Three sets of glinting eyes close in on me in the darkness. I try singing to ward them off, but I know it won’t work even before it doesn’t. I may be deeper in the cave, but I am still somewhere on the royal grounds. The eyes move closer. The sound of growling fills my ears. I grab something from the pile and chuck it as hard as I can at one of the pairs of eyes. I miss, but now the beasts are provoked. With a snarl, they charge. I grab the cracked wagon wheel from the pile and pull it on top of me like a shield. A second later, a great weight lands on the wheel. One of the beasts—no, all of them—are on top of it. I push against the wheel, trying to keep their clawing paws and snapping mouths away from me. One paw rakes my shoulder. Claws tear my flesh and I scream.
It echoes through the cavern, bouncing off the walls. But I know there’s no magic to it like when I screamed at the Keres who had attacked my father. I still have no power. The beasts are undeterred. I hear the wagon wheel cracking, giving way under the beasts’ weight. I hold it up with one shoulder and grab something else—the statue—from the pile and start frantically trying to beat the beasts back. I get in one good blow. Slamming the base of the figurine between one of the pairs of glowing eyes. I watch as the eyes fade to black. The other beasts screech. A moment later, a paw swipes the figurine from my hand, raking my wrist. I feel blood spurt from the wound, snaking down my arm. I’m bleeding much too quickly.
One of the beasts kicks against the wheel. I feel it finally snap, my only barrier falling away. I hunt for another weapon but only come up with the fedora.
One of the beasts snaps it from my grasp.
“Don’t you dare!” I say, and let my hand fly, knocking the hat from its jaws.
The beast snarls at me. It’s the noise of an animal that’s not just hungry, but angry.
I’m done for.
Then a bright light fills the cavern. I close my eyes against it, raising my arm to fend off another attack, but instead all that follows is a flash of heat and two great squealing screams. Then a fainter pair of whimpers.
I open my eyes and find not three beasts, but one, lying dead or at least dying on the ground in front of me. It’s a large animal whose body resembles a rat, except it’s as large as wolf—and, you know, has three heads.
A hellrat?
Now I know why Haden’s hellcat, Brimstone, can hulk out to the size of a panther on steroids. She’d have to if this is what their average rat looks like. It twitches, prostrate, a flaming torch protruding from its back.
In the light of the flickering deathtorch, I see Shady standing over the three-headed beast.
“Kore!” he moans at me. “I told you to stay. Tooo dangerous!”
“You’re the one who left me alone in a cave with that thing,” I shout back, even though it’s an awfully ungrateful thing to say to someone who has saved my life for a third time now.
“Hellrats will not crossss water,” he says. “You would have been ssssafe if yooou stayed.”
“Well, you could have mentioned that before.”
“That was whaaat ‘stay here, toooo dangerous’ was supposed to mean!”
I smirk. Maybe it is just my mind playing tricks on me—like that guy in Castaway who made friends with a volleyball—but it seems to me that Shady is starting to show a personality.
Shady grabs the beast by the legs and drags it away. He comes back a few moments later with the torch (not seeming to mind the blood dripping from the end of it) in one hand and a bundle of some sort under his other arm. He uses a couple of objects from the junk pile to prop up the torch and then places his bundle on the ground.
“You are bleeding,” he says. He kneels next to me and pulls something from the bundle. A red cloak that reminds me of what one of the chariot drivers had been wearing. Shady tears the cloak into strips and wraps one tightly around my bleeding wrist. Then he uses another to bind my shoulder. I notice he turns his face from me as he works, as if either the sight or smell of my blood is bothersome to him.
Please don’t mean it makes him hungry.
“You can see?” I ask. “And smell?”
I hope that’s not an offensive thing to ask someone without facial features—other than a mouth, that is.
“I see without eyes,” he says without giving any other clarification.
He moves to my knee next. After wrapping it in strips of cloth, he takes two thin pieces of wood from his bundle and places them on either side of my leg like splints. The wood is painted black with flecks of gold. Next he grabs a couple of lengths of leather that look like they were cut from a horse’s reins. He uses them to strap the splints against my thigh and calf, supporting my injured knee.
“This is all stuff from the chariot crash?” I ask, noticing in his bundle what looks like a breastplate and helmet that must have belonged to one of the guards. “You went back there?”
Shady nods and finishes tying off one of the straps.
“Was he dead?” I ask, pointing at the soldier’s helmet.
Shady nods again. “Him and one other. Torn apart by Shades.”
“The other, was he a guard or a noble?”
Shady cocks his head to the side as if he doesn’t understand the question.
“Was he dressed in black and gold?” I ask, thinking of Garrick. It’s a callous thought, but if Garrick didn’t survive the attack, then that might mean I was free of the binding spell and could leave the Underrealm without him.
I hold my breath until Shady shakes his head. “No.”
“Oh,” I say, not sure if I am relieved or not. An ill feeling creeps into my stomach. I can’t believe I was hoping for someone else’s death in exchange for my freedom. Is this place changing me? “You collect things?” I ask, gesturing at the pile.
Shady nods. He almost seems excited that I’ve asked about his collection.
