I closed my eyes and could imagine her there in bed, eyes half closed, a slight smile on her face. Her blonde hair messy against the pillow.

  “I wish I could be there with you,” I said. “I’d wrap my arms around you and pull you close. Let you fall asleep in my arms.”

  “Mmm,” she mumbled. “I would literally give anything for that right now. It’s been a long day.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said, settling into the small, hard bed here below deck. It was nothing at all like the large, comfortable beds in the castle back home, but lying here talking to her at night had made it all a little more bearable.

  Aerden didn’t seem to mind that I’d been using the stones so often in the evenings. He sometimes talked to Lea during the day, but their conversations were always short and private. I hoped they were doing okay, but I had a feeling whatever was going on between them needed time and space.

  I certainly wasn’t getting involved in that mess again.

  Once we got home, things would be different. He’d see.

  Lea just needed time to wrap her head around the idea that she could actually be happy someday.

  “We still can’t get the dome to work at Brighton Lake,” Harper said, telling me all about her day and the progress they’d made on the command center.

  I told her about my conversation with Aerden and how he’d taught me some new stances in our training.

  “That’s really good you two got a chance to talk about your family,” she said. “It’s still so hard to believe everyone is gone, just like that. Sometimes at night, I dream about Illana. It’s like my mind is trying to replay that night at Blackwood. Like I’m trying to figure out what I did wrong or how I could have avoided—”

  “Don’t do that to yourself,” I said, cutting in. “She tried to kill you. Who knows what she planned to do once she got you to that ritual room. You had no choice.”

  “I could have let her go,” Harper said.

  “And then what? Given her a chance to come back for you another time?” I shook my head. “Besides, you had a chance to destroy that ritual room. You had to take it.”

  Harper sighed.

  “I don’t think I did any damage to that ritual room, if I’m being honest,” she said. “When we were in there, trying to save Magda, I could feel the intense power of that place. Whatever’s going on there, it’s important to the Order. I get the feeling it’s not an easy place to destroy.”

  I had the same feeling when we were there, though my reaction to that room and the large diamond on top of that pedestal was very different from hers. I still wasn’t sure I’d come to terms with the pure desire that pulled me toward that stone.

  I’d never been so close to such power in my life, and for just a moment, I’d been so tempted to take it for myself.

  It wasn’t like me at all, and it scared me. Which is probably why I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone before. Not even Harper.

  “Tomorrow is Blackwood?” I asked.

  “Mmhmm,” she said, yawning again. “Angela doesn’t want me to go, of course, but I have to. Once we have this ritual, Jackson, we can open our own portal to that onyx ritual room. What if that room is somehow the key to ending the Order of Shadows all at once? We’re so close now. The High Priestess has to be scared, don’t you think?”

  “Scared or wild with rage,” I said. “Just promise me you won’t try to open that portal before I get home, okay?”

  As much as the power in that room scared me, the idea of Harper facing the High Priestess alone scared me even more.

  Whoever this woman was, she’d killed my mother, my father, and my sister Orian in an instant just to keep them from talking.

  How had she even gotten into the castle in the first place?

  It was so heavily guarded and fortified that it seemed impossible she had simply walked in without being noticed or leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. Yet, she couldn’t live in the city walls and still be going back and forth to this onyx ritual room or commanding the priestesses of the Order of Shadows.

  She had to have some kind of teleportation abilities. Or incredibly powerful allies. Those were the only explanations that made sense.

  Which meant that she could possibly appear on a whim anywhere she wanted. That she’d been watching us all this whole time. And how would Harper be able to defend herself against that?

  “I promise,” Harper said. “I want to figure out what’s going on in that room, though. Just like with the Peachville gates, if we can figure out how to reverse whatever ritual set that room up in the first place, maybe we can end the entire Order of Shadows in a single night.”

  I would have said it was impossible, but Harper had a way of making things sound real. Like anything was possible as long as you believed hard enough and didn’t give up.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  “You’re coming home to me,” she said softly. “Just get close enough to that storm to see if there’s a continent or any sign of life on the other side of that wall. That’s still the plan, right? Don’t put yourself in any unnecessary danger. Use the stone, if you need to.”

  The stone. We had a fully-charged soul stone crystal below deck that could be used to propel the ship if the waters around the storm got too dangerous.

  “You asked earlier if we’d had to use it, but we haven’t,” I said. “The past couple of days, the magic that’s been propelling the ship has gotten weaker since we’re so far from the mainland now, but the wind has been helpful. We put the sails up yesterday morning, and it’s been fine so far. We’re saving the crystal for just in case. Hopefully, we won’t have to use it at all.”

  Harper grew so quiet for a moment that I wondered if she’d fallen asleep on me. She’d been working such long days lately, taking care of so much all at once.

  But after a bit, she spoke again, her voice quiet and thoughtful.

  “I should have married you when you asked me,” she said. “When I got home from the Evers nightmare, we should have had a small ceremony and just taken a day for ourselves. A day of joy, just for us.”

