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The gateway spat us out into the bottom of the sphere, right back at square one. The twenty-strong band of pixies wheeled around and flew back at the now-closed Door to Nowhere, making rude gestures and hurling insults. I admired their spunk, but we had no time to waste on a gateway that would no longer open for us. It wasn’t as though it had a handle I could push, and the pooling light had disappeared back into vacant darkness. We were in a race against the clock, before that specterglass showed something I didn’t want to see—Genie, Nathan, and the other Institute abductees swirling in a death mist. I had no idea how long someone could exist in Fergus’s world without losing their hold on the living world. Decades, years, days, weeks, hours? I couldn’t risk delaying, either way.

But how do I get them out of there?

I stared at the thin, glowing outline of the doorway. It wasn’t like I could borrow some C4 and blow it open. Leviathan’s words came back to bug me—I had to be careful. But there was more to it than that. I had to be cautious, not just in the realm, but outside of it. After all, what would happen to the people that were taken decades and even centuries ago, once they set foot outside of the eerie paradise? The dead pixies hadn’t morphed back into Chaos mist to be returned from whence they came, but I would’ve bet good money that they would as soon as they were out of there. And that probably went for the other lost souls. If Fergus’s physical body had rotted away in that place, leaving him as a spirit, it wasn’t a huge stretch to think that the same might’ve happened to the older residents. They wouldn’t last out here in the real world, because they didn’t belong here anymore.

Does that mean I’d be killing them, in a way? I shivered uneasily, having a crisis of conscience. That kind of purgatory wasn’t living, but it wasn’t dying, either. And I’d be taking the choice away from the people who would likely die the moment they set foot outside. Or, perhaps, like Nathan had suggested, I couldn’t defy the order of things. Maybe it was their time to pass on, and Fergus’s realm was holding them back from that. It felt impossible to know which was the right way, but I had to save my friends. That part was clear. Plus, I had the added guilt of knowing that pixies had died for me, in there. The creatures I’d given life to couldn’t pass on and return to Chaos, and I didn’t want them stuck like that. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure what happened to a Purge beast if it couldn’t return to the Chaos stream after death.

“Did you think you could hide from me? Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” A familiar voice cut through the silence, followed by the comedic squeak of someone sliding down the pole from above. A shadow descended, and I staggered back.

I clenched my jaw. “Not now, Charlotte. I’m busy.”

“Busy causing problems.” She hopped down onto the ground and raised her palms. “And I’m here to take you in.”

I ducked a lasso of Telekinesis while the pixies regrouped around me. “Then why are you here on your own? I thought you’d have gone straight to Victoria!” It seemed odd that she hadn’t brought a hunter entourage with her, so I decided to try and call her bluff. Maybe she wanted to take me to Victoria to get the glory, or maybe it was payback for toppling her in bear form.

“This is my family’s Institute. I let you get away, so I have to clean up my mess.” She lashed out with another lasso, and I kicked my leg out to avoid it slithering around my ankle. “Victoria has enough on her plate. After all you’ve said to me about fixing your own problems, I know you’ll understand why I have to do this.”

“Then, for Chaos’s sake, would you listen for one freaking second! Our goal is the same!” I shouted. Boudicca led a quartet of badass she-pixies in a bombardment, all four of them slicing through the air, legs extended, preparing for their trademark dropkick.

Charlotte yelped in surprise when the pixies made contact. “I knew you were involved! I knew it!” She threw out two lassoes in an attempt to wrangle the pixies, but they were too fast. Boudicca managed to land a dropkick to her cheek, and two other she-pixies snatched up her hair and wound it around her eyes, blocking her vision. “Why are you doing this, Persie? Why are you getting these monsters to kidnap people?” she spluttered, trying to clear her hair out of her eyes.

“I’m not!” I resisted an eye roll. “They’re on our side. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, but you need to quiet the heck down so I can explain!”

My tone threw me—I rarely got this riled, and never with people I didn’t know—but I was thin on patience these days. Fergus had already pissed me off, and now Charlotte was intent on getting on my bad side. If I showed weakness, she’d eat me alive, and I couldn’t risk getting marched down to Victoria’s office. No one would pay attention to the truth there, either.

