The Underworld (12 page)

necessary to go speak to Vladislav? I mean, if Alex

knew a way to get to The Underworld, maybe he knew

another way to find out if she was alive. Of course, I’d

had to use what Vladislav had told us about my

mother being the Queen’s slave for Alex to admit he

knew a way. But stil …maybe our little trip could have

been avoided.

Wel , I guess we had real y messed up on that one.

And now Laylen might end up getting hunted down by

a bunch of revengeful vampires.

“Jocelyn’s stil alive…in The Underworld…” Aislin

said. “For al these years?”

Wel , according to
Vladislav
, she is” Alex replied,

shooting Laylen a glare.

“He wasn’t lying,” Laylen assured him, standing up

from his chair. “I could feel that he wasn’t.”

“I already said we’d go try to rescue her,” Alex said

sharply. “I don’t need you to try and convince me.”

“I wasn’t trying to convince you,” Laylen said. “I was

just pointing out the fact that, despite what you

believe, vampires do tel the truth sometimes.”

“That might be true,” Alex replied. “But your little trip

out there also backed up my theory that vampires

can’t control their need to bite.”

“Wel , I can control my need.” Laylen took a

threatening step toward Alex.

“Yeah, but for how long?” Alex asked, taking a step

toward Laylen. “How long do you think you’l be able to

keep it under control before you lose it?”

“Can you two just stop arguing,” I cried out, startling

myself and everyone else in the room. Al their eyes

were on me. “The longer we stand around here

arguing, the longer my mom has to be down there

suffering. And the more time we waste not trying to

figure out what the heck Stephan is trying to do with

me and the star.”

They were al speechless for a minute, which

almost always happens when I make a big speech

like that.

“But how do we get Nicholas here?” Aislin asked,

fidgeting with one of her diamond earrings. “Isn’t

going to the City of Crystal the only way to find him?

And to do that don’t we need another special kind of

crystal bal that is hard to come by. I mean, the only

other alternative I can think of is to go to the Kingdom

of Fey, and see if he’s there. But he doesn’t spend

much time there. At least I don’t think he does.”

“Besides,” Laylen added. “Whether we end up

finding a way to enter the City of Crystal, or if we

decide to go to the Kingdom of Fey, both places are

not very accepting of unwelcomed visitors.”

“Kingdom of Fey?” I asked.

“It’s where the Fey live,” Aislin explained. “And

since Nicholas is part Fey, he goes there sometimes.

But I don’t think he’s very fond of it because…wel ,

because the fey can be…”

“Everything’s a joke to them,” Alex interrupted.

“Which means there’s a lot of running around in

circles. And it doesn’t matter because I’m not

planning on going to either one of those places.” Alex

caught my eye. “Gemma’s going to bring him here.”

“What…” I gaped at him. “
I’m
going to bring him

here? How am I…Oh…” I stopped as it dawned on

me what he was referring to. I was going to use a

good old normal crystal bal , which in turn would al ow

the Foreseers to know that I was using a crystal bal

again, something I’d been forbidden to do until I’d

been trained, and something Alex had promised

Dyvinius I wouldn’t use until I had. So if I used the

power of the crystal, Nicholas would show up here to

col ect on Alex’s promise.

“But if I bring him here that way then you’l have to

—” I started to say.

Alex shook his head at me, trying to get me to stop

talking.

“Have to what?” Aislin asked curiously.

I gave Alex a funny look, wondering why I couldn’t

say anything to Ailsin and Laylen about the promise

he’d made to Dyvinius.

“Then he’l be super annoying, just like he always

is,” Alex said quickly, taking me by the hand, which

threw me completely off guard. “Look, I have to talk to

Gemma for a minute about what’s going to happen

when Nicholas gets here, so excuse us for just a

second.”

Before anyone could respond to this, Alex was

pul ing me toward the door. Laylen and Ailsin

exchanged a perplexed look, which I’m sure matched

the look on my own face.

“What’s wrong with you?” I pul ed my hand from his

grip after we’d made it out of the room. “Why can’t I

say anything about the promise you made to

Dyvinius.”

“Because...” he glanced back at Ailsin and Laylen,

and then shut the door. “Ailsin wil freak out if she finds

out about it.”

“Why? How bad is it?”

“I told you that's for me to worry about.” He backed

away toward the stairs. “We need to get that bite

cleaned up before we bring Nicholas here. The less

he knows about what’s going on, the better.” And with

that, he headed down the stairs.

I sighed, trotting down the stairs after him. “But what

happens when he gets here?” I asked, fol owing Alex

into the kitchen. “Are we just supposed to ask him for

the Ira crystal bal and hope that’l he’l give it to us.”

Alex started opening up the top cupboards that

surrounded the cooking area of the kitchen. “No.

You’re probably going to have to do that.”

“Why would I have to?” I asked, wondering what he

was looking for.

“Because…” he bent down and opened the

cupboard below the sink. “I probably won’t be here.”

“Huh….Why won’t you…Alex what the heck is going

to happen to you when I use the crystal bal .”

He reached inside the cupboard and pul ed out a

first aid kit. “I told you—”

I cut him off. “Just tel me,
please
.”

He looked at me, and I looked back at him, the

electricity coursing al around.

“I’m just going to be gone for a little while,” he final y

said with a shrug. “It’s nothing major.”

“But you’l come back, right?” I asked, suddenly

worried I’d never see him again. Hmm…That was

weird.

