Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I stop, close my eyes, forcing them shut as the girl screams at me from the nearest mirror.
It’s a dream, Syrsee. All you have to do is wake up. Wake up! Wake up!
But when I open my eyes, nothing has changed. So I keep running.
“Syrsee!” the pink-haired girl yells. “Please! Listen! We don’t have a lot of time. I’m in Josep’s cave. He sacrificed me to the Darkness under the compound. Then he fed me, filled my body up with his blood, and made the halfbreeds drink me until they all died. They ripped me to pieces, Syrsee.”
I stop, close my eyes again, and look at my feet. This is not real. This is not real. This is not real.
But it is. So I open them back up and just let her talk.
“I was nothing but tattered skin and broken bones, Syrsee. Then he took me back down here to the cave, put me in this water”—she points at her mirror, which really is some kind of spring—“and brought me back as something…” She shakes her head. “Well, much worse off than you, that’s for sure. Because I’m not magical, Syrsee. And if I want to win, I need magic.”
I repeat all these words over in my head, trying to force it all to make sense. “You want my magic?”
She nods. “It comes from Paul, and he gave it to you, and I need it. But we can trade. I have something to offer.”
“What do you have to offer? To put me into a perpetual state of pregnancy? Keep the evil inside me for all eternity?”
“Isn’t that better than letting it out?”
“Well…” I scoff. “From this girl’s POV, no. Not really.”
She laughs here. A tiny chuckle, but it helps. Because I let out a breath and so does she. “Trust me. I get it. I was given to the Darkness and torn to pieces. But I’m still here.” She points to the ground.
“Are you in the mist too?”
“No. I told you. I don’t have magic, Syrsee. I’m a wraith.” She looks to the side again. “Shut up, Lucia. You’re making things worse.”
“Lucia!”
“She’s here,” Echo says. “She’s telling me what to do. She doesn’t want me to tell you that because she thinks you won’t believe me if you know it’s coming from her. But please,” Echo begs with praying hands, “please give me a chance to tell you what’s happening and what we can do about it. Because Ryet is caught up in it too, ya know. He’s going to be the Darkness.”
“You just said earlier that Josep is the Darkness.”
“He is, for now. But why do you think they made Ryet?”
“So Paul could rule the world like a king?”
This throws Echo for a moment, but obviously, Lucia is filling her in because she comes back with an answer. “Paul is the enemy of the Darkness. He was made for that purpose only.” She hesitates, looking to the side again. At Lucia, I guess. Her tone changes. “That’s his purpose? How?” There’s a pause here, where Lucia must be talking. “No. I want to know, Lucia Who the hell is he? What the hell is going on?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I want to know too. Tell us, Lucia. Or I won’t even listen to your stupid plan.”
Echo’s head juts back as if in surprise. “No fucking way!” Then she laughs as she looks at me. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
And when she tells me, she’s right.
I don’t.
“Listen,” I tell her, “I need to go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“I… I made a promise and I need to at least try to see it through. But I’ll be back.”
Obviously, Lucia is objecting offscreen, for lack of a better word, because Echo has turned her head to the side and is listening. When she looks back at me, her words are more urgent. “There’s no time, Syrsee. They’re here. And if we don’t get a handle on this magic—”
“We?” I ask, suddenly angry. Because I don’t even know this girl. She has no right to ask me for a favor, let alone try and guilt me into doing her one. “It’s not about ‘we,’ Echo. This is my magic and what I choose to use it on, or how I choose to use it, is none of your fucking business. I’ll be back.”
Then I turn away from all the mirrors, close my eyes, take in the mist all around me, feel the purple and the gold, and press into it.
I know it worked this time because when I open my eyes, the gold is so bright, I have to shield my eyes for a few moments.
“Syrsee?” Paul says. His voice is smooth and comforting, how I know it best.
“Paul!” I say his name with excitement, pushing my hand farther and farther away from my face until I can see him backlit against the… sun? I think? “I found you! I’m so sorry it took me so long, the mirrors were—”