  I rolled over in the small bed and placed a hand under my head as I stared at the ceiling, thinking of how much I had dreamed of that day.

  “Then let’s do it as soon as I get home from this trip,” I said. “We can get married right there in the throne room, if you want.”

  “No, the garden,” she said, laughing softly. “I’ll wear white roses in my hair and have Essex make the most beautiful dress the kingdom’s ever seen. Something simple yet magical.”

  “Aerden will begrudgingly serve as my best man,” I said. “And he and Lea can make googly eyes at each other across the aisle as they pretend not to be madly in love and dreaming of their own wedding someday.”

  “Whoa, who said Lea was going to be one of my bridesmaids?” Harper said, trying her best to hide the smile in her voice.

  “Don’t pretend like the two of you weren’t bonding over your mutual sadness the day we left,” I said. “I saw you on the docks, holding hands like best friends.”

  “Fine,” she said, laughing. “Lea can be in the wedding, but only if she agrees not to wear leather for once.”

  “And someday, in that same garden, we’ll still get that moment I promised you,” I said, closing my eyes and picturing the vision I’d once had of our future family. “Sabine may have taken the promise away from us, but she can’t take it out of our hearts. That’s our future, Harper. I just know it, even still.”

  She grew quiet for a moment, and I wondered if she was crying.

  “I know it, too,” she said, finally. “Be careful as you get close to that storm, Jackson. I still don’t fully trust Sabine for sending you there.”

  “I promise,” I said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow when you get home from Blackwood, okay?”

  “I love you, Jackson. I love you with all my heart, forever,” she said.

  “I love you, too.”

  After we hung up, I joined Aerden above deck to watch the storm in the distance, a feeling of change on the wind.

  Follow The Queen

  Lea

  Frustrated and tired, I walked back to my quarters, replaying the conversation with my father in my mind and trying to figure out where, exactly, it had all gone wrong.

  After the spell that had ruled his mind had been broken, my father had promised to listen to what I had to say. He’d said he would support me in this war against the Order.

  “Whatever you need,” he’d said a hundred times over the past few weeks.

  And yet, every single time I asked for help or tried to take some initiative, he had some excuse as to why it wasn’t the right time.

  For example, I’d gone to him today to ask for his help in rebuilding our army. The once-mighty King’s Guard had dwindled to almost nothing over the past few decades, but there were thousands of demons here in the city who were not only capable of fighting, they were begging for a chance to defend their loved ones.

  We needed access to more weapons and armor. We needed room to train.

  Andros and I were perfectly prepared to take on the entire responsibility, but Father said he needed to speak to the council.

  What council? Half the council was now dead, and the other half had sat back and watched as my father deteriorated and the High Priestess’s lackeys took over this city.

  I knew what Andros would say if I talked to him about this, though.

  He’d tell me to step up as Queen.

  But every time I thought about the endless politics involved and the time-consuming process of getting through council meetings and playing the games, it made me want to leave the city all over again.

  Thankfully, I was getting out of here for a little while tomorrow.

  A trip to Blackwood wasn’t exactly a relaxing vacation, but at least it would be a day away from the castle and the growing frustration I felt at the lack of action within these walls.

  And to think I would have ever considered a day with Harper a treat.

  I laughed as I approached my room.

  I was actually looking forward to seeing her. I just had to be careful not to let her know that, or she’d be planning a sleepover.

  The sound of male voices echoed down the hallway, and I was surprised to find that my door was wide open. The maidservants my father had assigned to me were nowhere to be found, which was definitely for the best, because Presha would have had a fit if she’d seen Mordecai’s boots propped up on my dressing table the way they were.

  “Princess, you’re here,” he said, standing to cross the room, arms wide open. “We’ve been waiting for ages.”

  “What’s all this about?” I asked, happy beyond belief to see my best friends and past companions gathered in my front room.

  Joost, Erick, Cristo, and Mordecai had been with me on some of the greatest adventures of my life, and they had seen me through some of the darkest, toughest days.

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would still be around if it wasn’t for these guys.

  “We’ve all been so busy lately, we haven’t really had a chance to catch up,” Cristo said. “I don’t think we’ve all been in one place together since the summer after the sapphire gates went free.”

  “Yeah, I’ve missed you all,” Erick said.

  Joost lifted a beer into the air and nodded. “To old friends,” he said, tossing one to me.

  “This is human beer,” I said, cracking it open and taking a long sip. It had been a long time, and it was every bit as bitter as I remembered. “Where did you get this from, anyway?”

  “Mordecai brought it with him from Chicago,” Joost said. “Some local brewery there. It’s pretty good.”

  “I hope you brought enough,” I said with a laugh, throwing my arm around Mordecai’s waist.

  He was so tall, my head barely reached his shoulder, and I’d forgotten how safe I felt standing next to him.

