“Sabine asked him to keep it quiet,” I said. “And then she gave him the drawing of them heading toward the storm. She said it was time for him to see. That there were worlds of power inside of him and Jackson. After that, he was able to conjure this incredible golem made of pure light. He’s only done it once or twice before that, but Sabine seemed to know he could do it. Do you know what all of that means?”

  Azure stood and looked around the dance floor, motioning to someone I couldn’t see from my angle.

  “I have some suspicions, but I need to be sure,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “Wait—”

  But she was already gone, running so fast across the room, I lost sight of her in the crowd.

  Had I been right? Was Sabine part of this?

  What was Azure not telling me?

  Had the High Priestess been right in front of us this whole time?

  I needed to grab Magda and see if we could get word to Rend about everything that was going on. I also wanted to use his ruby bar and check in with Angela about the symbol in the castle.

  But when I turned my eyes back to the dance floor, Magda was nowhere to be found.

  Secrets And Misdirection

  Lea

  “You wanted to see me, Lazalea?”

  My father stepped into my room, nodding to Presha as she bowed and left the room to give us some privacy.

  “I’m sorry. I know it’s not exactly normal for a princess to call for the king,” I said. “I’ve been up all night, and I haven’t had a moment to spare.”

  “Up all night?” he asked. “What’s been going on? Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “I wanted to be absolutely sure of what I suspected before I disturbed you,” I said. “Will you do me a favor and come with me to Tatiana’s old suite of rooms?”

  He furrowed his brow. “I thought we discussed this,” he said. “I don’t see any use in dredging up the past like this. It isn’t healthy. We need to focus on what we’re doing to move forward.”

  “Normally, I would agree with you, but there are a few things that have been nagging at me lately. I went to her rooms last night when I couldn’t sleep to see if I could pull up the memory of her death.”

  I held up a hand for him to stop, because I already knew what he was going to say.

  “Just hear me out as we walk,” I said.

  I secured my backpack across my shoulders and grabbed my bow and quiver of arrows.

  “Are you leaving? Lea, what’s going on?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” I said. “But we need to walk while we talk, because I don't have much time, and there’s something I need for you to see.”

  As we made our way to Tatiana’s door, I told him everything about the memory from the abandoned wing, the key Tatiana had given to Aerden, and the way Illana had obviously been a close ally of the High Priestess.

  “Last night, looking through this room, I found something,” I said as we finally entered the room. “Do you recognize this symbol?”

  My father studied it and nodded slowly.

  “It doesn’t look like anything unusual,” he said. “There are symbols like that all over the city. I think there’s even one similar to that in my chambers and in my study, come to think of it.”

  “No. Not symbols like this or similar to it,” I said. “This exact symbol. It’s all over the castle, the city, it’s in the homes of every Prima and priestess of the Order of Shadows. It’s even in the Southern Kingdom’s castle. I spoke with Angela early this morning, and she has found more than fifteen in the domed city, including one in the dungeons under the castle.”

  “I don’t understand,” my father said. “What does it mean?”

  “It’s a teleportation spell created by an ancient fae king named Sebastillan,” I said. “After talking to a friend and scholar about it this morning, I feel almost certain the High Priestess is using this symbol to teleport wherever she wants to go. That’s how she was able to get into Tatiana’s rooms without being seen. That’s how she was communicating with Kael this whole time. She’s been here right under our noses this whole time.”

  He stumbled back slightly and held onto my arm for support.

  “Father, one of these symbols was inside the room with the Stone Guardians.”

  “That can’t be right,” he said. “If that were true, she could be here at any moment. Watching us. Listening to our plans.”

  “I think that’s exactly what she’s been doing,” I said. “I’m ashamed I didn’t put it together sooner.”

  “What do we do about it?”

  “I already have a small team working to seek out and destroy these symbols everywhere we can find them,” I said. “But to me, this points to the High Priestess being fae. Or at least part fae. Have you had any dealings or known of any fae to have lived in this castle or in our city during your reign or your father’s?”

  “No. There haven’t been any fae permitted in the Shadow World in a very long time.”

  “And why is that?” I asked. “Azure seemed to have some idea of it, telling me that it had something to do with the offspring of a fae and a shadow demon being too powerful to contain. Does that sound familiar at all? I couldn’t find anything about it in the library.”

  My father touched hand to his head, frowning.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t remember what happened or why it’s like this, but there are no fae portals permitted in the Shadow World. That much I know.”

  “Then your memory’s been altered around it,” I said. “Just like with the storm to the west and so many other things. This is what the Order does. What the High Priestess does. They mess with our memories so they can control us. While I’m gone, I want you to start looking into memory restoration spells. Something stronger than the Elixir of Kendria and potions like that. Something that might be able to restore the memories of our entire race.”

  “That’s impossible,” he said, shaking his head.

