“Daphne!” I shout as she fades away. “Daphne, don’t go!”
It’s too late. The cave is gone. I am standing in the forest. Completely alone.
“Daphne, no!” I scream.
I collapse to my knees, gripping the talisman in my black-veined hand. I have to get her back. “Call Daphne!” I shout at the medallion. “Bring Daphne back!”
The talisman doesn’t listen. It sits lifeless and uncaring in my grasp.
“Bring her back!”
I throw the talisman against the ground. “You worthless piece of kopros . . .” Then I snatch it back up again, afraid I’ve broken it. I slide my fingers over its surface, inspecting it for damage. “Call Daphne,” I insist.
Electricity builds under my skin. I can feel it crackling around me. I fight the impulse to fry the talisman for its insolence. The problem isn’t the talisman, it’s me. I don’t know how to make it work.
I’m the worthless one.
Daphne is on her own because of me. She’s injured. She’s been captured by a Shade. “It’s going to kill her. She’s going to die!” I’m rocking on my knees, shouting at the talisman. “Bring her back!”
I let a surge of electricity build inside my chest. It surges up my arms. I place my hands over my ribcage. I’m the one who should suffer. I’m the one who should . . .
But before I can finish the thought, I am grabbed from behind. It must be Jonathan because Ethan crouches in front of me, looking like he’s about to spring.
“Leave me alone!” I shout.
Ethan lunges, wrapping his hands around mine and yanking them away from my chest as a burst of lightning escapes my fingers. The shock flings him away from me. He crashes against the base of a tall, quaking tree. Jessica runs to his side.
I’m rocking again. Ranting something about Daphne. Brim jumps into my lap. She purrs and meows. Normally her presence is calming, but even her soft touch racks me with guilt. I don’t deserve to be comforted.
“What in Zeus’s name is wrong with him?” Jessica asks.
“There’s black poison in his veins. It’s making him insane,” Ethan sputters. “He’ll hurt himself if we don’t dose him again.”
“I’m on it,” Jonathan says, his voice coming from behind me.
“No, I don’t want it.” I want to be miserable. I deserve to be miserable. Can’t they see that? I fling my arm back to knock Jonathan away. Someone else snatches my hand before it makes contact with Jonathan’s side. Brim sinks her teeth into my leg.
“It’s okay,” I hear Terresa say in a crooning whisper. She pets her fingers over my hand. “I’m here, my love.”
“Get away from me!” I try to pull away, but her grip is as strong as a griffin’s. A sharp pain catches me in the arm and I know it’s too late to stop them. Warmth rushes through my veins. After a moment, I feel a strange uplifting sensation. It’s not the same as the bubbling giddiness or the drunken heaviness that I experienced before.
A strength pounds in my chest, as if something were trying to break free—but it feels different than an electrical current. More like power.
I stand, shaking Terresa’s grasp from my arm with ease.
I look down at the others, all sitting on the ground. “Daphne needs our help,” I say. “Why are you all lazing about? We shouldn’t wait any longer, we should go into the Skyrealm now.”
“We agreed to wait until nightfall,” Ethan says, as if this were a logical choice.
“I will not wait any longer. Let us do what we came to do.” I scoop up Brimstone against my chest and hold my other hand out to Terresa. “You will take me to the Skygate.”
“Of course, my love.” She hops up and jogs to me. Her arm wraps around mine. “Just say the word.”
“Haden, wait,” Ethan says.
“Waiting is for cowards.” I nod to him and Jonathan. “Are you two coming or not?”
“Haden . . .”
“I don’t have patience for protests.” I smile at Terresa. “Let’s go!”
Terresa wraps her arms around my waist and then pulls me into a crouching position. She’s balancing herself on her toes. A burst of lightning explodes from her feet against the forest floor and then she and I are rocketing up into the sky. Wind whips around us, filling my lungs with air.
“Kalash!” I exclaim. I’ve always daydreamed about being able to fly, but this sensation is even more exhilarating than I could have imagined. “I had no idea lightning could be used this way.”
Brimstone, on the other hand, is not enthused by flying. She yowls and clings to my chest with her tiny claws.
“It’s okay, Brim. I will not drop you.”
I hear a second blast and look down to see Ethan, with Jonathan in his grasp, rocketing up after us. A third blast comes a few moments later, with Jessica hefting my unconscious father. The ground shrinks away under them, the forest looking like a scrubby blanket below us. This must be how birds see the world.
It strikes me that the height might normally bother me, but it doesn’t now. The higher we get, the closer we are to the Skyrealm. The closer we are to finding Persephone. The closer we are to saving Daphne.
“Can you take us faster?” I ask Terresa.
“Sure thing!” Terresa punches the air and our speed increases so abruptly that I have to cling to her so I don’t fall. She gives a laugh that I think is supposed to sound flirtatious, but reminds me more of a cackle. It makes me smile. Perhaps she isn’t so terrible after all.
“You must teach me to do this!” I shout over the sound of the wind.
Brim hisses in protest to this idea.
Our upward trajectory only lasts for another minute or so. Terresa slows and we come to a stop. We start to fall, hurtling downward, until she sticks her feet out and we land in a cloud. “Don’t let go,” she says as I loosen my grip on her arm. I tighten it once more, realizing that even though the cloud seems solid under her feet, it is nothing but water vapor under mine. “I might be able to teach you to rocket, but cloud walking is a Skylords-only trait.”
She shifts so she’s standing facing me, and places her feet under mine. She takes a step backward while indicating that I should move with her in unison. I probably look like a child walking on an adult’s feet, but I could not care less.
Ethan lands with Jonathan in the cloud beside us. “Can we wait for a minute now?” Ethan pants. Jonathan isn’t exactly a small man, I note as Ethan struggles to keep his father afloat—who seems a little less enthusiastic than me to be in the clouds. It’s probably been centuries since he lost his godly wings.
“I could use a rest also,” Jessica says, dragging my father by the wrist behind her through the clouds.
“No,” I say. “No more waiting. Take me to the gate.”
Terresa complies. As we sail through the clouds, I feel almost as if I were dancing.
From behind us, I hear Ethan ask Jonathan, “What exactly did you give him?”
“A shot of confidence,” Jonathan says, his voice wavering. “Only I’m afraid I may have given him too much.”