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CHAPTER ONE

The dungeons at Wilde Manor were cold and dark, in contrast to the bright summer day outside. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust as I walked down the long corridor. My footsteps echoed ominously. In the back of my mind, I sensed Tennyson, busy being alpha, just like he’d been the entire summer. We’d barely had a moment alone, and when we had, he’d been exhausted. Not the most fun summer ever. It was the day before school went back and it felt as if the entire summer had been spent on pack business.

We hadn’t heard a peep from my evil dad all summer. I supposed being the head of the High Council, the “master of all” as he called himself now, kept him busy. I entertained myself a lot picturing him being kept from his evil overlording because of admin tasks. Filing papers from the Fey Council. Faxing the spirit realm. Taking Zoom calls from vampires. I had no doubt that when he attacked us, he’d attack at full force, and that was why Tennyson was working so hard to get the pack in order. But until he attacked, that left me twiddling my thumbs.

In the meantime, I’d found myself a hobby.

Ruby Spencer was in the cell at the very end. She had all the basic comforts, if you didn’t include fresh air or a view. The wall into the corridor was thick glass, like Hannibal Lecter’s cell in Silence of the Lambs . But I doubted Sam’s mother had ever eaten anyone, and the high security level seemed unnecessary. She broke into a sunny smile when she saw me.

“I was hoping I’d see you today,” she said. She said that every day.

Even though Tennyson disapproved, I hadn’t missed a day visiting her. I didn’t know if she was evil or was playing me, but I couldn’t help it, I liked her. With her rosy cheeks and crazy hair, she just seemed so wholesome, and it made my heart ache for more innocent times every time I looked at her. It made my heart ache for Sam too.

“I go back to school tomorrow,” I told her, sitting on the seat opposite her cell.

She nodded. “Yes, and we still have so much to talk about.”

I didn’t say anything in response. Even though I liked her, and even though Tennyson thought I was an idiot, I didn’t trust her one bit. I was careful not to give her any information. Even questioning her would give too much away, so I bit my tongue on all the things I wanted to know. She had so many answers, things I was dying to know, but I didn’t want anyone else to die for those answers, so I played it cool.

It didn’t seem to bother her. She’d always been kind of chatty, and now I was the only person she had to chat to, so she barely noticed my silence.

“I actually made a list,” she said, pointing in the air with one hand as an exclamation, while rummaging through the papers on her desk with the other. “I didn’t want to forget anything important.” She gave me a small smile, as if we were sharing a funny secret. It was just her way, but I couldn’t help but smile back. “Huzzah!” she said finally, flourishing a crumpled piece of paper at me. She chewed her lip as she read the paper over, nodding to herself. I tried not to squirm in my seat, or tap my fingers or do anything else to give away my impatience.

Finally, she looked up at me and broke into a grin. “Have you ever had dreams?” she asked. “Of a temple?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. She was meant to be making with the answers, not the questions. “I dream of a lot of things.”

She nodded again. “You’d remember these dreams, they’re different. Anyhoo, I bet you have, I just bet you. As far as I can tell, you’re more than halfway along your path.” She looked me over, head to toe, then toe to head, nodding all the while. “Yep, at least halfway. You’re the one, I’m sure of it. I knew it from the start, knew it would be either you or my Sam, but Dan wouldn’t have a bar of it.” She snorted and mumbled something under her breath. She grabbed a pencil from the desk and pressed the paper up against the glass wall to make a note on it.

I leaned forward slightly, trying to read the notes on the back of the paper. Her handwriting was crazy and most of it looked like some sort of mathematical equation but there were some words here and there, circled or underlined, that I could make out. A list of names, including mine and Sam’s, though Sam’s and a few others were crossed out. Part of an address, and the words “sword” and “ascension” and something that looked like a periodic table, only none of the elements were anything I recognized. A messy drawing of an open book with lightning bolts coming out of it. I tried to memorize as much of it as I could before she stopped writing and moved the paper away from the glass.

“Your father and I didn’t agree on a lot of things. He was always stubborn and set in his ways. He wasn’t a true believer.”

She looked and sounded completely sincere. Whatever she was talking about, she was definitely a true believer. I wasn’t sure if that made me trust her more or less. I didn’t say anything in response, just let her keep talking.

