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“There are plenty of senior agents who could take your place.”

Phoenix’s suggestion was understandable coming from him as a father, but it wasn’t realistic, either. Astra let out a small sigh as she gave her father a warm smile. We were already equipped for the mission, having thought it might help the parents adjust to our decision faster. Suddenly I felt hot and uncomfortable with my mom and dad watching me—quietly, but with clear intent.

“Yes, but they lack our experience with Purgatory entities,” Astra told her father.

Viola placed a hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. “Honey, she has to go, no matter who is on the recon team. She’s the only one who can open shimmering portals. Besides, our children have grown a lot in the days that they were away from us. I’d hardly consider them junior agents after what they’ve endured in this place.”

“That’s true,” Phoenix replied, reluctantly accepting his wife’s judgment.

“You’ve already made up your minds, haven’t you?” Lethe replied, a bitter smile persisting on his lips as he looked at Dafne, then at the rest of our crew. One by one, we felt the chill of the ice dragon’s gaze, along with the silent promise of the bad things that would happen if we didn’t come back with Dafne alive and in one piece. I couldn’t blame him.

Dafne hugged her mother, Elodie, then stepped over to her father, taking his hands in hers. “You know we’re right about this,” she said. “We’re the best equipped to spy on those freaks, Dad. We’ve dealt with them before. We’ve learned to use some of their tricks, too. Besides, we work well as a team. It’s how we survived here before the Flip.”

“It is not our intention to fight the clones, the Berserkers or Hrista, but to gather information and help GASP prepare for a proper counter-offensive,” the Time Master added. Behind him, Aphis stood dark and silent, his eyes measuring us from head to toe, as if he was becoming acquainted with his new teammates. I had never crossed paths with the ghoul before, as Time had usually chosen to show up on his own, leaving Aphis in a subtle form. “Right now, we don’t know what’s going on in The Shade or whether the rest of the federation is aware of what has happened.”

Blaze scoffed. “So you’re just going over there for a quick visit.”

“Yes!” Jericho replied, genuinely exasperated. Of every parent we’d had to convince, Blaze and Caia had been the ones with the hardest heads. Mom and Dad had come around relatively quickly, but the fire dragon and fae couple was being downright stubborn.

“And Myst needs you because of your fire power,” Caia muttered, visibly dissatisfied at the prospect of her son going away once more. “This is wrong on so many levels.”

“Not really,” Phoenix replied, his arms crossed and his mind made up. “It’s the price we must pay as Shadians and fighters of GASP. As supernaturals, really. Our families, our parents, our children and probably our grandchildren, too. We have no choice but to jump in and go to battle for those who need us. We did it once or twice ourselves, and it made our parents sick with worry. I figure it’s only natural that we be put through the same thing now. We can’t ask our children to step back when an injustice is committed, simply because we love them too much to lose them.”

His words struck a chord in all of the parents present. Dad hid his smile, while Mom fought back tears. In the end, he spoke the truth, and his words achieved the unanimous greenlight that my crew and I had been hoping for. We would’ve gone either way, but it felt much better to have the support of our parents and loved ones prior to embarking on this new and dangerous adventure.

Silence settled over the group for a good minute as the truth permeated every other concern the Shadians might have had regarding this expedition. It was obvious that this had to be done. Could it have been assigned to more senior GASP agents? Sure. The Shade was full of them, and I had faith in their abilities. But none had interacted with the clones, the Berserkers, or Hrista like we had. If anyone had the experience and necessary knowledge of the enemy, it was us.

“Well, you’re already packed up,” Lethe conceded, nodding at his daughter. She and Jericho had small bags attached with stainless-steel rings. In these bags, they had a minute amount of invisibility magic, red garnet lenses, and healing paraphernalia in case they needed it. Should the dragons turn, the bags would remain attached through the stainless-steel rings to their collars. Yes, Dafne and Jericho were absolutely packed up and ready to go.

“We have to support them,” Elodie told her husband. “It’s our duty.”