He paused, considering what I’d asked him.

“Eventual y, yeah.”

As Alex patched the bite on my neck, his words

lingered in my head.
Eventually
. Eventual y, he’d be

back, but when? Did he even know?

I was sitting on the kitchen table, with my feet up on

one of the chairs, as Alex stood in front of me, patting

my neck with a cotton bal .

“What exactly do you mean by eventual y?” I asked

him, flinching from the pain. “’Just how long are you

talking about? And why wil you be gone? Can’t you

just break the promise?” I mean he was good at

breaking promises to me, so why not to Dyvinius.

He gave me a funny look. “You know, you ask more

questions than anyone I’ve ever known.”

I rol ed my eyes. “Wel , if you’d just tel me things,

then I wouldn’t have to ask the questions.”

He shook his head, trying not to smile. “Wel , I’m not

sure when I’l be back—there’s no time frame for what

I’l be doing. And I won’t break the promise because I

can’t. It’s binding because I made it in the City of

Crystal. It’s how things work—promises are

unbreakable when made there.”

“Wel , can you at least tel me what you have to do

while you’re be there?” I asked as he pul ed out a

square piece of gauze.

“It’s better if I didn’t.” He peeled off the wrapper

from the gauze. “Trust me, you’re better off not

knowing.”

It was bad—I could tel . “Wel , if it’s that bad then

why are you doing it?”

He took the rol of tape out, looking very

uncomfortable. “Because…as of right now it’s the only

way I can think of to get some answers.” He ripped

two pieces of tape off and tossed the rol back into the

first aid kit. “And also because…” He struggled with

his words as he taped the gauze to my neck.

“Because I’m hoping if I do, then maybe you’l start…

trusting me more. And perhaps…” He closed the first

aid kit, picked it up, and headed back toward the

cupboard where he’d gotten it from. “You’l forgive

me.”

He said it so quietly I wasn’t sure if he’d actual y

said it. Before I could get around to asking him to

please repeat himself, Laylen entered the kitchen.

“So I’m assuming you need a normal Foreseers

crystal bal to get this Ira crystal bal ,” he said to Alex

as he slid onto the table beside me.

Alex shut the cupboard and nodded. “Yeah, does

Adessa have one?”

Laylen nodded, and we fol owed him out of the

room to go get one. I couldn’t help but look at Alex,

thinking about what I thought he said—that I’d forgive

him. The more I thought about it, though, the more I

was convinced I’d misunderstood him.

After we got a regular old vision-seeing kind of

crystal bal from Adessa, we went into the now

cleaned up living room. Evidently, Adessa had used

magic to clean and mend up Laylen’s and Alex’s

mess. The shelves were back up on the dark blue

wal s, the knickknacks standing on them. The

apothecary table was no longer broken and the black

candles were topping it once again. And the crack in

the wal had miraculously been fixed.

It was real y early in the morning, and Adessa had

decided she needed to do some inventory in her

store. Alex had suggested to Aislin that she should go

help Adessa. I think he did it so that Aislin would be

distracted from the fact that when Nicholas showed

up, he would be taken away to the City of Crystal. I

couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to tel her, but there

was no use trying to argue with him. Whatever the

promise was, he wanted to keep it a secret from her.

While we had been getting things set up, Alex had

informed me that he stil wasn’t sure if this was going

to work. Al he knew was that Foreseers did have a Ira

crystal bal , which al owed them to travel to and from

places that people normal y couldn’t travel to—like

say for instance The Underworld—but he wasn’t sure

how it would work exactly. Al we could hope for is that

we’d be able to get Nicholas to tel us. For some

reason, I had a feeling that this was going to be tricky.

Faeries were tricky after al , so getting information

from one seemed liked it would be tricky.

The violet ribbons swirled and danced inside the

crystal bal , which was balanced in its stand on top of

the apothecary table in front of us. Laylen sat on the

one side of me, while Alex sat on the other side of

me. I’d put myself in the middle of them intentional y,

figuring it’d be best to separate them, just in case they

decided to get mad at one another again.

I felt a little afraid looking down at the glinting crystal

bal . I worried where I would end up when I went in,

and if I would even be able to get myself out. But we

were al taking risks here, and I guess this was mine.

Al I could do was cross my fingers, and hope that I

would return to Adessa’s and find a more than

cooperative Nicholas awaiting to tel me in detail what

needed to be done to get my mother out of that

horrendous place known as The Underworld.

But I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be nearly that

easy.

“Okay, so now what?” Laylen asked. “Gemma’s just

supposed to go into a vision and faerie boy wil show

up here and hand over this Ira crystal bal and then,

BAM, we’l just be able to travel to The Underworld

without having to get dragged down through the lake

by a Water Faerie?”

“Something like that,” Alex mumbled quietly as he

stared at the crystal bal . He looked at me. “Whenever

you’re ready, go ahead.”

I eyed the crystal bal warily. “Okay….” Wel , here

goes nothing. I reached for the crystal bal , but Alex

caught my hand before my fingers grazed the glass.

“You need to make sure you go somewhere safe,”

he insisted, holding onto my hand. “Just think of

something simple that might have happened in your

past. You have to be careful you don’t alter anything.

Or get yourself stuck…You do remember how

Nicholas got you out of the vision, when you went in

with him, right?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “He just blinked and we were out.”