Page 51

I took the lead, with Anna in Walter’s body right behind me.

The others followed behind her as we walked into an empty ballroom—or at least what we thought was empty.

It looked like the ballroom of at least ten other castles I’d been in.

Nothing odd or out of the ordinary. Once you saw one ballroom, you’d seen them all.

This was no different. Similar styles of landscape paintings and tapestries lined the walls beneath intricate white wainscoting.

It was traditional for the fae. So far, aside from the skeletons, nothing was out of the ordinary— which was extremely, well, out of the ordinary for the tiers.

The music, which hadn’t stopped, began to grow louder. I wasn’t sure where it came from. I could see no orchestra. As if they had walked through the walls, a small army of headless skeletons appeared, their bones clacking on the marble floor .

Shivers gripped my spine, and my heart raced. What were they about to do? What was about to happen?

Envy…Envy… The thought circled my mind, but I couldn’t think fast enough to form a defense.

I glanced at the others, only to realize I seemed to be the only one truly startled by the skeletons.

I took a breath, but it did little to calm me.

Quickly, I counted—fifteen headless skeletons in the ballroom with us.

Eletha, in my body, snorted when a headless skeleton bowed gracefully before her.

“They want us to dance,” she said, laughing.

“It’s been so long since we’ve had a dance,” Walter in Anna’s body said to Eletha in my body.

“Am I the only one freaking out right now?” I asked.

A familiar waltz began to play from the invisible orchestra, and the skeletons quickly grabbed us as their partners, taking the lead on the dance floor. I peeked back at the others. Anna and Eletha were laughing.

“You guys have spent far too much time in the Underworld,” I muttered.

“Okay, thank you,” I said, raising my hand.

“I’m not much of a dancer, especially if my partner is headless.

” I tried to move to the side, but the skeleton refused to take no for an answer.

It gripped my palm so hard that it dented my skin and whirled me around, sending a spin of butterflies in my stomach.

“Okay,” I said, “this is a very odd punishment.”

“It won’t let me stop!” Anna called, her voice filled with a hint of worry that sent me into overdrive. I tried to break free from my skeletal partner to go to her, but its bony hands were quick and nimble, refusing to let me go.

“Anna, are you okay?” I called. “I can’t get to you.”

“I’m okay,” she replied, though her voice was higher-pitched than normal. “It’s just not letting me stop.”

“Same,” called the others.

In the whirlwind of it all, I realized I didn’t hear Bexley, nor could I find him.

“I told you, no means no!” I gripped the skeleton’s hands as hard as I could and tried to shove it away.

I wasn’t sure how a headless skeleton could grow angry, but somehow, even without a face, I could sense its fury.

“Ah!” I exclaimed as it gripped me tighter, flinging me around until my head snapped back painfully. “Fuck!”

“Now you know how us ladies feel!” Eletha shouted.

On top of it all, Eletha’s outfit was completely ridiculous. Skintight pants cut off the circulation to my ankles, and heeled boots made me struggle to keep my balance with each step. Every move I made, my boobs and hips ended up in the way of trying to fend the thing off.

Eletha, in my body, called from across the room. “How do you do this? How do you walk around with legs this long? I keep hitting myself in the dick,” she added, and I couldn’t help but snort with laughter. The scene playing out was as eerie and creepy as it was funny.

A sharp cracking sound caught my attention. Walter, in Anna’s body, had somehow snapped a finger off his partner and flung it to the floor. “I said I don’t want to dance!” Walter shouted.

The finger slid back to the skeleton and reattached itself. “Okay…” Walter said. “Eletha, Anna, you guys have to do something in our bodies! In your bodies, we’re too weak to fight much!”

“How can you even say that?” Anna snapped. “Just because we’re women?”

“It’s not because you’re women! We’re just not used to not having this amount of strength,” I said, struggling with the same issue.

The best I could do was knock Eletha’s curvy hips into the skeleton, gaining a few seconds of freedom before it caught up.

“Why do you wear shoes like this? They are so impractical,”

I yelled at Eletha. “If I didn’t have these wobbly shoes, I could kick a rib out or something!”

“I can walk just fine in those shoes,” Eletha snapped back. “How do you focus when you’ve got your dick moving all over the place like this? ”

“I know, right?” Anna called.