“It is, yes,” Blaze sighed, finally reaching the general consensus. He put an arm around Caia’s shoulders, and I could almost hear the conversation that the two of them would have later that night. “What can we do to help?”

Jericho smiled. “Just hope for the best. We have already prepared for the worst.”

“This is one of those rare instances where I’m glad I’m not alive,” the Time Master muttered. It earned him a sly half-smile from Aphis. The ghoul was striking, not only through his preference to stand upright, but also because of his deliberate silence and stolen glances. I could tell there was something different about Aphis, and I had a hard time looking at him like I’d looked at Rudolph—or any other ghoul, for that matter. I just knew, deep down, that this guy would end up surprising us somehow. “Rest assured, all of you, I will do my best to make sure we all return safely,” Time promised.

“Thank you,” Mom replied. “Soul and the others will work with us on this side of the problem. Unfortunately, none of our communication methods work between this realm and ours,” she added and looked at me. “That means that once you step through that shimmering portal, honey, you’re completely out of our reach.”

“We know that,” Astra took the lead. “Which is why we’re focusing on recon and not on anything else. We have established clear protocols of non-engagement, per GASP guidelines and hostile territory policies.”

Phoenix chuckled, his eyes glassy with tears. “My baby’s all grown up and totally mastering the GASP terminology. I’m a proud dad, for sure.” It made Viola giggle softly, and it drew smiles from each of us. Fortunately, and despite the dire circumstances, our ability to laugh had survived.

We were going to need it.

“I’m ready,” Astra said, breathing out slowly, then looked at me. “We have everything we need, right?”

I nodded once. “Blood supplies. Food. Healing serum. Invisibility capsules. Backup weapons and comms pieces. The works. We’re good to go.”

Mom and Dad wrapped their arms around me, holding tight for a while as I absorbed every second of this embrace. I remembered when I’d been only a kid, and they’d brought me over from Visio. The first thing they’d done as my parents, as soon as we’d set foot onto The Shade, was to hug me and promise me that I would always be loved and safe with them. It felt wrong to see Hrista destroy that oath they’d made to their son. She had to be stopped.

The others bid their farewells, while Mom whispered in my ear. “No matter what happens, remember you’ve got something to come back to, okay? Your mom, your dad, your brother and sister—”

“Who will absolutely be annoyed that they didn’t get to say goodbye like you,” I shot back with a bitter chuckle, though I understood why we’d had to keep this assembly small and discreet.

“You know we have to operate away from the others,” Dad said. “You’ll be gone, and yes, we’ll get our share of nagging from them, but in the end, they will come to terms with how this went down. It’s better this way.”

“Mhm, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, right?” I chuckled.

Dad reached out and grabbed me by the back of my neck. He pressed his lips against my forehead. He hadn’t kissed me since I was a kid, and it felt nice to feel his affection toward me at such a pivotal point of my existence. I caught a glimpse of Myst watching us. The endearment was there, written all over her face. I could see it. The sight of us warmed her heart, though I wondered how much familial affection she even remembered as a Valkyrie, and whether she missed it.

“You and Astra will lead this team, and you will get what you must from The Shade,” Dad said, drawing my focus back to him. His eyes drilled holes into my soul, and I was compelled to listen carefully. “You will alert the rest of GASP as soon as you get out there, by whatever means possible, and you will instruct them to standby until we find our way back to The Shade. Then you will come back to us son, okay?”

“Okay.”

Astra hugged her mom and dad, then gave me a confident nod. “I’m ready,” she said, though her voice trembled slightly.

“Cool. Let’s do this. I’m not a big fan of drawn out, emotional moments,” Brandon replied and clapped his hands once with renewed enthusiasm. Hammer, ever his faithful companion, let out a brief howl to express his own excitement about what would happen next—not that any of us had any real clue as to what awaited us beyond this realm. “Pinkie, remember your training.”

Astra smiled and put her hands out, palms in a vertical position as she took deep breaths. Her skin lit up white, and the air around her buzzed with a peculiar energy. It only intensified as the minutes ticked by, crackling furiously by the time a ripple emerged in front of her. Clearly, she’d been practicing.

