The Children of Wisdom Trilogy Read online

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “Neither do I, and I’ve already seen what’s in there.” I’m not sure my sentiment counts as encouragement, but he puts his hand on the door nevertheless. Despite the appearance of the heavy stone, it pushes inward without resistance.

  He’s right. What’s inside is horrible. Pure souls, ones that don’t belong in hell, are chained to the walls, crying and moaning. Some are not moving at all.

  I carefully push the stone most of the way back into its original position. I don’t know if it’s possible to seal us inside, so I can’t bring myself to close it completely, but I also don’t want to make it obvious we’re in here.

  When I turn around, I witness the moment Penn sees Kismet. Her hair is a knotted mess, and her bright green eyes have lost their sparkle. She was the most beautiful, shining thread he ever created. Even I could spot her brilliance among the millions of threads in the tapestry. She just stood out. But now her sparkle is gone, and she’s literally wasting away.

  “Kismet,” he breathes out as he falls to the floor at her side. She barely sees him. She’s looking at Andrew, who is much worse off than she is. Her true love, made by Penn to complement her perfectly in every way, is already becoming transparent in places. He literally looks ghoulish.

  After a quick scan of the room, I notice one soul is missing. “Nysa. Where is Nysa?”

  Andrew picks up his head at the sound of my voice. But his gaze lands on Penn, not me. His once blue eyes have taken on a sickly gray tone. There’s no spark in them anymore, and his gaze sends a chill down my spine.

  “Penn, is that you?” Andrew weakly says. “It’s good to see you.”

  Penn manages a genuine smile and claps his hand on his friend’s shoulder. I wince, not sure if it will pass through or not, but by some miracle, Penn’s hand lands firmly on Andrew’s spirit.

  “This wasn’t how I envisioned our next meeting.”

  Andrew scoffs, which ends up sounding like nothing more than a short exhale of breath. It’s almost imperceptible, but there’s a half smile on his face. “Yes, well, you always were getting me into trouble.”

  “Hey now, this isn’t my fault.”

  Kismet interrupts their banter. “Penn. You have to help him.”

  She looks at him with her faded green eyes, a shadow of their former beauty, and I can see his heart breaking before me. But he smiles at her anyway.

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  I hate to interrupt their reunion, but we need to get out of here. “Nysa, Andrew. Where is Nysa?” I ask again.

  “She faded away.” His voice is no more than a whisper. I know he’s not far behind her. But as I assess the others, I realize there are a few worse off than him.

  “She faded away?” Penn asks, clearly not accepting this is even a possibility for the souls inside. That would mean failure.

  As his message sinks in, my legs go out from under me, and I collapse near Andrew. “She ceased to exist,” I whisper, as if saying it quietly won’t make it true.

  “She what?” Penn looks to me for an explanation, comfort, something.

  But I’m afraid I will fall short. “Extinction is a kind of release for a soul who belongs in hell. It’s an escape from the eternal torture. But souls who are heaven bound should never face extinction. It’s the worst possible outcome. It’s what will happen to you if you’re discovered,” I say to Penn.

  He swallows and turns back to face Kismet. “I won’t let that happen to you.” But she still doesn’t look at him. He turns to look at the other sad souls chained to the prison. “Any of you.”

  Nysa spent the most time in the prison. Perhaps that’s why she was the first to dissipate. “Who did this to you?” I ask, hoping one of them will have an answer. “Who brought you here?”

  Andrew is the one who speaks. “I didn’t recognize her. Nysa seemed to know her, when she was still coherent.”

  “So it’s the same person? And she’s a woman? She’s not working with anyone else?”

  “From what we’ve been able to piece together…” He pauses and takes a deep breath, shifting his weight as if he’s terribly uncomfortable. Of course, he must be. A human year has passed while he’s in this position—arms chained above his head, a hard stone floor underneath him. He coughs a little before continuing. “She started out on her own, but she’s gained an accomplice. Someone like you, I think. He’s the one who brought me here. He was dressed just like you, Penn. Black and white.” He gestured with his head to Penn’s uniform.