“This hat,” I say, lifting the fedora. There’s a tear in the back of the brim from where the hellrat had tried to steal it. “When did you find it?”
“Few days ago.”
I gasp. This hat has to be Tobin’s. It even has the same periwinkle ribbon around the base. “Where? Was it with someone? Was there a boy . . . ?” I hesitate. “Was there a body?”
Shady is still for a moment. I hold my breath again. Finally he says, “No boy. No body.”
I let out my breath, not sure if his words should make me more or less hopeful about Tobin’s condition.
“There wasss a boat.”
“A boat? You found this at a shipwreck, right?”
He nods.
This time I am hopeful. “Was there anything else there? Like a big golden staff with two prongs?” I say, trying to describe the Key of Hades. Maybe Shady found that too. Maybe the thing I had been looking for was right here in his hoarder’s heap! “It’s vitally important.”
“Did not see staff.”
I hang my head.
“Could have been, though. I fished hhhhat from water from my raft. Staff could have been in the boat. I could nnnnot get closer. Shades can nnnnot tread on Elysium shore.”
I nod. My guide from Elysium had told me we were safe from Shades on its shores. That was after she had led me back to the shipwreck to look for Tobin and the Key. Both had been missing then, and from the sound of it, they had been gone when Shady happened upon it as well.
“I am sorry I could not assist youuu in this, Kore.”
“It’s okay. And you can call me Daphne.” I pick at the bandage wrapped around my knee, feeling crippled more by doubt than my injuries. Tears start to well in the corners of my eyes. “There’s probably nothing you could have done anyway. The Key is probably lost forever. It’s probably at the bottom of the River of Woe with my best friend and that old man.”
“Old man?”
I wipe at my eyes. “Charon. I think that’s his name. The boatman. We found him unconscious at the docks near Persephone’s Gate. There was a pack of Shades coming and I didn’t want him to get eaten—no offense—so we took him with us. I couldn’t find him after the crash. I can only assume he drowned.”
“Charon cannot drown,” Shady says. He’s finished with my bandages and has started adding objects from his bundle to his pile. I can see now in the light of the torch that the heap is at least twelve feet high, and who knows how deep. “He hasss one of those.” Shady pats his clavicle. I’m not sure what he’s referring to, but before I can ask, he goes on. “It protects him from water. So he can do his job forever.”
“Charon can’t drown?”
The women of Elysium had told me I was alone when they found me. Tobin had disappeared, and Garrick had survived the crash and wandered off on his own. If the Key had still been there, Garrick would have taken it. I had assumed the old man had drowned—having been unconscious when the boat threw us out—but what if he’d been the first to recover? What if he took the Key? What if all I had to do to find it was find him? “Do you know Charon? Do you know where I can find him?” I try to stand but it’s nearly impossible on my own, the way my leg is tied straight with the splint. “Can you take me to him?”
“I can.” Shady grabs the torch.
“Good. Let’s go.”
“Can does nnnnot mean will.” Shady crouches down and scoops me up in one arm. “You must recover. You must stay in cave. Too dangerous.”
Shady carries me through the cave back to where my bed of flowers had been. I try to tell him why he needs to help me find Charon but it’s like he has turned off his nonexistent ears. He deposits me on the ground.
“Food,” he says, pointing at a pile of what looks like black turnips. “Blanket.” He points at another red cloak he must have brought from the chariot wreckage. “Keep,” he says, and points at the fedora I’m still clutching in my hands. “Stay. Be safe.”
He leaves the torch propped against the large rock I had been planning on bashing him in the head with. He starts to roll away the boulder that blocks the entrance.
“Where are you going?” There’s no point in trying to get up and follow him. It would take me fifteen minutes in my current state.
“Find herbs. I will make salve for your wounds. Hellrat venom issss deadly.”
“Venom?” I ask, frantically. “Am I dying?”
Shady makes a strange guttural sound. At first I can’t place it. Then I realize that he’s laughing. “You’re yanking my chain, aren’t you?”
He nods, still laughing. “Hellrats do nnnnot have venom. Sorry, I could not helllp it. The look on your ffffaace . . . Mortals are quite expresssssive . . .” He trails off into laughter.
“Great. My Shade thinks he’s a comedian,” I mumble, and then glare at him. “Aren’t I supposed to be your queen or something? Can’t I give you orders? Take me to Charon,” I say, trying to sound as queenly as possible.
“No,” he says adamantly. Some manservant he’s turning out to be. “You still need herbs. If infection sets in, that could beee as deadly as venom.” He rolls away the boulder and I can see a faint light behind him. It must be morning again. He turns back. “One lassst thing,” he says, and gently tosses an object in my direction. “A gifffft for yooou. From my colleccction.”
He slips through the opening and then pushes the boulder back in place. The object he tossed has landed a few feet short, so it takes me a couple of minutes to get to it. What I find is a cracked medallion with a broken chain. Possibly the same one from the pile I’d found earlier. However, this time, in the light of the torch, I recognize it. I’ve seen something like this before. Twice before, actually.
It’s a communication talisman.
And if Haden still has his—the one he’d found of Simon’s—this means I may have a way of contacting him. That is, if this thing still works.
I run my thumb over the crack in the medallion.