“What do you mean, moving around?” Walter asked, confused.

“I wear boxers,” I told Walter, who snorted with laughter. “It’s disgusting,” Eletha said.

Suddenly, Walter realized what was happening. “Hey, stop thinking about his penis!” he shouted while being spun in the air.

This continued for what felt like an eternity.

Panting, Anna called out, “I can’t dance anymore. I can’t do it.”

Hearing her distress triggered something primal in me.

Typically, I’d try to cause the least harm.

But now, I didn’t care. I didn’t care who I hurt or what the consequences were, as long as I got to her.

The trouble was, in Eletha’s body, I struggled.

My center of gravity was off, and every hit missed its mark.

Somehow, I managed to knock my skeleton down long enough to run to Anna in Walter’s body and try to pull her free.

As soon as I got close, I was snatched back by another skeleton.

“Fuck!” I shouted. “How do we stop this? How do we switch back?”

“If I could switch back, I could get out of here!” Walter snarled, and I believed him.

“Bexley, where are you? Do you know how to get out?” Silence.

Eletha, in my body, growled, sounding feral. “Stop touching me! You bony fuck!” she screamed.

I heard a snap and realized Eletha had broken one of the skeleton’s leg bones before it grabbed her again—this time around the throat.

“Ah, fuck! Why do you wear this?” Eletha complained, referring to the pendant around her neck after she knocked the skeleton’s arms off her neck.

“The pendant!” Anna in Walter’s body said and realization dawned on me.

“Oh shit,” I muttered. Eletha and I locked eyes .

“Hand me the pendant,” Anna called to her sister.

My heart dropped. This was it—Anna was going to get the pendant and all its powers. She’d take over the Underworld, and who knew if I would ever see her again?

Eletha let out a crack of laughter, obviously feeling victorious. “Come this way,” she said, taking the pendant off my body’s neck. I couldn’t do anything to stop her as the skeleton whipped me around while my worst nightmare unfolded.

I finally found my voice. “Eletha, please don’t. Anna, you can’t. We’re tied. If you get that, I’ll be tied to you forever.”

Anna’s expression faltered, like my words had slapped her. I realized how harsh they sounded. “That would be terrible, obviously.”

I watched as Eletha dangled the pendant, arm outstretched, and Anna snatched it from her.

My head hung in defeat. “Fuck,” I muttered feeling completely deflated.

Anna held the pendant with Walter’s hand but didn’t gloat. She seemed conflicted, running her fingers over it when the skeleton moved its hands from her waist back to her arms, knocking the pendant from her grip. “Shit!” Anna shouted.

It was a mad dash—everyone scrambled to grab it, but none of us could bend down enough. The skeletons’ feet smashed mindlessly over it. My stomach landed in my throat, worried they might trample and break it.

“Oh shit,” I heard Bexley call as he ran in from the dining room with a bottle of drink in his hand and a wheel of cheese in the other.

A large hooded creature, at least nine feet tall, in a black cloak, walked steadily after him. Bexley looked petrified.

As soon as the giant cloaked creature had stepped through the doors, the world behind it began to burn at the edges, turning to charcoal.

The entire doorway went up, turning into a black void.

Still the skeletons continued to dance, though the ones without a partner began to run around chaotically, as though they too were frightened.

With a turn, the hooded character glanced at me.

It had a face that reminded me of a large white rabbit with tall oddly shaped ears and a creepy blank expression.

As it charged forward, everything behind it began to smolder until it was nothing but blackness, as if it was taking out the entire tier.

“What did you guys do?” Bexley shouted.

Walter, in Anna’s body, smartly used the chaos to his benefit and managed to fling his skeletal dance partner into the burning, smoldering edges before it turned to black.

The skeleton crumbled and was gone, freeing Walter, who began to run toward me before remembering that even though I looked like Eletha, I was not.

He ran to Eletha in my body and began to fight off the skeleton, eventually managing to do the same, tossing it into the wake of skeletons as the hooded creature slowly walked toward the other end, where we had now all gathered, its pace eerily slow.

It had big black eyes, though unlike a cute white rabbit, its face looked murderous and evil. There was no question that it was coming to kill us.

“And here I thought these tiers were starting to be too easy,” I mumbled, still stuck with my skeleton.