Page 27 of These Unhallowed Halls (Equinox Seasons Duet #2)

“I’m not over there.”

“Alright, this is getting ridiculous. I’ll summon a bit of light. Just give me some space.” Caleb sounded annoyed as hell, even through his whisper.

“I’m nowhere near you, teach. Do your thing.”

“You’re not—Ugh, never mind. I’m done with this.”

Then, from my other side, in a gradual move that slowly bathed the area around us in light, Caleb summoned a small glowing orb of burnt orange, offering much-needed illumination.

Still, it was such a change that I had to blink several times, turning away from the dim light and looking up at what I assumed was the tent wall now in front of me, since it moved back and forth if I touched it.

“What the—Temps, don’t!” Lizzie whispered-shouted, her voice urgent. “Don’t look up!”

But it was too late. I was already blinking open my eyes when she called out, pulling my hand back from the shifting fabric.

Squinting, I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.

It couldn’t be what I thought it was, but as the fuzzy sheen over my eyes disappeared, they were still there. What I knew were…feet.

My head tipped back as I followed them up, a scream bubbling to the surface right as Lizzie’s hand clamped down over my mouth.

A body. Except, no. Several of them. I spun this way and that, Lizzie unable to stop me even as she held her palm to my lips. They were all around us, hung up by meat hooks that violently poked through the soft spots beneath their shoulders. So many. Too many.

Arms sealed around me, pushing me close to Lizzie as I realized it was Caleb surrounding us.

He pulled our heads into his chest, trying to erase the damage that had already been done.

Tears dripped free, smearing over the fabric of Caleb’s jacket, and nausea crawled up the back of my throat, threatening to make me vomit all over him.

“I’m so sorry. Dammit, this isn’t what I wanted. We should go back. This is too much to—”

“Welcome, folks, to the Illusion de Lumière Carnival. We weren’t planning on visitors this morning, but since you’ve come all this way, why not take a good. Long. Look. At all we have to offer.”

The scratchy voice came from somewhere unseen, echoing through the room around us like the place was made of stone, not tarp.

I leaned back from Caleb, Lizzie doing the same, and we searched around the room for any sign of the Ring Leader or his little circus minions.

Aside from the horror, swinging corpses on display like some prized hog, I couldn’t make out anything in the shadows behind the way we’d come in or the singular door that led out.

Voices, mumbling and muted, came from every direction at once as I looked around, but they were indistinct, a quiet din that sounded so much like it would if there were a crowd gathered in the “big top.” The faded white and red stripes around us shifted quicker, an invisible wind testing their limits, and the music from the other night played, slightly discordant and hollow like it was coming from an old music box.

“Fuck. This isn’t safe. We need to get out of here.” Caleb grabbed my wrist, doing the same to Lizzie, and hauled us toward the threshold where we’d come in.

We landed hard against the shadows that were too deep to be natural. Slamming his fist against the black, Caleb spoke an incantation beneath his breath, trying to break the charm that blocked this exit. But it wouldn’t budge.

“Come on now, folks. Don’t be spoilsports!” The radio-like announcement knife through the air, stinging in my head and ears, and I finally tracked it to an ancient speaker affixed to the upper corner of the room near the fabric ceiling. “Go for a little walk. Such fun awaits.”

“I can’t ghost us back to the campus until I can see the sky.” Caleb seethed, and I could see how hard he was working to keep himself from just tearing into the tent with his bare hands. “We need to get through this until I can get even a glimpse at clouds.”

Lizzie nodded, and it was then that I remembered we were all still together.

Something was worming through my head. It was almost like Lizzie’s telepathy, but it felt wrong—intrusive and cold and manipulative.

Suddenly, my legs felt shaky, and I whipped out a hand to steady myself, both Lizzie and Caleb coming up under my arms.

“Can you feel that? My head…is…ugh.”

Scanning around us, Caleb hoisted me onto his shoulder. “We need to move. It’ll be worse if you stay in one place.”

“Why do you seem fine? Jerk.” I almost felt drunk, covering my mouth with a gasp as soon as the words left me.

“I’m trained to block this shit out, Temperance.” He sounded annoyed, his brows scrunching up as he glared at me.

Well, he can fuck off then.

