My fingernails pierced the skin of my palms.
I’d find a way to get all my power back from him. All of it.
He turned back to me, his gaze piercing me. His strange beauty was like a dagger in my heart.
Lyr had caused all this, with his crime against the gods. He never should have brought my mother back. He shouldn’t have hidden it from me. But I couldn’t be angry with him—not when he’d sacrificed part of his soul to revive me.
Everyone made terrible decisions sometimes. I certainly had.
I pressed my hand on my heart again. “How come I’m not an abomination?”
I was asking the question to myself, but Salem turned to me. He snorted with laughter. “What makes you think you’re not?”
I breathed in, glorious air filling my lungs—even if it smelled a bit of burning bodies and sulfur.
“I don’t feel any different,” I said. “I don’t feel evil.”
“Nobody feels evil.” His dark laugh echoed off the walls.
Salem’s attention was rapt on me. I don’t know why, but it made me feel like the center of the universe.
“In any case, I’m not done with you. I came here because I felt you die, and I was relieved to find you recovered. You work for me now, Aenor, and I don’t want to lose an asset.”
My heart started beating faster. “Bullshit. What do you need me for? Why aren’t you trying to chain me up or torture me or something?”
“I don’t need to chain you up. I’ll be seeing you again in the future.”
“Where is Lyr?” I asked again.
“Let’s see… he journeyed with you to the hell worlds to get you and then disappeared. I imagine he’s being tortured somewhere. Probably still screaming. You really are a terrible girlfriend.”
Anger simmered. “Where?”
“Fuck knows. Death is his world, not mine. Also, I don’t care. I hope that clears things up.”
I glanced at the shattered wooden door, then at the athame on the floor. He didn’t particularly seem to care about the athame, which was just about as baffling as everything else about him.
I turned away from Salem, looking for signs of Lyr, my hand on my beating heart. An evil presence hung in the cavern, a sense that terrible things had happened here. It was probably Salem himself, exuding menace.
“My mother said this was your home.” My voice echoed. “This foul hell hole is a fitting place for you.”
When I turned back to him, I found he was gone.
How did that happen?
I snatched the athame off the floor, and I broke into a run. I fought past the dizziness, propelled by desperation to find out what happened to Lyr. I needed him, and I needed Gina.
I had the athame now.
At the mouth of the cave, a figure loomed in the light. By the tall, spiked crown and the golden light emanating from him, I knew it was Lyr. I practically slammed into his chest.
He loomed above me in his Ankou form, and the World Key gleamed on his chest.
“Lyr! Are you okay?”
Golden eyes gleamed in the darkness, a haunted look in his eyes. “Yes.”
“What happened to you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m back now. Your mother sent you to the sea hell. I had to bring you back.”
I gripped his arms. “But you turned her into a monster when you brought her back. Will I turn evil?”
“You were only dead for moments. She’d been dead decades before I brought her back, losing parts of her soul. When I found her in the death realm, she already seemed demented. When I found you in the death realm, you seemed the same. I took a chance, and I was right.”
It was still a crime against the gods, and Lyr would have to pay for that.
“And what happened to you?” I asked.
“I flew from one hell to another, until finally, I ended up in the realm of the Winter Witch.” He lifted the key. “She returned the World Key to me, and I opened the portal.”
I slid my arms around his neck, and I pressed my body against his. His clothes and hair were soaked with freezing water, but heat from his body warmed me.
Slowly, the blue was returning to his eyes. I wanted Lyr now, not the Ankou.
I pressed my hand against his cheek, looking up into his eyes. “Are you okay?”
His eyes seemed to search mine. “I should have told you about your mother. I felt ashamed of the mistake I’d made. I thought that once I killed her again, it was all over. I had no idea she could come back. I only knew her soul wasn’t in the sea hell anymore.”
“We all do dumb crap, Lyr. Even divine death gods like you.”
His wild magic skimmed my skin, and I felt like I was melting into him. He’d literally traveled into the hell worlds to save me. “Why did you bring me back?” I asked.
“Because I’d do anything for the true queen of Nova Ys.”
“And you weren’t worried that I’d come back monstrous like my mother?”
“Maybe a little worried, but you don’t seem any worse than you did before.”
“You’re such a charmer.” I took a deep breath. “Salem came into the cave when you were holding me.”
“I saw him. Just before I slipped into the death realms, I saw a fae who burned like a star.”
“He’s gone. He was there when I woke up, and then he just disappeared, like smoke. I don’t know how. He still has my power. We have to find him at some point. But not right now. We have to get to Gina. My mother never told me where she was, so she’s still tied up somewhere, probably dying of dehydration. Where are the other knights? They’ll know where she is.”
“Still unconscious,” said Lyr. “Still possessed. I knocked them out before we entered the cave. But now, we have the athame.”
Chapter 40
As Lyr completed the spell over the knights, I stared at them. The spirits of the fuath shrieked, the magic ripping them out of the knights’ bodies.
Gwydion stood first, smoothing out his clothing. Night had fallen, and the moonlight washed them in silver. Stars twinkled in the purple sky.
“Where in the gods’ names are we?” Gwydion grimaced. “My mouth tastes as though I’ve been eating vinegar crisps.”
Midir retched. “I have an unsettling memory of licking a demon’s horn at some point.”
The other knights—not being demigods—moaned on the grass.
I rushed over to Midir, the only one who’d remembered anything. “Where is Gina?”
“What the fuck are you asking me? What happened, and why am I not wearing silk socks?” Panic flamed in his eyes. “I am wearing cotton socks. For the love of all that is holy, what the fuck is going on?”
I slapped his cheek, hoping to snap him out of it. It knocked his leafy crown askew on his ginger hair. “You remembered something. Licking a demon’s horn, which… ew, but do you remember the rest? The fuath?”
Midir blinked. “They were coming for us, weren’t they? And we needed an athame.”
He cleared his throat, looking dazed that I slapped him. To my shock, he did not threaten to peel off my skin.
Gwydion shuddered. “A fuath inside me. My body is a temple. It really is an outrage.”