Boudicca chattered something back at the remaining pixies and they swarmed around me, forming another defensive circle to protect me against Charlotte’s Telekinesis. This time, however, it looked like they’d adapted yet again. They gripped hands and dove toward the floor, bright violet light sparking between them. An ancient chant rose up from them, and they rose with it, spinning faster and faster in their circle until a translucent veil of purplish Chaos rippled around me. These incredible little critters had built me a shield, to keep me safe from Charlotte.

“You’re lying.” Charlotte ducked and pulled her knotted hair away from her eyes, batting away the pixies who weren’t forming the shield. They’d split into a defense group and an attack group. “You just want to protect your Purges. You’re as bad as Nathan; just another monster lover.”

As Boudicca and her warriors retreated inside my shield, Charlotte got to her feet. Her eyes widened in shock as she took in the pixies’ protective shield.

“What… are they doing?” she said.

“They’re defending me against you, because you attacked me. They aren’t nasty creatures. They’re kind, and they’re loyal, and they don’t deserve your hatred. It’s not about loving monsters, it’s about respecting them.” I huffed out a sigh. “And they’re trying to help. See, they know if I can’t get you to hear me out, then the people who were taken won’t be coming back again. And that will be on you.”

“They’re protecting you?” She looked as though she’d just found out the Earth was round. Evidently, this scenario didn’t fit with her preconceived notions of what a monster should and shouldn’t be.

I had to wonder just what kind of Monster History was being taught in this place. Hadn’t they heard about the Battle for Elysium, where countless monsters had given their lives to save the world? Sure, Tobe had coaxed them into it, but they’d fought side by side with magicals. The same went for Murray and the gargoyles, when my uncle went to take down Davin Doncaster. By Finch’s count, Murray had chewed Davin up at least twice—all to help my family and their friends.

I glanced at Boudicca and she flashed me an encouraging grin, though it didn’t quite reach her big eyes. After losing her people, I guessed it would take a while before her smiles were whole-hearted again. “The pixies didn’t kidnap anyone. They’ve been helping me track down the real culprit, who just so happens to be behind that door.” I gestured to the faint outline. “Do you remember those strange orbs we saw during orientation?”

Charlotte frowned and nodded slowly. “Yes. A prank or something.”

“Not a prank. They’re Will-o’-the-Wisps, and they’re the ones doing this. They hypnotize people and guide them through that gateway, and then those people don’t come back. I’ve just been through, but the guy who’s running the show kicked me out because I didn’t fall under the spell.” I rattled off the words as fast as possible, not knowing how long I’d have her attention. I elaborated on what I’d seen in that mysterious realm, and told her everything I could about the Wisps, the Door to Nowhere, and Fergus freaking McLeod, until I ran out of breath.

“And now, I can’t get back in to save everyone,” I finished. “But if you take me to Victoria, you can kiss your friends goodbye, because she’s not going to believe a word of this and they’re going to stay lost and zombified in there. It doesn’t fit with her story, but it’s the truth. I swear on Genie’s life.”

For the longest time, Charlotte didn’t say a word. She lowered her hands to her sides and paced, thinking. I hoped that was a good sign, but I’d seen how quickly Charlotte could turn—literally and figuratively. If she went into bear-mode, or worse, I didn’t know how the pixies would fare.

Abruptly, she turned to me. “I read about Will-o’-the-Wisps once, but they haven’t been seen in decades. Looks like extinct creatures are popping up all over the place, thanks to you.” Was that... jealousy? Maybe? Her expression softened a touch. “Lucky for you, I’m inclined to believe you, since I know you don’t have the ability to create Wisps. Only someone with Necromancy skills could do that.”

I nodded, hardly able to believe that she was listening. I knew who the Necromancers were, but she didn’t need to know that. The pixies did it, but they had their Necromancy stripped by a Child of Chaos after the Wisps went rogue. Still, that didn’t mean they were responsible for this. That much, I could say. “After the Wisps were sucked through the gateway, their actions were solely under Fergus’s control.”

