Page 37

“Not now.”

The crown was still wedged between us. Both our hands were locked around it. Gold Magic and black and silver Sorcery ground against each other so hard I felt it in my back teeth. My palms burned.

The One Below was stronger than me, physically– centuries stronger, corrupted-monster stronger– and she yanked on that crown like she meant to tear my arms off with it.

Nothing happened.

She yanked again.

Still nothing.

And that's when I understood.

"It won't let you have it."

She snarled, an ancient, terrible sound. "It was mine."

"No." I held on, arms shaking, gold light crawling up between our fingers. "It was offered to you. There's a difference."

I wasn't more deserving because I was better than her, or braver, or stronger. I'd just made a different choice than she had, centuries apart, and the crown apparently kept score.

I didn't have time to sightsee, and honestly, I didn't want to. Black stone stretched out in every direction. Silver veins pulsed through the ground like something with a heartbeat. The sky wasn't a sky at all, just a wrongness pressing down from above. Whispers threaded through the air in a language I couldn't understand and didn't want to learn.

Above us– actually above, not metaphorically– the Door hung like a ragged tear of gold-edged darkness. Home. Already starting to flicker at the edges, thin and unstable, because whatever damage had ripped through the chamber up there was catching up to us down here.

I needed to get back through it. Soon.

The One Below saw me look and smiled the way she'd smiled right before she'd grabbed the crown and dragged us both Below.

"You chose the crown," she said. "Now watch what it costs you."

I looked up through the tear and saw him. Kai. Bloody, favoring one side, trying to get his feet back under him.

Then I saw Zelda. She was barely moving on the floor beside him. It was exactly the picture designed to make me think one thing, loud and clear: drop the crown and save them.

I felt that instinct rise up hot and fast, same as it always did.

Then I remembered Margaret. That was the lie.

"Lady, we've already had this conversation."

"He cannot follow you."

A shadow moved in the opening.

Kai.

Bloody. Limping. Absolutely, gloriously furious.

And he stepped through.

I felt something crack open in my chest. It was half terror and half pure vicious joy.

That ancient barrier that had kept Guardians outside for centuries?

It was gone.

Shattered clean through when the One Below tore me out of that chamber. She'd broken the very thing that used to keep the Guardian from following.