  The missing Reaper. It has to be him. But is he helping her willingly? Still, we need to get them out. Now. That’s a question for another day.

  “What else do you know about this woman?” I ask, digging for clues that will help us find and stop her.

  “Like I said, Nysa seemed to know her. Said she’d met her at work. But the rest of us didn’t recognize her. I’m not sure Kismet even saw her.”

  Kismet shakes her head. “Just the one like you,” she chokes out. “He promised to take me to the right place after you left me at the gate of heaven, and I trusted him.”

  The last phrase cuts me to the bone.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to her, hoping she knows how deeply I mean it. But her soul seems incapable of receiving apologies just now. She’s returned to staring at Andrew, concern rolling off her like fog off a lake.

  And then something Andrew said makes me pause. “Nysa knew her from work?” I ask, but don’t wait for an answer. “Is she human?”

  “I assumed she was,” Andrew says, almost phrasing it like a question. He clearly knows Penn and I are different…and he knows the one who brought them here is different, but I’m not sure he comprehends what it means.

  I lean back against the wall next to Andrew. Human. It’s not something I ever considered. How can it be true? Humans don’t know about our world—let alone how to navigate it. One of us must be responsible…

  But if it’s true… It means a human has breeched our world in every way possible. It means she knows about the tapestry, and she’s learned how to cut threads. It means she’s either kidnapped or somehow gained alliance with a Reaper, and then reopened the prison of souls to keep her victims. These seem like herculean tasks for a simple human. There has to be more to her than that.

  “A name. Do you have a name?” I ask, but Andrew is done talking to me. His breathing is labored, and he’s hanging his head more and more. I look at Penn, concerned, but he’s watching Kismet.

  “Mara,” she says in a small voice. “Nysa repeated it often.”

  “Penn? Is she really human?” I ask.

  Penn scratches his head. “I don’t know. I need to think about it. I didn’t make her recently, that’s for sure.”

  “Was she an old woman?” I ask the room.

  “Middle aged, older than any of us,” a soul against the opposite wall answers. He’s even thinner than Andrew is, and I’m surprised he can speak at all.

  After a few beats of silence, Kismet finally looks up at Penn. “Have you come to save us?”

  “Yes,” he says without hesitation.

  But before he can free her, I hear a couple of demons approaching just outside the door.

  I motion for Penn to position himself as a prisoner, and I stand beside him. Both of us take care not to lock the shackles we’re pretending to use.

  The demon pushes the door open so hard it slams against the back wall, making a thunderous sound. Standing as still as possible, I say a silent prayer of thanks that no one was imprisoned behind the door. With any luck, he won’t look closely at my Reaper clothes—or Penn’s, for that matter. To be honest, after all our travels, my dress is torn to bits, and the colors are so dulled by dirt and dust, a cursory glance may not reveal us as Reapers.

  Hope is my only companion as the demon lingers in the room. From the way he’s looking back and forth, it’s clear he’s searching for someone, but whether it’s Penn, me, Webber, or the other Fates, I can’t be sure. Maybe
all of the above.

  Penn has strategically positioned himself between two souls, using them to hide most of his body from the doorway. The demon would have to walk right in front of him to see what he’s wearing or see his face.

  I’m all alone on my side of the prison, but before the demon opened the door, I tucked the skirt of my dress behind me, making it appear shorter, masking the distinctive coloring. I hang my head, only peeking out occasionally.

  After what feels like an eternity, the demon snorts and moves on, pulling the door closed behind him. As it slams shut, I breathe out a sigh of relief.

  “We need to get out of here. Now,” I say. But it suddenly occurs to me that most of them probably can’t walk. In fact, I think Kismet is the only one who’d be capable of it at this point. Maybe one other soul. But that leaves four of them for us to carry out of hell, including Andrew.

  I look at Penn, whose stricken expression tells me that he’s reached the same conclusion.

  “What do you want to do?” he asks.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think we can get them all.” Suddenly, I regret suggesting that the other Fates leave with Webber. If we had them, we could probably manage. Probably.