“It could’ve been me.” She turned her gaze downward, her body language stiffening with guilt. “I heard that music you spoke about—only for a couple of seconds, when I was drifting off to sleep last night, but still. I thought I imagined it.”

I gave Boudicca a knowing look, and she instructed her pixies to lower the shield wall. “You were probably too far gone, sleep-wise, for the Wisps to influence you. They need you to see the lights and hear the music fully, or the hypnosis doesn’t work.”

Charlotte was feeling guilty. Her best friend had been abducted, and she hadn’t. I knew exactly how she felt, like we’d narrowly avoided a mine while our closest confidantes had stepped right onto it. It hurt to know that they might’ve been able to avoid it, if only we’d understood sooner.

“How do we fix it?” Charlotte’s head snapped up, determination replacing her guilty expression.

“We have to work together. And fast, or the Wisps will keep taking people and nobody will be able to stop them. Now that the gateway is open, they’ll carry on until we can shut the Door for good, or until it gets buried under a pile of rubble and earth again. Saying that, we can’t let it close until we’ve got everyone out. So, you see the predicament we’re in.” I opened my mouth to say more, but at that moment the Door blasted open and the Wisps spun out in a frenzy, making a beeline for Charlotte.

After all, the pixies and I were tainted goods.

But my monster allies were prepared for all eventualities now and refused to be taken by surprise. Before the Wisps could get near Charlotte to start up the hypnosis trick, the pixies split into two bands of ten. They wasted no time creating the spinning shield of violet light around each of us, the vortex making the Wisps reel back in alarm. As the pixies’ chanting grew to deafening levels and the glow of the shields intensified with the sound, the Wisps froze for a moment, unsure what to do next. A blast of fizzing energy erupted from the pixies, sending the Wisps flying back toward the Door. Evidently, they decided to cut their losses and run with their comet tails between their legs. But their quick retreat also caused the gateway to close again, shutting us off from those who needed rescue before we could even think about leaping through it.

With the Wisp wave held back, the pixies slowed their spinning and came to a stop. A handful hovered around drunkenly, holding tiny palms to their heads to ease their vertigo. Coming to my aid had taken its toll on them, but none complained. Instead, they giggled as they bumped dizzily into each other, while Boudicca kept one eye on the gateway.

Charlotte exhaled sharply, patting her body down to make sure she was intact. “Why did they do that?”

“Help you, you mean?” I smiled, knowing the Wisps had just put the icing on the cake. Now Charlotte had to believe that the pixies were innocent. They’d just saved her from a date with Fergus’s paradise.

She nodded stiffly.

“Maybe they wanted you to see what I see,” I replied. “That there’s not an evil bone in their bodies. A bunch of mischievous ones, sure, but they’re far from evil.”

Looking shaken, Charlotte fixed her gaze on Boudicca. “Thank you.”

Boudicca chuckled and mimicked her voice, pretending to tremble like a wet dog. Charlotte frowned, like she didn’t know what to make of the display, but I understood. This was Boudicca’s way of saying, “Don’t thank us yet. Thank us when you’ve told everyone that we’re innocent.”

“Don’t worry, as long as you show the pixies respect, they won’t mock you too much,” I assured, laughing at—or more like with—Boudicca. The she-pixie winked at me and touched down on my shoulder. Perched there, she indicated a shadowy object on the floor. It took me a moment to figure out what it was: the book the pixies had stolen from the library. I plucked it up, cradling it in my arms like the precious treasure of knowledge I hoped it would be.

Charlotte approached warily. “What’s that?”

“Nathan asked the pixies to fetch it. He thought it might be the answer to gaining entry, since we didn’t have a Wisp to lead us through the gateway.” I flipped through the pages to the section that had caught Nathan’s attention before. But the words swam in front of my eyes, and they weren’t written in English. “Can you read this? I think this was the line Nathan thought might be important.”

Charlotte took the book from me and scanned the Gaelic. “What did he say it meant?”