Moving to shove myself off Caleb, I slapped wildly through the air, as uncoordinated as me on my fifth beer.

Lizzie was at my side then, appearing like she popped in out of the shadows, and I jumped back.

Her hands went to the side of my face, her middle fingers touching my temples, and I tried to swat at her.

“Temps, come back to me. Don’t let the pull get to you. Come on.”

Warmth buzzed through my skin. Something solidified, and I corrected myself in a snap, pain zinging through my brain as I gripped the bridge of my nose. It was as if I’d rushed through the process of being hungover and then all right again.

“Fuck. What was that? I…Oh gods,” I shook my head as I faced Caleb, “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“It’s alright,” Caleb soothed, his eyes now sympathetic where before I saw irritation. “It’s the tent. There’s a lingering effect. The details aren’t important. We just need to move. Come on. And keep an eye out for a window or door or anything.”

Turning, Caleb pushed forward toward the only other exit out of this room, and Lizzie looped her arm through mine as we hurried to follow behind him.

Like before, we had to shove our way through an almost visceral layer of shadow, and when we came out on the other side, I smacked into something cold and solid at my right.

“Jesus fuck, seriously?” Lizzie dropped my arm, patting the air in front of her as if she were testing to see if she’d smash into nothing as well.

I looked around, realizing what had happened. “A house of mirrors? Dammit, I hate these!”

The room was dark, all the passageways—false or not—showing rows and rows of matching frames that led off into the dark.

The mirrors themselves were dusty and splotched, aged from possibly decades of use.

Around them, those frames that reflected all around us were red and white, bulbous curves that looked like harmless circles or skulls piled on top of each other, depending on how you look at them.

Straight bars of white light criss-crossed over the ceiling, illuminating the mirrors to create the infinite hallway effect. The floors were black, as were the undersides of the arches that framed the mirrors. I saw unending versions of myself reflected back at me, mirroring my movements perfectly.

Except for the smiles.

I wasn’t smiling. Why the fuck would I? But the chain of Temps were all grinning at me, mad glee in their eyes as the three of us stepped into another trap.

When I looked at the reflections of Caleb and Lizzie, it was the same, but they both turned this way and that, trying to figure out the path forward.

“Wait!” I called out, moving to Caleb to grab the sleeve of his leather jacket. “Stop turning. I can’t keep track of you when you keep moving.”

But as I groped wildly for him, my knuckles hit glass—a reflection. I turned around, set on going back toward Lizzie, but as I took off in the direction I’d come from, or at least what I believed to be the right path, I got another handful of steps and ran into a mirror again.

I was alone. I’d lost them.

“Caleb! Lizzie!” Frantically turning around, I tried to peer through the halls of reflections for any sign of them. “Where are you?!”

“Temps!”

The sound came from behind me, and maybe a bit to the right?

I held a hand out in front of me, pressing it to the cold surface I knew was glass and not the way forward.

I kept running it along the edge until my fingers could hook around the edge of the frame and turned, following the path that I prayed led out of here and not just right back where I’d come from.

Using my sense of touch, I kept going until I hit another mirror, forced to turn left when every instinct in me was saying to turn right. For a moment, I paused, keeping my fingers on the mirror as I looked over my shoulder and then back ahead.

Am I going the right way? Dammit. Where are they?

The endless versions of myself all grinned at me, their eyes too wide, the smiles stretching too far.

This was bad. I needed to find Lizzie and Caleb and get the fuck out of here.

Movement to my left caught my eye, the flash of what I thought was Caleb’s jacket.

I went toward it, keeping my fingers to the glass but skipping the open passing to my right and moving straight ahead, where I saw the back of Caleb’s jacket more clearly.

But how was I seeing him from behind if he was supposed to be somewhere in front of me, and I’d yet to pass him?

Physics wasn’t my strong suit, and they weren’t lining up no matter how I rearranged my thoughts.

So, I shook it away, still hurrying forward toward Caleb’s reflection.

He was so close, just up ahead, but when I reached him, I touched glass again.

Spinning around, Caleb had to be someone who was nearby to reflect like this, but I came face to face with that odd smile pinned on my professor’s face this time.

“You’re not Caleb.”

“Aren’t I?” The voice sounded like it was coming out of a speaker. “Or is it that one?”