  Of course, there’s also the problem of how we’ll get them free of their restraints and out of this place. I make my way to the soul who seems the worst off. He’s so transparent, it seems like I could put my hand straight through him.

  He must be Jeff, the second soul who was taken. He’s hanging limply, barely conscious. He’s so thin that I wonder how the shackles are even holding him up.

  The keyhole on his shackles is small. His bindings are iron, so I search the room for a small iron key.

  “Penn, we need a key,” I say. He’s already fiddling with Kismet’s shackles, trying to release them.

  Kismet’s expression is forlorn. “It’s hanging next to the door.”

  Whirling around, I easily spot the tiny object hanging from a hook just to the left of the now-closed door. The way this woman has tortured these souls turns my stomach—so much so that I need to hold it with my hand for a moment as I retrieve the key.

  I curse myself for not seeing it the last time I was here. It’s small and unobtrusive, just above my own eye level. I have to reach up to get it. But still, if I’d seen it then, I could’ve saved Nysa. Maybe. Probably. I debate the possibilities in my mind as I take the key back to Jeff, who’s barely visible by the time I crouch down in front of him.

  The key gets stuck in his lock almost as soon as I put it in. The iron is old, and the two don’t fit together as they once did. But after some jimmying, I feel it click, and the lock springs open. I pull it out and swing the bar off his wrists.

  His arms fall lifelessly to his sides, and he looks up at me for a quick moment before he fades away right before my eyes.

  I feel like melting away with him. I’ve let another one slip through my fingers. The despair threatens to crush me as I sit back in front of the empty space the soul occupied moments before.

  “Michaela, we need to save the ones we can,” Penn says, trying to bring me out of my despair.

  But in that moment, I’m too horrified to move.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper to the emptiness in front of me.

  An alarm sounds before I can finish the sentence. It pierces my ears, and both Penn and I double over and cover our ears. The shrieking makes it difficult to think.

  I immediately know what it means. And judging from the look on Penn’s face, he does too. I imagine my own expression mirrors the terror he’s feeling. We say in unison, “The Cleanse,” although I can’t hear him over the shrieking.

  It must have been triggered when I unlocked the first prisoner’s shackles. And now, we’re sitting ducks. The Cleanse eliminates all intruders. It’s fast moving, and nearly impossible to escape. There are no first-hand reports of how it works, since no one has ever survived it, but I have a pretty good idea that it’s not something I want to witness. It has only been used two, maybe three, times in recorded memory. It’s a last-resort weapon, used only when the demons are most desperate to regain control of their home.

  “Penn, we need to go. Now.” He’s too busy fumbling with Kismet’s shackles to listen, but I have the key. His plight is fruitless.

  Quickly, I move on to the next prisoner, unlock her shackles with record speed, move to the next, and then toss the key to Penn so he can free the most tattered souls from the other side of the prison. The key clangs to the ground as I start hoisting the souls onto my shoulders. They’re not heavy, but it will still be a burden to carry them through hell fast enough to escape the Cleanse.

  As we free them, the souls seem to breathe a sigh of relief, as if simply releasing them eases their torture. One even manages a half smile.

  “Penn!” I yell. He grabs the key and starts to work on Kismet. “Not her! Get one of the others. We’ll come back for her.”

  The look he gives me tells me how much I’ve crushed him, but I’m not kidding. “Save someone from extinction, Penn. She isn’t even close. She’ll be safe here.”

  “No, you can’t leave us here,” Kismet pleads, breaking my heart even more.

  As the fire roaring outside becomes so loud I can barely hear his words, Andrew summons energy from somewhere and calms her. He is exactly what she needs, even now. “Kismet, we will be fine. They won’t leave us here. Our time here is limited now. Take strength from that. They will die if they stay here for us,” he soothes as huge tears pool in her dull, green eyes.

  Penn nods to his friend, a silent thank you, reluctantly snatching up the key and unlocking a soul a few spots down from Andrew. The key clangs to the ground.

