The Eternity Key (37 page)

Just as the boat seems to be yanked out from under us, I hear Daphne’s voice ring out with the force of a banshee’s: “Let us go!”

The water pulling us under suddenly snaps down and then up, tossing the boat, and us, at the shore. I try to cling to the edge of the boat, but I topple out, hitting the water. I claw desperately around me, bobbing up and down, swallowing water, as I hear the boat crack against the shore. My hands find purchase on a plank of wood, and I cling to it as the current sweeps me away from the broken boat on the beach.

chapter fifty-eight

I awaken on the deck of a large ship and know from the smell of the river that I am in the Underrealm. My head throbs, and the darkness still pulls at me, but I refuse to let it take me again. Every muscle in my body aches. A searing pain radiates down my arm from my tricep. I try to sit up but find that I have been bound. My legs are tied together, my costume toga has been stripped off my shoulders, and my arms are crossed over my chest like a corpse, with my hands bound flat against my bare skin—the standard procedure for keeping a captive Underlord subdued. I cannot use my lightning power without blasting myself in the chest.

I roll on my side toward the sound of footsteps. My vision is blurry, but I recognize the leather sandals that belong to the men who surround me—they are the garb of the Court’s personal guard. There is some sort of ruckus, and another man is being pushed toward me. I had assumed Rowan was my captor and these guards his aides, until the guards thrust the man down at my feet. His legs are free, but his arms have been bound in a similar manner as mine. I cannot make out his face with my unfocused eyes, but I recognize his voice when he snarls at the guards: “This is treason!”

Rowan? Rowan is being treated as a captive?

“Rebind his legs,” one of the men commands. “Lord Lex will not pay if either of them escapes.”

A soldier stoops over Rowan with a leather cord, ready to follow the order.

“I am the son of the king,” Rowan says. “Unhand me now, or my father will have your heads!”

“Whether your father is still the king is yet to be determined,” the guard says, and he wraps the leather cord around Rowan’s ankles while two other guards hold him.

“What do you mean? Where’s my father? Where are you taking us?” he shouts as he thrashes against their hold.

“Don’t worry, we’re taking you to your father,” the voice of their commander says. “Both you and your brother will stand in the judgment of the Court alongside him.”

“Lex?” Rowan asks. “He’s done it? He’s staged his coup? And you treasonous harpies went along with it?”

“We serve at the pleasure of the Court,” the commander says.

The man binding Rowan’s legs laughs. “And the
payment
.”

Rowan spits in the man’s face and receives a swift cuff to the cheek as retribution. Rowan’s head snaps back, and he crumples to the boat deck next to me. My eyes gain some focus, and I see that his lip is cracked and he bears the marks of a beating. He must have tried to get away at some point.

“It’s your failure that brought this upon your heads,” says the commander. “Our orders were clear: if you returned through the gate
without
the Cypher or the Key, your father’s claim to the throne no longer stands. The Court will dole out the proper punishment.”

I start to gather what has happened now. Rowan must have
dragged me through the gate when I was unconscious, but without the aid of a communication talisman, he’d gone in blind to the coup. This troop of Lex’s personal cronies must have been waiting to ambush him. I realize now the fallacy in my original plan, not accounting for the entire battalion of soldiers waiting on the other side, rather than only a handful of guards. We would have walked right into their hands.

“So you’re taking us to trial?” Rowan asks the commander.

“We’re taking you to your execution.”

A guffaw of laughter ripples through the throng of soldiers as they turn away to their other duties. Rowan catches me staring at him. “This isn’t over,” he snarls at me. “Your failures will not be put on me.”

I glare at him, rather than respond. I wish only that my hands were free so I could wrap them around his throat. Any restraint I’d felt in the grove is gone. I want to kill him. If I get my hands on him, I won’t be doling out mercy.

I
will
kill him if it’s the last thing I do.

My arm throbs with searing pain, and a thought engulfs me with rage:
everything has been taken from me … and I have nothing left to lose
.

“She’s coming,” Rowan whispers to me.

“What?” I ask, my voice sounding slurred.

“Daphne will bring the Key to the throne room before the equinox is over. I told her to do so in order to spare your life.”

“You did what?”

“I told you I’d find a way to trick her into getting the Key for me. She’ll bring it right to the throne room for me. Father and I will get out of this. We’ll prove to the Court that his rule still stands.” I have never loved my brother, but, in this moment, I have
never hated him more. Like it’s the only emotion I’m capable of feeling anymore.

I won’t just kill him; I will make him suffer first. He will not win
.

Beyond the reedy scent of the river, I catch the floral aroma of pomegranate trees in bloom on the breeze. We are nearing the palace grounds. We will be face-to-face with our fates soon. I can feel the golden thread of my new destiny, the one I’d chosen for myself, slipping through my fingers.

“She’ll come,” Rowan says again, as if trying to reassure himself. This assertion seems completely irrational to me.

“How do you know that she will come for me?”

My arm throbs as if fire is ripping through it. Under the binding, I notice strange black markings radiating from a cut in my arm, as if black ink were spreading through my veins.

Rowan smirks like he knows something that I don’t. “Because I saw the way she looked at you during the play. She loves you, Haden.”