“Uh… something like ‘The maker’s strength holds the Will together.’ He thought it referred to the Wisps, and I guess the maker part has something to do with Fergus,” I replied, thinking on my feet.

Charlotte shook her head. “His Gaelic never was very good. It’s more like ‘The maker’s bones hold the Will together.’ But… you made it sound like Fergus was alive? If that’s the case, then his bones are inside that realm, and we’re screwed.”

“No, no, he’s not alive!” I pretty much shrieked. “He looks like it, but he’s not. I saw for myself with… um… a lens thing that Nathan had on him.” I’d hesitated in case she started calling me a thief again, but I figured honesty would be the best policy with her. It would be up to her whether she believed me or not, though I’d done all right so far in winning her over.

“So, you think there’s a chance the bones might be here, in the outside world?” Charlotte urged. “This is important, Persie. The bones are holding together the spell that created this interdimensional pocket. If we can’t find them, we can’t do anything.”

I tapped my chin in thought. “He said his body had turned to dust, as all bodies do, but he didn’t mention anything about his body decaying inside the realm.” An idea came to me. “Maybe that’s the price he paid to have the realm built, and to trap the Wisps inside. He had to die so he could be reunited with Lorelei’s soul in their own private heaven.”

Charlotte nodded, a smile turning up the corners of her lips. “What did you just say?”

“Uh… that’s the price he paid? Or do you mean the reunited part?” She seemed to be having a lightbulb moment.

“Yes, that part!” I was still none-the-wiser. “There’s another line here—though it’s pretty smudged—that says, ‘Only when destiny is fulfilled, and what remains is brought together will the Will break.’ I think we’re onto something!” She sounded excited. “The ‘what remains is’ part can also be translated as ‘the remains are.’ As in, the bones. If we want this to stop, we need to try something unorthodox—we’ll need to find Fergus’s bones and take them to this Lorelei woman, or whatever’s left of her. Their bones need to be reunited. If they were in love, they might even be buried close to one another.”

“That’s all he wants, to be with his love again.” I rolled with her idea, glad to have her sharp mind whirring. “If we give him what he wants, then the Will might disperse, and he might let everyone go. It might even close the gateway for good.”

The pixies whizzed around excitedly, and Boudicca gave me a nod of approval. The thought of digging up bones didn’t exactly fill me with joy, but if it brought Genie and Nathan and the others back, then I was more than happy to grab a shovel. The question was, how did we get out of the Institute without being spotted or sounding any alarms?

“Please tell me there’s an escape route that won’t get us caught?” I laid my hopes at Charlotte’s feet.

She grinned. “I’ve been sneaking out of here since I was thirteen. I know back exits and secret passageways that even Victoria doesn’t know about.” Before I could argue, she stepped up to me and wrapped a firm arm around my waist. “Hold tight. This might be bumpy.” Shooting a lasso of Telekinesis up to the rickety walkway overhead, she pulled us out of the sphere’s gloomy depths as I clung for dear life, the pixies close behind.

Landing shakily on solid ground, I had no time to catch my breath as Charlotte sprinted off, out of the new wing. Then and there, I vowed to join Genie on her morning runs if I got her out of this, for the sake of my poor stamina. For now, I forced my legs to race after Charlotte, hoping my lungs didn’t give out before we’d escaped.

I caught up to her in the hallway that led away from the new wing and fell into step at her side, until she came to a halt in front of a seemingly ordinary door. Taking out a set of keys, she turned one in the lock and swung the door wide. A grand study lay beyond, complete with seven white marble dragons identical to the ones in the main assembly hall, only smaller. Elegant golden drapes covered a floor-to-ceiling window, and every available stretch of wall space was filled with packed bookshelves. The tomes looked pricey and rare—a private collection for someone important. In the center of the room sat a desk of that same white marble, with a cream wingback armchair behind it. And, sitting on the desktop, a plaque that read “Shailene Basani, Founder.”

“I take it your mom isn’t here at the moment?” I gulped, feeling like I was treading on sacred ground.

