GIDEON
“Is it night yet?” I ask the man who brings me a bowl of watered-down broth. I’m starving. I’m not getting enough food that I can keep down. Rifters don’t understand celiac disease.
“Soon,” he answers. “An hour or so.”
Cotton is gone.
Torin has taken his place.
Torin is human, which should be an upgrade, but Cotton had tons more personality than this guy, who shuffles away without another word, disappearing around a corner.
The past few nights have been brutal. No visits from Samrael. No idea how Daryn is doing.
“At least I’ve got you,” I say, meeting Riot’s amber eyes.
Always, Gideon. But I’m ready to get out of here. I’m angry that you’re here.
He’s showing it, too. His new thing as of a few hours ago has been striking his big hooves against the bars. He sends up sparks when he does it, and the clanging sound is so loud, it’s almost blinding.
I rub the raw skin under the manacle on my right hand, pick up the bowl, and drink my dinner.
I’ve just finished the soup when Samrael comes around the corner.
He stands before my cell, slips his hands into his pockets, and regards me with his emotionless eyes. Behind him, Riot snorts and swipes a hoof, smacking it against the bars.
Samrael cuts a dark look his way.
“I trust you’re healing? Feeling better?” he asks.
My leg is better. I can stand now, like Riot, but not for long. And it’s still painful. I’ve got another day to go at least before I’m back in fighting shape.
“You look like you could use more food,” Samrael says after a pause, carrying the conversation without me. “I’ll talk to Torin about it.”
More silence that I don’t fill. I’m not happy with the meal plan here. But I’m not thanking him for looking into it.
Something is different about him, but I can’t pinpoint what it is.
“Well. Daryn and I have been spending some time together. Searching for you, mostly, but also going on walks and sharing meals. I’m rarely not in her company lately. I think it’s safe to say we’re becoming close. Relax, Gideon. Not that kind of close. So possessive. But I understand. She is special.
“The knowledge I took from you last time I came to see you? Her abandonment fears, and her fears for her mother’s well-being—would you believe I didn’t use any of it? We seem to have no trouble relating to one another. Our talks are meaningful. I find myself going on and on when I’m with her. Telling her what I’ve seen. Where I’ve been. The truth of what I’ve done, and … she just listens.” He drops his gaze to the stone floor like he’s debating his next words. “She … she wants to give me forgiveness. I know for a fact that she does.” He looks up, his expression faraway like he’s remembering. “She almost makes me believe that my redemption is possible. Truly possible.”
“It’s not.”
He smiles. “I’ve always appreciated your honesty. Come. It’s time for a walk.” He lifts the key from the hook and unlocks the door. “And before you plot escape or revenge, let me remind you that I have Daryn and Riot both in my care. Now, up. Let’s see if that leg has healed.”
I push myself to standing and leave my cell for the first time in days.
Revenge is on my mind, front and center, but my hands are bound and my leg is still weak. And I have a useless prosthetic. Now isn’t the time. Even when I was completely healthy, I was never able to bring him down.
Samrael makes me walk ahead of him, telling me where to go. As we leave the cluster of cells behind and head into the maze of corridors, I hear Riot smashing his hooves against the bars, making a racket that echoes through the stone tunnels.
After a while, I feel the stress on the bones knitting together in my leg and start to limp. The sound of my uneven stride is too loud, and too telling. Step—step. Step—step. I fight it, trying to stay even.
“No shame in it,” Samrael says. “I’d offer you my hand if I thought you’d—”
“Shut up.”
“You know, I regret cutting it off.”
“I don’t think you do yet, but you will.”
He laughs. “Never the quitter. Admirable.”
Despite the pain in my leg, it’s a relief to be out of the cell, moving. I try to think ahead—where’s he taking me? If he wanted me dead, he could’ve done it in the cell.
By the time we come through a door set into a hillside, my leg is a blaring center of pain and I’m sweating.
Oh, yes. Awesome. We’re back in the woods. I was really missing this.
“I think all of the confiding I’ve been doing has affected me,” Samrael says. He gazes at the trees like they mean something to him. “It feels good to finally share the secrets I’ve been keeping. I feel so understood.” He looks at me. “What would you like to see, Gideon? Daryn, probably. I don’t even need to get into that dense skull of yours to know that, do I? Daryn it is.”
My heart jolts. I look for her, but there’s nothing but forest around us. We’re the only ones here.
Movement draws my eye to a cluster of rocks. They’re rumbling on the ground, bouncing like the earth is shaking. Then they roll and glom together. Mass into a shape that’s vaguely human. Then exactly human.
Daryn’s hair spills out in a flash of gold. Her shoulders form. Her neck and arms. All of her, solidifying. Everything is exact. Her clothing. The way she moves. Even the way she smiles at me.
It’s Daryn. It’s her.
“We’ve been wondering why the hauntings happen, Gideon,” she says. She glances at Samrael. “It’s him. He’s been searching into your minds. He’s found your fears and made them manifest. It’s been Samrael all this time. He’s been trying to scare you into leaving. He didn’t want you here. He only needs me to let him out. And I will. I’m going to release him from this prison. I’m going to go with him. And I’m going to leave you here.”