  “It wasn’t impossible for the High Priestess to alter the memories of the entire shadow demon race,” I said. “That’s the kind of power we’re dealing with here. If we can’t find a way to restore the memories of our elders, we’ll always be at a disadvantage. And more than just restoring memories, we need to find a way to protect ourselves from letting it happen again.”

  “I’ll talk with the shaman and call a meeting of greatest healers,” he said. “I’ll see what we can do. I can’t believe you discovered this last night and didn’t come to speak with me right away.”

  “I was on my way to talk to you last night about some of this, but unfortunately, you already had visitors.”

  His shoulders dropped.

  “You were never supposed to know about that,” my father said. “But I will not let the council steal your birthright. You were destined to be queen, and who you choose to sit at your side is now entirely in your hands. You have my word on that.”

  My stomach tightened at his words. So much was still uncertain where Aerden was concerned.

  “I know I have been reluctant to take on the job or the title, but when I get back from looking for my friends, I want to have a real conversation about how best to make the announcement and the transition. I think the time has come for me to step up. I’m ready to be queen.”

  I could hardly draw a full breath as I spoke, feeling the weight of this moment and this commitment. Still, I knew it was the next step for me and for this kingdom.

  The demons in Leuxia needed a leader who truly understood all that was at stake in this war.

  My father’s eyes filled with tears, and he placed a hand on my shoulder.

  “You will be a strong and wise queen, and I am very proud to call you my daughter,” he said. “We will plan your coronation as soon as you come home, and while you are gone, I’ll enlist every soldier to help in the search and destruction of these symbols.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “but before I go, there’s one other thing I need to talk to you about.”

  I walked over to the scar on the wall. A dark smudge on the surface of the stone that would not come out, no matter how often it was cleaned.

  Just like in the abandoned wing.

  “This spot on the wall was caused by the bright white flames of the woman I can only assume is the High Priestess. When she came to kill Tatiana, the spell of fire she cast incinerated Tatiana but left everything else in the room unharmed. All except for this spot on the wall,” I said. “There’s a room with a similar mark in the abandoned wing. I mentioned it to you before, but you never gave me an answer. Have you ever known a memory to jump through time and space?”

  “I remember now that you mentioned it. Ancient, tainted memories like that are not safe to step into without some kind of shield,” my father said. “It’s not surprising you were ill afterward. It could have been a lot worse.”

  “What could cause a memory to act like that?” I asked.

  He ran a finger across his chin and paced the floor.

  “Only once have I ever had an experience like that,” he said. “And it was not because the memory was ancient.”

  He stopped, looking at the scar on the wall.

  “Lazalea, this memory has been tampered with,” he said, pulling his hand away and swaying a bit. “I can feel it the moment I step close to it. It’s possible the memory you pulled up in the other room was also messed with in the same way.”

  I reached out to help steady him.

  “Who would have the ability to do something like that?”

  “Secrets and misdirection,” he whispered.

  “What?” I asked, not sure what he was talking about.

  He shook his head, as if forcing himself back to the present moment.

  “One of the main things I remember my mother always telling me about the fae,” he said. “They are particularly skilled with secrets and misdirection. The fae cannot be trusted, because they deal in tricks and half-truths. It’s not unusual for a fae to be able to manipulate memory, Lazalea. I don’t know why I didn’t put that together until now, but I haven’t thought of the fae in a very long time. I believe a powerful fae has tampered with these memories.”

  So it was true.

  The High Priestess, a woman who had made it her mission to control and enslave shadow demons and humans for centuries, was not a human witch like we had always assumed.

  The High Priestess was fae.

  Was that why Sabine had appeared in so many of the Order’s dealings? Was she the one at the top of all this? Or had Sabine simply been working with her all along, manipulating all of us.

  But why? Why would a fae want to kill so many shadow demons?

  “I never dreamed the fae were involved in all of this,” my father said. “I always assumed the head of the Order of Shadows was a witch. A human with a thirst for power.”

  He sat down on the small couch near the window.

  “I think in many ways, this was why I didn’t take the threat as seriously as I should have,” he said, worry and time making him look older than he’d looked in weeks since he’d gotten free of the mind control spell. “Even powerful witches eventually grow old and die. Humans have sought immortality for as long as they’ve existed, but they’ve never been successful. The priestesses of the Order of Shadows have lived the longest of any humans in history, but I thought we could simply wait them out.”

  I held my tongue. As much as I wanted to yell at him about the choices he’d made, standing by and waiting for witches to die, while a shadow demon died with them, I had made that argument enough.

  And I knew he regretted his choices now.

  We couldn’t go back and change that past.

  “I never dreamed a fae could be behind all of this.”

  “Would that have changed anything?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, lifting his eyes to look at me. “Maybe it would have, if I’d known the High Priestess was immortal.”

  “But what reason would the fae have to kill so many shadow demons and increase the power of human witches? I don’t understand.”