Charlotte laughed coolly. “You’re kidding, right? My mom is never here unless there’s some public show that she needs to put on a performance for.” She headed for the back of the room and pulled aside a tapestry of a roaring, golden griffin, revealing a hidden door behind it.

Is that why you act so cold? I wondered. It might’ve been the most honest thing she’d revealed to me, and I didn’t know what to do with that. Maybe being a Basani wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Kind of like being a Merlin. But where my mom shunned her fame, I guessed Shailene and Fay lapped theirs up, leaving Charlotte behind to bear the actual responsibility of the Institute’s legacy. I remembered all the things Uncle Finch had told me about the twins. Maybe this place was just another shiny magazine cover to them—a feather they could put in their caps and forget about. Maybe Charlotte felt like that, too—that she was just another accolade, forgotten about when they moved on to the next big thing.

Taking out a smaller key, Charlotte unlocked the hidden door. Cold air whistled in, making me wish I had something warmer to wear. But there wasn’t time to grab a coat, not with so much on the line.

I hesitated for a moment on the threshold, staring out at the beautiful night. The rain had stopped and a full moon shone ethereally, unhindered by cloud. Glittering specks lit the velvety dark blue sky and rolling hills stretched away before us, the calm sea off to the east.

Charlotte slipped out into the darkness and I followed her uncertainly, glancing over my shoulder to find that most of the Institute had disappeared, leaving only an open doorway in the ruins of an old, imposing castle. With the Institute being inside an interdimensional bubble and all, I didn’t know what else I’d expected. Charlotte hurriedly closed the door before taking off across the hills. She seemed to know where she was going, and so did the pixies.

Fifteen minutes later, we were trudging up a steep slope, my boots slipping and sliding in the mud from the day’s downpour. At the top rested an old gray church, which looked about as old as the ruined castle in the distance behind us—the bare bones that the Institute’s bubble was built around. Charlotte had already reached the top of the hill with the pixies, the motley crew waiting for me impatiently. Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward and upped the pace, until my thighs burned and sweat formed on the back of my neck. On the upside, at least I wasn’t cold anymore.

“You’re going to have to work on that, for training,” Charlotte remarked, as I finally reached her. “The one thing you can rely on as a hunter, above all else, is stamina.”

“Noted,” I wheezed. The pixies snickered, one of them dropping to the ground and pretending to faint. “Yeah, hilarious. Thank you. Where are we, by the way?”

Charlotte turned toward the church. “St. Finnean’s Chapel, though it’s had a lot of names over the years. I figured this would be the best place to start looking, since it’s a) the closest and b) the oldest one around here.”

The graveyard was eerily beautiful in the moonlight, the silvery glow spilling across broken headstones which, in turn, were covered in bleached white lichen and tufts of brown moss. A willow tree stood watch on the far side, its rustling fronds bent like someone hunched with grief. I wondered how long it had been here, guarding this cemetery. If only it could speak, it might’ve told us the way to Fergus McLeod’s bones. And yet, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was watching and whispering, having seen us approach from the ruins.

“Some of these names are going to be hard to read.” And I had no phone to see by, only moonlight and the glow of the pixies. Their illumination had amped up a notch, now that we were out in the open, as if their bodies instinctively responded to the darkness.

Charlotte shrugged. “It has to be here somewhere.”

Letting ourselves in through a creaky iron gate, we set to work. I started at the top and Charlotte at the bottom, while the pixies flew around wherever they liked, all of us scanning the old headstones for the name Fergus McLeod. I scraped away layers of grime and moss, trying to spend as little time as possible at each grave. My mind wandered as I read the eroded inscriptions, thinking about who these people might’ve been, and what they’d done with their lives. Had they been happy? Had they died with regrets? Nobody spoke ill of the dead, especially not on gravestones, so I guessed no one would ever know what these people had been like when they were alive. After all, this cemetery was so old that I doubted anyone remembered these people.