With no warning, she fractures into rocks again. Instantaneously, they tumble to the ground. I stare at them long after they’ve gone still, rage burning inside me.
Samrael. He was the one who put us through hell. He tried to turn Daryn against me. He tried to mess with Marcus … Riot …
“Shocked?” he says. “You shouldn’t be. You know what I can do when I’m in your mind. My power only transmuted into something greater here—greater, and worse.”
The headaches we’ve had make sense now. It was him, searching through our minds for our weaknesses so he could conjure them into existence.
“There’s more, Gideon. Watch.”
Three of the trees near us are shaking, their leaves and branches shuddering. A familiar burnt smell flows into my nose, and pressure builds in the air. A splintering sound cracks into the night, stopping my heart, as the bark splits down the center.
Inside, the wood is glowing red. Slender black figures are cocooned within the bark of each tree. They begin to unfold and bend, pulling themselves free. Turning empty eyes toward Samrael like they’re awaiting their orders. Because that’s exactly what they are doing.
“I’ll summon you when I need you,” he says, and they scurry off, melting into the darkness.
“What did you just do?” Something sickening just happened—something sinister. I feel it.
“Whenever I conjure something, they’re created,” Samrael replies. He sounds almost somber. “The larger the haunting, as you call it, the bigger the price. Turning that lake to ice took acreage to create. I can show you sometime. Thousands of trees, gone. Thousands of Harrows, spawned. That’s the trade. It’s a trade I can’t stop … it’s an addiction.
“You have no idea how it feels to be able to will something into existence, even temporarily. The draw to the power is irresistible. But it’s not an endless supply. I’ve seen the edge of these woods. They end, and there’s nothing more beyond them. When I burn through them, there will be no more left. At the end, I’ll have created an army that has to destroy, is made for destruction, but has no opponent. No aim. Can you imagine what happens then?”
“Anarchy,” I say. “They’ll turn on each other. And you. You’re destroying yourself.”
“Utterly. Now you know why I can’t stay here.”
“Sucks for you. But you’re not going anywhere.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you could see Daryn and me together.”
“Why did you show me this? Do you expect me to be impressed? You want me to congratulate you on creating the evil army you’ve always wanted? Well congrats, man. You’re on your way to world domination. Best of luck with this shit show.
“You know how pathetic you are, right? You do realize you’ll lose control of this? Even if you do get out of here with your Harrows, you’re never going to be satisfied. You’re always just going to be a miserable demon, trying to find meaning in all the wrong ways. You wouldn’t know happiness if it stared you in the face, Samrael.”
He almost looks confused, or like what I just said actually cut deep. Then he shakes his head like he’s coming out of a mental fog.
“I don’t care what you think of me,” he says defensively. “Now move, rider. I have to get back. I’m meeting Daryn for dinner.”
As we retrace our steps through the corridors, I barely notice the aches in my leg. Something keeps nagging at me. By the time I’m back in my cell, I can’t stop thinking about it.
“Daryn has seen her mother twice in hauntings,” I say as he turns the key, locking me back in. “But I’ve never met her mother. I have no idea what she looks like, or how she speaks—none of that.” I think of the couch and the canoe—other things that we came across that I’ve never seen before. “There’s no way you got that information from me.”
Samrael smiles. “Ah, good. You’re paying attention. Keep going. You’re almost there. If I wasn’t the one, then who…?”
“Daryn.” The blood in my veins freezes over. “She can do what you can. Conjure things.”
“Correct. She’s been doing so inadvertently. She did it only yesterday. She gave me back my wings for a moment, and didn’t even realize she’d done it. And you’ll recall the yellow house? Where your father died? I had something special planned for you. Everyone who matters to you was going to be on that roof. Your father, your mother. Your twin sister. Daryn and your friends. Imagine how you’d have felt, seeing the end of all of them, one by one. Stepping off that roof. Powerful, isn’t it? We both know your father’s death has haunted you so. But before I could complete my vision, she interfered. She saw your worst fear and, I can only suppose, imagined her own. Imposed it. That haunting wasn’t only my doing, Gideon. It was ours. Me and Daryn.”
“Daryn would never have wanted to see what we saw.”
“Of course not. But that’s a conscious decision. The subconscious mind is a deep-running current. People are rarely fully aware of their thoughts. But she’ll discover the truth eventually. Soon, she’ll know about herself. Then she’ll put the rest together and know about me. I can’t allow that to happen. I need her trust to get out of here. And I need it because…” He pauses. “It’s become important to me.”
“You want her trust, so you’re going to keep lying to her? Good approach.”
“It’s flawed. Believe me, I know it is. If there were an alternative, I’d take it.”
“I’ve got an alternative. Open this gate and I’ll show it to you. I can do better than just conjure your death. I can make it real.”
He smiles. “Well. I imagine you’ll only be more motivated when you see your horse—or I should say, don’t see him? He was making too much noise, Gideon. I made plans earlier to have him taken elsewhere. I couldn’t risk Daryn hearing him upstairs.”
I look to Riot’s cell. It’s empty.
Samrael walks away as I lose my mind.