  My father sat silently for a moment before finally shaking his head.

  “In my experience, it’s usually one of two things that can motivate someone to act in this way,” he said. “They either want power or they want vengeance. Sometimes both. And if you want to defeat this High Priestess, you’ll need to figure out which one it is, because every choice she makes will be ruled by that goal. If she wants power, she’ll go after it as efficiently as possible. But if she wants vengeance, well, she’ll make sure it hurts whoever she hates most.”

  I closed my eyes, picturing Joost and Erick being tortured by the High Priestess because of me. Had she taken them to make me suffer?

  And if so, how many more would have to die before we found her?

  “I have to go,” I said.

  I kissed my father’s cheek and held him close.

  “Put the city on high alert,” I said. “And destroy the symbol down in the room beneath the dungeons right away.”

  “I’ll go down there and do it myself,” he said. “Go find your friends, but promise me you’ll come home as soon as you can.”

  “I will,” I said, hurrying toward the door.

  “Lazalea.”

  I turned back to look at my father only to see tears shining in his eyes.

  “I love you more than you could ever know,” he said. “I’m so proud of you, my dear daughter. I can’t wait to see you sitting on the throne.”

  “Soon,” I said as I shifted to shadow and flew toward the gate to meet up with Mordecai and the others.

  Whatever was waiting for us in the Witchwood had waited long enough.

  Missing

  Lea

  It took half the afternoon to fly toward the Witchwood in the far northern corner of the kingdom. I hadn’t been up here since I was still in the Resistance and traveling around with Jackson and Andros to look for hunters.

  We’d gotten word that some of the citrine hunters had been spotted in this area back then, but we’d only been able to locate one, if I remembered correctly. She’d been living in the mountains, though, and not the forest.

  Mostly, I remembered this entire area being completely deserted except for the village of Rialin, which is why I’d sent Joost and Erick up this way. I’d thought maybe some survivors would have fled up here to get away from the hunters, since there wasn’t much up here.

  They were to search Rialin and surrounding areas, but otherwise, there weren’t many villages this far north, and there never had been. Too much of the terrain was rocky or mountainous up here.

  I thought it would be a relatively easy assignment for them.

  But then, of course, there was the Witchwood itself.

  The rumors of it being haunted had kept people away for as long as I could remember. The forest here was extremely dense, and the trees had thick red thorns on them. Similar to roses, only much larger and more dangerous.

  From what I’d heard, scratching yourself on a redthorn tree in the Witchwood caused extreme hallucinations. Truth be told, that was more than likely the source of the witch rumors than anything else.

  Part of me still hoped that Erick and Joost had simply been wandering the Witchwood in a state of confusion this whole time, looking for a way out.

  It would be a story we could tell for years to come, laughing as we gathered around the fire in the castle’s gardens. We’d never let them live it down.

  Mordecai and Cristo had searched the area as best they could, but they hadn’t been able to go too deep into the forest because the density of the canopy deeper in had taken so much of the light and it was getting too dark to move forward.

  We’d come back today with torches and yellow fabric to mark the path, so that we could easily retrace our steps if we got lost. I also had a compass in my bag.

  Our small crew gathered on the edge of the treeline, and it occurred to me as I studied the map that this was almost exactly where Rend’s sister had made camp before she disappeared.

  Just what had she discovered up here?

  If this symbol she’d drawn was a fae teleportation spell, why had she drawn it here? Had she found it on one of the trees? Carved into the rocks? Had it been removed or destroyed since then?

  “Mordecai, you said you searched this area for the symbol on the map?” I asked. “Where all did you look?”

  He turned in a circle, getting his bearings.

  “We had a group of about twelve here with us yesterday,” he said. “I sent four people toward the hills and rocky areas just to the north of us here. They mostly searched for caves where Joost and Erick might have made camp or taken shelter if one of them was hurt. They said they looked for any sign of carvings or markings on the rock or inside caves, but they didn’t find anything at all. Not even tracks or footprints anywhere.”

  He nodded toward the grassy clearing that stretched out from the edge of the woods to the hills.

  “Three people stayed in this general area, searching for any signs of underground tunnels or entrances,” he said. “The rest of us all spread out and went into the forest. We took our time and fanned out, checking the trees, the ground, everything, but there was no sign of any kind of disturbance, carvings, nothing. It was like Joost and Erick had never been here at all.”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t at all what I had wanted to hear. We needed a more concentrated place to start, or we were going to be stuck in these woods for days with nothing to show for it.

  If Joost and Erick really were in some kind of trouble, we needed to find them as soon as possible.

  Today, we’d brought a larger group along with us.

  Andros had brought twenty Resistance members. His wife, Ourelia had wanted to come with us, too, since she was also close with Joost and Erick. Their daughter, Sasha hadn’t been feeling well, though, and Ourelia had needed to stay behind with her.