“It became obvious fairly early in my research. All living things are constantly trying to evolve. And it is my belief, that all beings with supernatural power are trying to evolve into the perfect being. There are many writings to back up my belief. As far back as ancient Rome, in every mythology I’ve ever encountered. The beings referred to as The Others are all stepping stones along that evolutionary path. You have experienced it yourself. You began as a human, then werewolf, witch, slowly making your way down that path. I believe that you, Lucy, are the first destined to become complete. A united being!” She grinned at me, such a warm reassuring grin and it seemed at odds with the chilling things she was saying. “You probably don’t believe me. Your father has no doubt filled your head with all sorts of ideas that he presented as fact when they are no more than theory. I can give you a list of reading material that may change your mind. But I know you’re an intelligent girl and at least some of what I’m saying must make sense to you. When your father took my Sam –”

Couldn’t help the exclamation escaping from my lips. “My father!”

Her face softened. “Did my Sam not remember?”

I shook my head. “He thought my father rescued him.” When I thought about it, it seemed obvious that my father had been the one to take Sam. When had my father ever done anything not evil.

“My people, the ‘Others’, are not in the habit of kidnapping children.” She sighed. “I can’t even imagine what those people put him through.”

I could but I didn’t really want to think about it. I’d only been with them briefly but the things they’d done to me had been horrible enough. Once again, I felt guilty for not giving Sam the support and attention he deserved. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I couldn’t keep on playing it cool, not when Sam was out there somewhere, alone and scared. I had so many questions for her, about her theories, about what I’d become and how to become it, but for now, they had to take a backseat. The main thing was to find Sam. If there was even the slightest chance he was still alive, I had to try to help him.

“What makes you think Sam is alive now?”

“As you may know, The Others are defined as beings outside the scope of the five councils. Sometimes they are a combination of these five types of being, sometimes something completely different. One of the councils is the Spirit Council, beings that exist not only on this plane but on all planes.”

I nodded slowly, starting to see where she was going but not sure I was going to buy into it.

“A friend of mine who is allied with the Spirit Council has come to me with information. They have shown evidence beyond any doubt that Sam is alive and well, in a world much like ours, only existing alongside it.”

“A parallel world?” I snorted. Werewolves, spells, potions, crazy science experiments, all those things I could deal with but parallel worlds… Nope.

“You saw it didn’t you, the portal, vortex, gateway? The one he vanished into. Where do you think you went, if not another world.”

I stared at her blankly for a moment, a thousand sarcastic responses running through my mind, but none of those would help me out here. “You said there was evidence,” I said finally.

She nodded. “There is, and I can show you, but you’ll need to trust me.”

I snorted. “Right,” I said. “Let me guess, I just need to let you out of here for five minutes and you’ll go get the evidence.”

She laughed. “I have far more regard for your intelligence than that,” she said. “I just need you to touch my hand, just for a moment. You know that human brains are similar to a powerful, organic computer, think of it like a file transfer, from my brain to yours. That is the way of the spirit realm, a connection merely needs to be established for energy to be transferred. For those of us with physical form, the fastest and most efficient way to do that is through physical touch.”

I looked at her skeptically. Nothing I knew of could harm me just from a simple touch, but the things I didn’t know would fill volumes and the thought of facing Tennyson and telling him Sam’s mother had escaped because she'd duped me... that made me hesitate to agree.

She sighed. “It’s not right that this world has made you so wary at such a tender age, but I understand your distrust. There are other ways, of course, but I will need time to prepare them.”

I took a deep, fortifying breath and stood up. “No, it’s fine. Let’s do it now.” There were wards on her cell, dozens of wards, not to mention other security all through the manor and grounds. Plus, I was super powerful myself. Even if she had nefarious intentions, I could probably take her. Even if I didn’t trust her, I had to trust myself, and it seemed worth the risk.

There was a small slot by the door of her cell where the guards put her meals. Warily, I poked the tip of my index finger through.

She laughed and touched her fingertip to mine.

It was like a bolt of lightning right into my brain, only not lightning but information.

I saw Sam, like a series of snapshots. He looked dirty and scared but otherwise fine, uninjured, and definitely alive. He seemed to be hiding from something, running. In some images, he was in a wooded area, in others an abandoned building. Nowhere looked familiar but that didn’t mean it was necessarily another world.

It wasn’t only Sam I saw, and the knowledge wasn’t only in snapshots, some of it was in just a sort of knowing, though I could tell it was all tinted with Mrs Spencer’s perspective, in the same way that when I’d been able to feel the werewolf pack bond, I’d known when I was feeling something from Althea, or Nikolai. It was hard to separate the facts from her beliefs so I just tried to remember everything I could to sift through later. She had so much knowledge, magic and science and just general life stuff. It was a lot.

And there was something else. The power inside me began to stir, and I knew that whatever her touch had done to me, wasn’t just a file transfer. Already I could feel that power begin to change. She’d set something in motion, something that pushed me further along that path. The path to the spirit realm.

Whatever the heck that meant.