Mirror Caleb pointed, and I turned to see the row of infinite arms doing the same, their backs to me.

How was this possible? One of the reflections, several down the line from me, turned this way, breaking form from the others.

It stepped into the black space between Caleb’s reflections and mine, seizing one of them and yanking on the wrist that both did and didn’t belong to me.

It hurt .

I was taken down to a knee, staring at my wrist as indentations appeared in my flesh, icy tendrils skittering up my arm.

It burned and froze, my skin feeling like it was going to crack as the pressure reached my bone.

As I huffed out a breath, crying out and fighting against the hold, my breath turned white in the air around me.

“Temperance!”

Yanking my head up toward the voice, I searched the dark furiously as tears dribbled down my cheeks. My bone was going to snap, the pressure rising, and from down the endless tunnel of shadow, Caleb came into focus.

He launched himself toward me, and I held up my free arm, shielding myself as I screamed. “Don’t break my arm! Stop!”

Sweat collected on my forehead and the back of my neck, and then hands hauled me to my feet before one settled over my wrist, mumbling some Latin I didn’t have the awareness to understand right now.

The pain stopped, though, and I desperately scanned the area around me, landing on the Caleb that stood before me.

“Are you real?”

“I’m real.” Caleb nodded, his eyebrow bleeding over his left eye. “Have you seen Lizzie?”

I shook my head, a sob tearing free as I cradled my arm against my chest. “No. I was trying to tell you not to turn around, and then I was just alone. Please don’t leave me again.”

The words came out like the terrified plea they were, and Caleb furrowed his brow, his lips parting gently as he pulled me to his chest, smoothing his hand down the back of my head.

“I won’t. Fuck, I’m so sorry, Temperance. We never should have come here. We weren’t prepared.”

“It was my idea. I was just…I was so nervous about the soul weaving, and—”

“We can talk about it later.” Caleb held my shoulders as he looked down at me, then eyed the tunnels of shadow around us. “We need to find Lizzie.”

All I could do was nod. But then I heard it—a scream.

It was just on the other side of the glass, and without thinking, I flung myself toward it, pounding my fists on the frozen surface.

“Lizzie!” Pound, pound, pound . “Lizzie!”

Caleb grabbed my shoulder, putting me behind him even as I fought to get back to the glass. But he was damn strong, and I had to watch as he held up his hand to the mirror, meeting his smirking reflection in the eye as the image began to waver and shake.

“I’m done with this shit.” The vibrations rumbled enough so I felt them in the floor, staring in disbelief as the air in front of Caleb’s hand appeared to ripple with invisible force. “Lizzie, if you can hear me, stand back from the glass!”

The thundering wobble of the mirror crescendoed, so loud that I had to cover my ears, and then the glass in front of Caleb shattered, pieces flying in all directions as he turned and huddled over me, protecting me from the shrapnel.

For all the noise, the room was suddenly quiet, and little shards of mirror tumbled off me as I hurried to look at the empty space where Caleb had broken through the maze.

Lizzie was lying on the floor. I rushed to her, glass crunching beneath my feet and then digging into my knees as I knelt by her.

“Lizzie.” I shook her gently, sliding my hand under her head. “Lizzie, come on.”

But she wasn’t answering, tiny cuts on her face as she lay in my lap, unmoving. Caleb was there in a blink, putting his fingers to Lizzie’s neck and checking for a pulse. My stomach was a useless jumble of knots as I shook my head.

She can’t be dead. She can’t.

“Unconscious, but we need to get out of here. Hold on.” Caleb’s word offered some relief, but Lizzie was still out, and how the hell were we going to get out of the tent when it was obviously some extraplanar realm?

Pointing up at the ceiling, Caleb sent those vibrations up, up, up.

His leather jacket was marred with little slices on the back, and his other hand was bleeding now, the tiny red trail leaking down the side of his palm.

There were too many lights up there, too much glass.

If he broke through again, we’d be torn to shreds.

“Caleb, I don’t…the glass…”

“Grab my hand and hold the fuck on.” He focused like a laser on the room until it tore and cracked like the mirror wall, a curtain of broken fragments hurtling down toward us. But just behind, clear as day, if not very big, was a view of the sky.

And just like that, he whisked out of there, me clinging to his bloody hand and my unconscious girlfriend.