  In that moment, I almost think we could take them. We worked so quickly, maybe we could do it. Then, I see the orange glow forming around the outer edge of the door.

  Anxiously, I adjust the souls on my shoulder. “We need to go. Now,” I shout above the flames licking at the door of the prison.

  It’s torture to leave Andrew and Kismet behind, but we have no choice. The Cleanse is coming for us. Penn takes one of my souls to lighten my load. I nod toward the door, but he glances back at Kismet. Hoping my exit will spur him to follow me, I run out the door with a soul slung haphazardly over my shoulder, bouncing along as I go. I can only hope I’m not causing her more pain. The temperature in the hall is noticeably hotter than it was when we went in.

  “Trial by fire,” I say to myself, but I can’t even hear my own voice over the alarm.

  I turn in the direction of the exit, but just as I’m about to start all-out running, Penn runs past me at an inhuman speed with a soul bent over each shoulder. I’m scrambling to keep up with him as a roar sounds over my free shoulder, making me look behind.

  A wall of fire licks at our heels and catches my dress. I resist the urge to stop and put it out. The flames kiss my legs, making them move faster toward the exit as Penn runs ahead of me.

  He turns and shouts something at me, but I can’t hear him over the roar of the flames.

  Just as I think the pain is too intense for me to continue, I finally see the gate. Only a little bit farther, I think to myself. I clutch the soul I freed, taking comfort from her, knowing I have to survive this, not only for me, but also for her. The entire bottom of my dress is gone, and I use my free hand to slap at it in a vain attempt to stop the flames from climbing higher.

  We don’t encounter any demons on the way out. They know the flames will destroy any intruders, so they’re not worried. Although a part of me is surprised they’re not here to watch us burn for sport…

  Perhaps the flames are too hot, even for the demons of hell.

  Penn throws his body into the gate, and it gives beneath his weight. We tumble out into the clouds and he kicks it shut behind us with his foot, sealing the Cleanse behind the huge black gate of hell.

  The flames extinguish as soon as my body hits the clouds, and for a few moments, we all just lay where we are, breathing in h
uge gulps of air. Pain radiates throughout my body.

  I try to move, but I find it too difficult. I want to make sure the souls we carried out with us are okay, but I can’t bring myself to even turn my head.

  “Michaela,” Penn says, but his voice sounds distant. I try to answer him, but it comes out as a moan.

  He scoops me up, prompting even more pain, and I cry out.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Stay with me. I’ll get you to a healer.”

  “The souls.”

  “They are fine. They’re safe. We did it.”

  We must’ve looked like quite the spectacle as he ran with my half-naked body through the heavens. I don’t remember much of the trip to the healers.

  When I wake up, my body feels completely refreshed in a way I haven’t experienced in weeks. But my mind is still in too much of a fog for me to put the pieces together.

  Galenia is in my room. Why isn’t she working? Horatia is there too. And Penn. And Webber. They found him. He’s okay.

  Despite the way Webber’s avoiding eye contact and crossing his arms over his chest, I feel like I could hug him.

  “Webber. You’re safe,” I croak out. The sound of my voice surprises me. It’s rough from disuse.

  He reluctantly turns to me and nods, a grim expression on his face.

  It brings all the memories screaming back to me. The prison. The Cleanse. Lily.

  Suddenly frantic, I sit up in bed. “How much time has passed? Did they take Lily?”

  “No. They’re still expecting you to do it. You were supposed to take her yesterday, but you weren’t really prepared to do that,” Penn explains. “They’ve pulled some strings and the girl is in a coma, waiting for you. Your boss came to see you, and the healers assured him you would be healthy enough to work in the morning.”

  “Ryker was here?” Panic sets in as I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and get up. “Did he see you, Penn?” I ask as I pace the room. “Does he know what we did?”

  “He did see me. But he didn’t seem to recognize me. Or if he did, he looked the other way. He does know you took an unauthorized trip into hell, but I’m not convinced he knows why. Once we got them out of hell, the souls were kept very secret, under lock and key. But I do believe he intends to speak with you about the whole thing later,” Penn answered.