  “Look what else he brought,” Erick said, holding up a deck of cards that was so worn and well-used, they were practically falling apart.

  “No way,” I said, crossing to see for myself. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I thought we lost these twenty years ago.”

  “Joost found them in an old bag he’d stored in some locker in San Francisco,” Mordecai said.

  “San Francisco?” I asked. “When were you there?”

  “Remember that human witch he kind of had a crush on?” Erick asked.

  “The one who lived with her grandfather?” I asked, memories of the old days, travelling the human world with these guys, came rushing back.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Man, how many games of Follow the Queen did we play with these back in the day?” Cristo asked.

  “About a million,” I said, laughing. This particular version of poker was their favorite, because it was their way of poking fun at me at the time. The outcast who would never be queen, and yet had always been queen in their hearts. That’s what they always used to say, anyway, and I suddenly felt the weight of the past few months heavy on my chest.

  “So, what’s one more among friends? What do you say?” Mordecai asked.

  I nodded, my heart overflowing.

  “Not here, though,” I said. “Let’s go somewhere we can build a fire and really make it feel like old times.”

  Which is how we ended up in a courtyard behind the castle, fire blazing and drinks flowing for most of the evening. We must have played a dozen hands of poker, laughing and telling stories about the old days.

  Part of me never wanted the night to end. I had missed my friends.

  “We should do this more often,” I said as the first sun cast its light on the horizon beyond the wall. “I’ve missed you guys.”

  “We’ve missed you, too,” Erick said.

  “Maybe we should make it a regular date,” Mordecai suggested. “Once a month, we meet back here for a few games of Follow the Queen.”

  “I’m in,” I said.

  “Hard to believe after all this time, you really will be queen soon,” Cristo said.

  “I hope you know we’d follow you anywhere,” Joost added.

  Their words touched my heart, and I hoped they each understood just how much their friendship meant to me.

  “Good thing, too, since I’m sending you out to start looking for survivors and refugees tomorrow,” I said.

  “Today,” Mordecai said, pointing to the hint of dawn.

  “Right,” I said. “Maybe we should try to get at least an hour or two of rest, since it’s such a big day.”

  We’d been planning this for a couple of weeks, and even though the council hadn’t officially approved of the mission, I figured we didn’t need their permission as long as everyone going was a volunteer.

  Ten pairs of demons would set out later today in search of survivors living on their own in the Northern Kingdom. Many villages had been completely wiped out over the years since my father closed the castle walls to them, but there were still demons out there who needed our help.

  It was about damn time we offered it to them.

  “Thanks for helping out, you guys,” I said as they walked me back to my room.

  “It’s the least we can do,” Erick said. “If there are survivors out there, we’ll find them.”

  “Love you guys,” I said, giving each of them a huge hug as we parted ways. “See you next month for another game?”

  “Same time, same place,” Joost said, giving me a slight nod.

  Later, I drifted off to sleep feeling renewed and full of hope, knowing that as long as I had demons like that on my side, I could face whatever life decided to throw at me next.

  Wounds Like That Cut Deep

  Harper

  I almost died here.

  The cuts on my arms and legs ached as I stepped into the room where Illana had tried to kill me just a few short weeks ago.

  The gathering room, they called it, and according to Magda, the place where her sister Gladys held meetings with her army of panther-like witches.

  It had been empty when Magda and I had first stepped into it that night to hide from the group in the ritual room down the hall, and it was empty now.

  The entire estate appeared to be empty.

  Ever since the night we’d attacked Blackwood, we’d taken it for ourselves. Magda had helped identify Gladys’s traps so that we could disarm them, and Franki had offered some of her vampires from the Brotherhood of Darkness to serve as spies in case anyone came back.

  There had been a small, hidden detail of them in the woods and rocky areas surrounding the property at all times since the attack.

  Of course, Cormac had also placed his own surveillance cameras around the property, along with some magical tripwires of sorts on the Hall of Doorways entrance and the portal room.

  We’d thought that maybe Priestess Black or some of her most loyal witches who had survived that night might attempt to come back and retrieve important items or spell books at some point, but so far, it seemed the priestess and her subjects had abandoned this place entirely.

  “This is where it happened?” Lea asked, circling the room with an intense look, as if she were trying to get a feel for the energy of its memories.

  “Yes,” I said, moving to the spot where I stood when Illana first showed herself. Her true self. “She attacked me here as I headed toward the door. I had just spoken to you and found out that you’d been ambushed, and I’d let Magda go get help. Illana went after my legs, and I hit my head somewhere around here.”

  I went through the motions as best as I could remember, setting the scene for Lea.

  “When I forced myself back to consciousness, she was standing here in the center of the room, setting up the stones.”

  I pointed to the general area, trying to hide the fact that my hand was trembling.

  “Illana placed the pointed stones here along the floor,” I said. “I can’t quite remember the exact order or configuration, but that’s what we’ll want to get from the memory, if possible.”