Halfway down, the weeping willow caught my eye again. It stood out against the bare landscape as though it were trying to prove a point beyond mere guardianship. Intrigued by the whispering fronds, I headed toward it and parted the leafy curtains. Boudicca and her male counterpart fluttered in after me, shining their light on the darkened space within. A private world, almost, secret from the rest of the cemetery.

Is that…? I peered into the gloom and gasped as my eyes fell upon a solitary headstone. Boudicca hovered over it, shining her light on the words I’d been looking for: Fergus McLeod. The rest of the inscription had worn away over time; his name was barely legible, but I saw enough letters to know that this was the one. We’d found it.

“Charlotte!” I shouted. “It’s here, under the willow!”

She erupted through the fronds a few seconds later, brandishing a spade and a pleased smirk. “I stole this from outside the church, but I think they’ll forgive me. It’s all for a good cause, right?” Her smile faded suddenly, as she turned away. “You’d better start digging. We’ve got Wisps incoming, and I don’t think they’re here for a group hug.”

“Hold them off while I get the bones.” I reached out for the spade, which she duly tossed at me before ducking back outside the shadowed confines of the willow. The pixies followed, leaving me alone in the darkness with no one but a dead guy for company.

My heartrate skyrocketed as I plunged the tip of the spade into the soft earth and plowed for my life, throwing heaps of soil and wriggling earthworms off to the side. Behind me, I heard the clash of pixies, Chaos, and Wisps. Shrieks and chants, blasts and explosions, and flashes of light permeated the cemetery. I tried to ignore it as I continued to excavate, using my foot to shove the spade deep into the ground. As it turned out, trying to dig through six feet of heavy, sodden soil was anything but easy, and the battle going on outside didn’t help.

A lifetime of sweating and panting later, the spade finally clocked something solid. Frantic, and aware that I was now standing in a hole of earth on top of a rotting coffin that could give way at any moment, I cleared away the last of the dirt. Placing my legs to either side of the casket lid, I reached down and wrenched the wood away. It splintered and crumbled in my hands, but I didn’t care.

Huh… I glanced down, expecting to see a skeleton. Instead, I found a threadbare sack. Swallowing the nausea in my throat, I tossed the bag up onto the side of the grave and pulled myself out. The groundskeepers would probably have something to say about a freshly dug grave in the morning, but there was nothing I could do about that. Heaving the bag over my shoulder, I ran through the willow fronds and into the Wisp battle.

“I’ve got them!” I yelled to Charlotte, who had a Wisp in her Telekinetic grasp.

“What about the other bones?”

Boudicca flew to me and squeaked desperately, gesturing away from the cemetery.

“Lorelei’s bones aren’t here?” I asked, feinting out of the way of an incoming Wisp.

She shook her head.

“Do you know where they are?”

She hopped up and down, nodding eagerly.

I gripped the sack of bones tighter. “I don’t think they’re here, Charlotte. The pixies can take us to them.”

Charlotte groaned and squeezed the captured Wisp until it exploded into a shower of pink sparks. “Give me one second, and don’t tell a soul about this. I promise you, neither of us will live it down. Oh, and try not to pull my mane too hard, or I’ll kick you off.”

While the pixies held the Wisps back, Charlotte toppled onto all fours and transformed into a recognizable shape: a long, rounded snout, flicking ears, and the mane that she’d warned me about, flowing in the breeze.

A… horse? Well, this wasn’t going to be fun. If she thought my running was bad, she’d clearly never seen me try to ride a horse. But, with time trickling away, I didn’t have a choice. I just had to get over the weirdness of climbing onto the back of someone who’d been human a few seconds ago.

“Here goes nothing.” Clutching the sack, I scrambled onto Charlotte’s back and held onto her mane as gently as possible. She reared up and kicked out at an encroaching Wisp, sending it spinning backward and almost making me fall off. It wasn’t as though she had a saddle and a bridle to make this easier.

“Pixies! Show us the way!” I called, eager to be away from the Wisps and off this carousel before I got thrown off.

The pixies obeyed, and Charlotte followed, breaking into a terrifying gallop. As weird nights went, this one had just taken the top spot.