The Underworld (16 page)

fading from her hands. “There, it’s done.” She turned

to Stephan. “Now what do we do.”

“Now you and Marco wil take her to Afton, just like

we talked about,” Stephan said, seeming pleased.

Umm…How could they not be suspicious of him?

“And you’l make sure she stays this way.

Understood?”

Sophia nodded. “Okay, then.”

As they al gathered to leave, I watched Little

Gemma move robotical y as Sophia guided her out of

the room. I did not fol ow because I didn’t want to

fol ow. I wanted to go back and forget this ever

happened. But deep down I knew only one of these

things was possible.

I closed my eyes and wil ed myself to leave this

place. And before I knew it, I was being yanked back.

My eyes shot open and the first thing I saw was a

dark blue ceiling. Then Laylen’s worried faced

appeared above me.

What just…happened?” He spoke slowly as if he

was too terrified to speak.

I started to sit up, but he put his hand on my

shoulder, pinning me down. “Don’t sit up until we

figure out why you passed out.”

“I didn’t pass out,” I told him. “I went into a vision.”

Laylen’s eyes widened just like I knew they would.

“That’s what happens when you go into vision without

a crystal—you just black out.”

I nodded, and then came the voice.

The most annoying voice ever.

“So you went into a vision?” Nicholas asked.

“Without a crystal.”

“Ah, crap.” I didn’t even bother to say it in my head. I

lifted Laylen’s hand off of my shoulder and sat up,

dizzy and getting a total head rush. I blinked a few

times while I waited for the room to stop spinning.

“Did I hit my head?” I asked Laylen. “When I blacked

out?”

Laylen shook his head. “No, I caught you before you

did. You scared the crap out me, though. One minute

you were talking, and then next you were fal ing out of

the chair.”

“Nice,” I muttered.

“Nice for you,” Laylen teased. “But do you know

how difficult it is to catch fal ing dead weight.”

I shook my head and got to my feet.

“So you can go into visions without a crystal bal ?”

Nicholas asked with intrigued.

Nicholas knowing about this was probably not a

good thing. “No, I used a crystal bal ,” I lied.

“No you didn’t—I’d have known if you had,” he said

with a smirk. “But nice try.”

I rol ed my eyes. “Whatever.”

“So,” Nicholas said, marveling at me as though I

was the most fascinating thing he had ever laid eyes

on. “You can go into a vision without the help of a

crystal…fascinating.”

Even though Alex wasn’t here, I could picture him

giving me a twenty minute lecture about my stupid

mistake of letting Nicholas know about my uncommon

Foreseer ability.

“I guess,” I said, acting like it wasn’t a big deal,

when real y it was since a Foreseer traveling into

visions minus the crystal is a very unheard of—if not

completely unheard—thing.

“How long have you known you could do it?”

Nicholas asked with way too much interest.

I shrugged. “Not too long.”

Nicholas’s golden-eyed gaze practical y burned into

me, not in a bad way, but in a good way. Or should I

say a bad/good way, because the guy had already

shown way too much interest in me, and with the way

he was staring at me, I had a feeling that his interest

way going to increase. A lot.

“Do you know how rare that is?” Nicholas awed at

me.

I gave a shrug “I guess. I mean, Alex said there

might be one other guy that could do it.”

Nicholas’s eyes devoured me. “That other guy is

Dyvinius’s younger brother, who’s been a Foreseer

for a real y long time, and comes from a line of many,

many powerful Foreseers. He isn’t some girl who just

got her Foreseer’s mark only a couple of days ago.

Do you know how unlikely it is for anyone to be able to

do that…you would have to be…” He trailed off.

“Have to be what?” I asked, dying to hear what

came at the end of that. What if Nicholas knew

something about my little gift?

“Very powerful,” he finished.

Wel , crap. Powerful I was. Or at least I had a lot of

power flowing around inside me. But Nicholas was

not supposed to know this.

Play it cool, Gemma.
“Yeah, wel , if I am, then

that’s news to me.”

“Real y,” he said, and I could tel he wasn’t buying it.

“Yeah, real y.” Was al I could think of to say.

“So weren’t you supposed to be bringing back that

Ira crystal bal with you?” Laylen interrupted, in an

effort to sidetrack Nicholas.

“Yeah,” Nicholas said, his eyes stil fixed on me as

he patted the pocket of his jeans “I have it.”

“Wel , shouldn’t you get to work, then.” Laylen was

trying real y hard to direct Nicholas’s attention away

from me and my power, but Nicholas wasn’t having

any part of it. “I mean, I’m sure it’s going to take

awhile to train Gemma, or whatever it is you’re

supposed to be doing.”

“Maybe…” The way Nicholas was looking at me

made me want to crawl under the table and hide.

“Maybe not.”

“Regardless of how long it’l take, I think we should

get started now,” I told Nicholas. The sooner the

better, at least for my mom’s sake.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s get started.”

I was quickly catching on that Nicholas had the

attention span of a child. We sat down on the living

room floor, al Séance-style, sitting cross-legged,

facing one another, a regular, violet ribbon crystal bal

placed between us as he taught me how to become a

“better Foreseer” and control my seeing ability. But it

was going to take forever because he kept asking me

questions. Questions that I wasn’t sure how to answer.

“Why do you need to go to The Underworld?” he

asked, before we’d real y gotten anywhere with my

training.

“Um…” I hesitated, not sure what to do. Lie.

