, turning toward the glass window of a shopfront. It was warped and dust-streaked, the light from within casting jagged, uneven reflections. And yet, my own reflection wasn’t jagged at all. It wasn’t warped like the others.

I took a step closer, watching the others pass by. The wraiths and Daemons flickered strangely in the glass, their images breaking apart like ink dissolving in water. But I remained solid, whole. Was I not fully dead?

The cold prickle continued to creep down my spine.

Whatever it meant, I knew it couldn’t be good.

The wraith closest to me turned, its hollow eyes glinting with something like curiosity.

Then, almost imperceptibly, its lips curled.

Not into a sneer, not into a smile, but something close to recognition.

I looked away and kept walking. Panic rose in my throat, quickening the pace of my should-be-still heart. I felt a thousand black eyes boring into me as I crossed into the shade. I swallowed the fear and pressed onwards.

If I were Dante, where would I go? I had nothing to go on but intuition, so I switched my mind off and let myself be guided by it.

It took an hour of wandering, but my eye caught a flash of something dressed in gray, all too bright to be of this world.

Someone trying to blend in but failing miserably. Could it be him?

If it was, the deep black of Dante’s hair had not faded with death. The figure was far too large and burly to be disguised amongst the slender wraiths and pallid gray tones of the undead Luminari. He stuck out, so poorly disguised. I just needed to see his face.

An older woman jutted out in front of me.

No, not a woman. A crease-winged creature wearing the loose suggestion of one.

Wide, dust-brown moth wings unfurled from the curve of her spine, each panel veined in tarnished gold.

Downy antennae quivered where human eyebrows should have been, testing the air, her irises quicksilver. My throat bobbed.

“Come inside.” Her voice rasped like paper tearing. She gestured to the crooked sign overhead, MYSTIC?MAGDALENA’S , while the wings tucked cloak-like around her shoulders. “A reading costs only a drop of blood.”

“I’ll pass,” I muttered, trying to peel her fingers off my wrist. They weren’t fingers at all, I realized, but chitinous segments ending in little hooks. Her one hand broke free, her fingers twitching toward my necklace, but the moment they clasped around it a spark erupted.

She shook her injured hand, smile needle-thin. “I can help you find him.”

“Who?”

“Don’t play the fool.” She released me and glided backwards into the shop. Against every instinct, I followed her through the beaded curtain.

The interior felt less like a room and more like the inside of a cocoon.

Drapes of black-violet silk sagged from the ceiling, dust motes drifting in violet candle-light.

A glass orb on a stump-table throbbed with lambent amethyst. The moment the beaded curtain clacked shut, the outside world vanished.

Magdalena folded herself behind the stump, antennae flicking. She shuffled a deck of cards, and my attention piqued. But these had backs of dark velvet and faces flecked with silver sigils I didn’t recognise. Her translucent nails clicked on the wood each time she cut the deck.

A card slapped face-up. The Spinner. Another. The Knot. A third. Null. With every draw her pupils dilated wider, devouring the silver until nothing remained but black.

“Focus,” she hissed. I wasn’t sure if it was directed at me or herself. I focused my mind anyway. I pictured Dante, the Arcana. I felt the warmth of The Fool in my pocket.

Magdalena’s antennae snapped upright. “I see him, the one you are looking for. In the company of a gifted alchemist. He can not deliver what he seeks.”

“Where?” I leaned closer, inspecting the cards as if I could decipher them. “What does he seek?”

“He seeks to bind the object of his attention,” she crooned. “The alchemist is not far.”

The hairs on my arms stood on end. “How do I find him?”

Her wings twitched as she shrugged. “I trade knowledge, not directions. But my best guess would be here. ” She scrawled something on a slip of parchment, passing it to me. “Payment.”

I offered my palm. A hooked nail pricked my fingertip, blood blooming.

The Daemon inhaled, eyes rolling halfway back, drunk on the scent.

Then, her voice dropped to a chittering hiss.

“Arabella Davenant, your fate-thread should have been cut long ago. One of the Twin Thrones stirs. The High King wakes to his power because of you.”

I stumbled away, clutching my hand. “What does that mean?”

The drapes convulsed, shadows elongating into clawed silhouettes. Magdalena’s laugh rattled, the scent of stale tobacco filling the air. “It means the world will change, and you will not survive it.”

I stormed out of the shop, blinking against the smoky haze as I stepped out into the right quarter. I unfolded the piece of parchment which had crumpled in my hand. Amira’s Apothecary & Alchemy. It was another shot in the dark, but I had nothing else.

The streets pulsed with movement, the undead drifting in loose clusters, their hollow eyes vacant, their presence a reminder that this place belonged to the dead.

I was an unwelcome intruder. My gaze cut through the crowd, chest tightening.

I didn’t see the apothecary shop anywhere.

I cursed lowly. I should have asked before bolting, but something about that woman had sent every instinct I had screaming.

Nearly twenty minutes later, I paused at the edge of a block, just before the border spilled into the left quarter. Frustration clawed at me until my vision snagged on a faded wooden sign, the lettering nearly worn to nothing. Amira’s Apothecary & Alchemy.