I have no reaction to his words. I feel as though I should, but I don’t. I try to think back on the play, try to remember Daphne’s face when we were onstage together. There had been one moment when I had been singing that she had seemed to look at me as if she was really seeing me for the first time.

Could that have been a look of love?

And if it was, why doesn’t it seem to matter?

Why don’t I care?

chapter fifty-nine

“Happy birthday, Daphne!” My mother’s voice rings out from behind me. The darkness blocking my sight disappears as she pulls her hands away from my eyes. “We love you, little sprout.”

A cake, with teal green frosting, pink rosettes, and sixteen candles, sits in front of me at our kitchen table.

“I decorated it myself,” Jonathan says, scooting next to me in his chair. “What do you think?”

“I love it,” I say. “It’s my favorite color.”

“It’s vanilla with buttercream frosting,” Jonathan says. “I used that recipe from the Food Network I’ve been dying to try. It is completely
divine
.”

“Yes, it’s delicious,” Mom says, beaming at me. “You must try it.”

She offers me a plate with a large slice of cake on it, even though I don’t remember anyone cutting into it yet.

“But I didn’t blow out the candles,” I say, and when I look at the table, the rest of the cake isn’t there. Just the slice that sits on my plate.

“Here, drink this with it,” someone says, offering me a glass of milk.

“CeCe?” I say. I didn’t know she was in the room until that moment.

“Uh, who else would I be?” she says, with a smile. Her hair springs out from her head like red coils, and she’s wearing her favorite
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
shirt. “Try the milk.”

I look at the glass she’s set in front of me. The liquid in it resembles milky water more than it does actual milk. I don’t want to drink it.

“Try the cake,” Jonathan says.

Unlike the odd milk, the cake looks delicious. I pick up my fork, ready to dig in, but something stops me.

“Go ahead,” the others urge. “Eat it.”

Eat. Eating. Something about not eating
. Something nags at the back of my mind, and the thought that I shouldn’t eat the cake sticks with me.

I put down my fork. “Can I open my presents first?” I ask.

Mom and Jonathan exchange a look. Like something worries them. “Okay,” Mom finally says. “You only turn sixteen once, and the birthday girl gets what she wants.”

I remember the cake again—those sixteen candles.

“Strange, I could have sworn I was seventeen,” I say out loud.

Another worried look passes between all three of them.

“Here, open mine first!” CeCe says, and I realize I am holding a small wrapped package. How did that get there?

“Open, open, open,” the three of them chant when I hesitate.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” CeCe says with her beaming smile.

I look down, and the box is already open. A delicate necklace bearing my name sits on the white fluff in the box.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asks again. “I saw it and had to get it for you!”

“Yes,” I say. “This is my favorite necklace.”

Is my favorite?
“Do I already own this …?”

“Now eat your cake,” my mother says, and the plate with the cake is in my hands again.

“Drink your milk,” Jonathan says, holding the glass out to me.

There’s a reason I’m not supposed to eat anything
.…

I drop the plate on the table and stand up. “Something is wrong,” I say, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Mom and Jonathan and CeCe crowd around me, smiling so brightly. I need air. “I need to go,” I say, trying to find the door. It strikes me that there isn’t one.

“Where would you go?” Mom asks. “Everyone you love is right here.”

“Now eat your cake,” Jonathan says, trying to make me take the plate again.

I thrust my hands into the pockets of my jeans. Something cold and metal touches my hand. I wrap my fingers around what feels like a coin. I pull it from my pocket. It’s large and bronze with the number 1 engraved in the middle with a triangle around it. An inscription at the top says,
TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE
.

Be true. Truth.

“This isn’t real,” I say. “None of this is real.”

Mom shakes her head. “What could be more real than being with the ones you love?”

But that’s what’s wrong with this situation. Not everyone I love
is
here.

“What about Joe?” I ask, holding out the coin. Something tells me this belongs to him. That he had given it to me. That it means something.

“Joe? We haven’t seen him in years,” Mom says.

But I know that isn’t true. “I just saw him.…”

“Come sit, eat, drink your milk, be with your loved ones.”

I shake my head. There’s someone else missing. Someone else I
love
 …

“Haden,” I say, casting about the room. “Where’s Haden?”

There is a reason he’s missing.… There is something I need to do. I need to think. I need to remember.…

“Drink your milk, and it’ll all be better,” CeCe says, holding it out to me.

“I don’t want the milk!” I swing my arm out, knocking the glass from her hands. It hits the ground and shatters, leaving a puddle that is nothing but water.

The others gape at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.

“Where am I?” I whisper.

“You’re in paradise, honey,” Jonathan says. “Your own personal heaven.”

I shake my head. That isn’t true. Nothing here is right. This can’t be my own personal heaven, because if it were, Haden would be here with me.

A door appears behind CeCe.

“Stay here,” my mother says, a new glass of milky water in her hand. “If you drink the water of Lethe, then you will forget whatever pains you. You can stay here in this moment and be happy forever.”

The water of Lethe—from the river of forgetfulness?

How do I know that?

“No,” I say. “There’s something I have to do.”

The door in front of me opens, light flooding in from behind it.