Probably not, since he was going to end up finding

out when he went down to The Underworld with me.

“To get my mother.”

He nodded. “I met her once. Didn’t she disappear

quite a few years ago?”

“Fourteen years ago,” I said absentmindedly, my

hands hovering over the crystal bal .

“And that’s where she ended up?” Nicholas asked

interestedly. “In The Underworld?”

“Yeah…” I stared down at the violet ribbons,

swirling inside the crystal. “That’s where she ended

up.”

“How?”

Crap. “I…a…I don’t know.”

I worried he would ask more questions, but instead

he picked up the Ira that was sitting on the floor to the

side of us, the moss colored glass sparkling

beautiful y when it hit the light.

“Wel , this should get us there,” Nicholas said,

twisting the Ira in his hands. “Just as long as we can

get you to control your Foreseer power a little bit

better, which shouldn’t be too difficult, considering you

can enter visions without a crystal bal .”

I didn’t say anything.

Nicholas tossed the crystal bal in the air like it was

a basebal . “So who’s your father?”

Good Question. “I’m not sure exactly.”

He raised his eyebrows quizzical y. “You’re not

sure? How’s that possible?”

“When your mother refuses to tel anyone before

she gets trapped in The Underworld,” I replied, with a

smal amount of bitterness because I wished she’d

have told someone. I mean, why did it have to be a

secret? Who was he?

“So for al you know,” Nicholas tossed the crystal

bal in the air again, and it spun so quickly that when

the light kissed it, it looked like a mere reflection.

“Your father could have been some powerful

Foreseer.” He caught the crystal bal in his hands and

let out a dramatic breath. “Your father could be

Dyvinius.”

I pul ed a face. “Ewe. Gross. He’s like sixty.”

Nicholas shrugged, his eyes glinting mischievously.

“You never know. Some girls have a thing for older

guys. I mean how much older is Alex than you.”

I glared at him. “First of al , I don’t have a thing for

Alex. And second of al , he’s only two years older than

me. I don’t think that qualifies him as an ‘older guy.’”

“You know your second reason kind of contradicts

your first. If you didn’t like him then why would it matter

whether two years was a lot or not.”

“I don’t like Alex.” I assured him, but my inner

conscious laughed at me.

“Whatever you say.” Nicholas balanced the crystal

bal on the black and white checkerboard floor. “But I

think you’re lying. And I think two years could be a lot if

you think about it.”

“How do you figure?”

“Wel , for starters he’s not even considered a teen

anymore.”

I rol ed my eyes at the sil iness of his reason. “Wel ,

how old are you?”

“The same age as you,” he replied, being evasive.

Faeries are tricky
. “And how old would that be?” I

asked, playing his game.

He smiled slyly as if he knew what I was up to.

“Eighteen, of course.”

Of course. “Can we just get back to you teaching

me, please?”

He stared at me for a moment with a slightly

irritated expression. “Sure, that is unless you want to

try our kiss again.” When I shook my head, he rol ed

the regular crystal bal —my “training bal ,” as he’d

explained to me earlier—toward me. I scooted back a

little, concerned that if it touched me I would instantly

be pul ed in.

“So, until we can get you going into and out of

visions that you’re intentional y trying to go into,

there’s real y no point in us trying to travel into The

Underworld because it’s one of the most difficult

places to get to,” Nicholas explained, final y getting to

the point. “One false move and we could end up in the

bottom of the lake, where we’d either drown or get

taken to The Underworld by the Water Faeries which

means we’d be prisoners there—we have to go in a

specific way or we’re in trouble. Got it?”

I nodded. “So how does it work, exactly? I mean we

enter The Underworld through that bal .” I nodded at

the moss colored
Ira
Crystal Bal . “Then what? I mean

how do we get the Queen to let my mom go? And how

do we get her to let us go? Wouldn’t we just end up

prisoners as wel ?”

Nicholas shook his head. “No. The Queen can’t

keep us there—it’s the law that comes with using the

Ira—part of the reason the Queen hates it so much.

We can show up whenever we want and leave

whenever we please. Of course, no one real y wants

to show up there.”

Law. I remembered Alex mentioning these laws

once—about him having to let Nicholas take me to the

City of Crystal.

I frowned. “This al sounds kind of difficult.”

“It wil be,” he said, not giving me any amount of

comfort. “It’l take a lot of power and control to pul it

off, and I have no idea how you’re going to get the

Queen to let your mother go.”

Whoa, neither did I. Why hadn’t I thought of this

problem before? I guess I would have to talk to Laylen

about it and hope he knew a way. “Okay, so to

practice for this extremely difficult task we’re going to

try and do, we have to do what exactly? Practice

going into visions through a regular crystal bal ? I

thought Dyvinius said going into visions could shift the

world or something like that.”

“If we don’t see the vision correctly, it could,” he

said. “But we’l have to make sure we do.”

This entire thing sounded so risky, and I wondered

if I was being selfish for taking such a risk to save my

mom. It could end up costing the world a lot if I

messed up. But my mom might have answers that

could save the world from whatever Stephan was

planning. So it was kind of a lose-lose situation.

I stared down at the crystal bal , the violet ribbons

twisting and turning in the sparkling water. “So what

do I do first?”

He tapped his fingers on his lips. “First, I think we

should take a break and get something to eat.”

I stared at him, unblinking. “Take a break and get

something to eat? We haven’t even done anything

yet.”

He considered this with an amused look. “Yes, but I

think it’s important that we eat something before we