I held my breath.

It looked as though space itself was the surface of a lake, and Astra’s magic had just thrown a pebble into it. The ripples multiplied and stretched outward, while our crew slowly moved behind her. Our parents stepped back, their eyes wide as they watched it unfold before them.

Slowly, a white gash appeared across the ripples. It widened, its interior shimmering like an endless sea of diamonds bathed in pure sunlight. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Astra measured her breaths, while Brandon whispered in her ear—encouragements, I assumed—his words must have had a positive effect on her, because the shimmering portal grew taller and wider. Astra’s hands clenched into tight fists. She glanced at us over her shoulder.

“We need to go. Now,” she said.

One by one, we said our last round of tremulous goodbyes and stepped through the portal. We’d done it before, though not thanks to a true Shadian. Either way, the sensations were identical. The vast, diamond-filled space that glimmered between the fake realm and ours seemed greater than ever. Infinite, actually, and almost blindingly white.

We moved cautiously, putting one foot in front of the other.

“Man, this only gets scarier,” Jericho grumbled in front of me.

Brandon chuckled. “Wait till you meet the rest of my Berserker brothers.”

“You are optimism incarnate,” Dafne retorted.

Behind me, Astra walked in silence. The portal had already closed. I caught her eye briefly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. I feel… odd. I don’t know why,” she said. “I used to be able to feed on shimmering portals opened by Hrista. I guess that’s clearly not the case now, since it’s my energy going into them. I must just be a little tired.”

“There it is,” the Time Master exclaimed, pointing ahead. A portal had opened, revealing a strange sea of more light. “That’s weird.”

“The Shade is supposed to be dark, isn’t it?” Myst asked.

“Yes,” I mumbled, frowning as I tried to make out something, anything, from beyond the portal. “But it could be Sun Beach.” Just to be safe, I pulled on my hood and mask, ready to protect myself from what was clearly a bright sun. This was clearly crazy, but our sense of adventure compelled us to proceed. History would not be written by cowards.

But as soon as we stepped through the portal, we knew something was wrong. The air felt different. The light was too bright, and it was everywhere. It took me a while to adjust to the strange view that surrounded us. The colors were wrong.

Grass wasn’t green. Flowers were all white, regardless of their shapes. The sky was made of fractured crystals, and I couldn’t find a sun anywhere, just an abundance of white light that filtered through the heavens and came down with a wonderful but strange warmth. The air tasted sweet. The wind tickled my face.

We found ourselves atop a hill, but we couldn’t see much in the distance. Thick woods rose around us, with tall trees that resembled molten candles. The greenery was gold, the trunks painted chalk white—or maybe that was their natural color. The grass sparkled in shades of soft bronze and copper.

None of this made any sense.

“This feels… wrong,” I managed, then looked to Astra. She was stunned, all words gone from her lips as she gawked at our surroundings, trying to make sense of what had happened.

“This isn’t The Shade,” the Time Master said, alarm marring his otherwise fine features. Even the stars in his eyes were rattled as he glanced my way. Aphis was equally disturbed, the blackness of his gaze stirred by the mystery we’d clearly just walked into.

“I swear I thought about The Shade,” Astra blurted, suddenly shaking. “I wanted us to go home, I’ve opened shimmering portals before. Granted, I never went through any of them, but now… Oh, god, what have I done?”

Brandon and Myst, on the other hand, appeared more pleasantly surprised. Hell, they were both smiling. “You’ve accomplished something even better,” the Berserker replied, Hammer’s tail eagerly wagging beside him. “You’ve brought us to Purgatory.”

The revelation hit me like a mallet. It knocked the air out of my lungs, and I froze on the spot, unable to do or say anything. My entire existence had been turned upside down once again. We’d left the fake island thinking we were going to the real one. Instead, we’d ended up in the one place that we, the living, certainly didn’t belong, not even for a hot, accidental second.

Our initial plan had just been blown to smithereens. We were in Purgatory.