I set my jaw as I leveled him with a look. “No.”
A small twitch of his lip—perhaps amusement, perhaps irritation—was the only reaction my denial triggered.
“Are you sure?” The space changed again. I was now trailing behind Evangeline and Wraith as they crept up the stairs from the underground garage in Viggo’s place.
God, Evangeline! Why must you torture me like this? I chased after them as Wraith pushed through the door, as they entered the atrium, the destruction as vivid as I remembered it, right down to the heaps of charred bodies, to the cobblestone I’d torn up during my magical tantrum. Only now the pristine statue that had withstood more than a century, cocooning my sister, lay in chunks.
I didn’t get to spend long mourning that, given the other big difference in the atrium. The army of sorceresses. All staggered through the courtyard. All eyes locked on Evangeline.
All with flames at the ready.
They would kill her.
“Evangeline! Get out of there!” I screamed, knowing my words were heard by no one but the Fates. I watched in horror as she stole through the atrium quietly, heading toward the red doors. What was she doing? Couldn’t she and Wraith see the danger in front of them? I inhaled sharply when I realized that was exactly the problem. The witches had to be using a cloaking spell. They were walking straight into a trap.
“Evangeline!” I screamed out, stepping forward. The mirage fractured and I heard little crunches beneath my feet. I gasped as I looked down to find dozens of shattered worlds.
“Oh, don’t worry. Only four of those worlds were populated,” Terra confirmed, plucking the horror from my thoughts.
“That is quite the predicament your human is in,” Incendia goaded. I barely heard him. My mind was spinning in dizzying circles. How was this all possible? What was she doing? And how did she manage to evade every vampire and Max to get there? The wolves, I understood. They couldn’t smell her. But the others? Caden would never allow this! No, it couldn’t be real …
“It is real,” Terra purred.
I frowned, already shaking my head, playing the logic out in my head. “Then how did they make it into the atrium thirty seconds after being in the sewer?”
“Time means nothing to us,” Ventus explained. “You think you’ve experienced thirty seconds but really, it could have been five minutes, or five hours, or five days of your time. Regardless, I assure you, what you just saw is happening as we speak.”
“I don’t believe you,” I finally stated. “You’re trying to trick me.”
“Trick you? How? We’re simply giving you a chance! Think of it as a token thank-you for all your hard work and suffering.” Incendia’s thin lips curled. “Go ahead! Do nothing. In a few moments, none of this will matter anymore.”
I looked at Terra—my champion. She didn’t deny it; she didn’t try to convince me. She stood quietly. In that moment, I knew they were telling me the truth. All the turmoil that oozed out of Evangeline … it was over this, over burying such a deep, dark lie. But why would she?
Of course; because I would’ve stormed the place to save Veronique. Or Viggo and Mortimer would have. Either way, it was guaranteed doom. My little girl knew me too well.
“That is correct. Your Evangeline endured quite the internal struggle. She is stronger than we expected.”
“No shit,” I muttered. That girl couldn’t keep a secret for anything. How she had managed to stay silent on this was beyond me. But when Viggo discovered her lie … “Where is Viggo?”
“Do we look like an information center?” Unda retorted, her voice calm but nothing about her words were friendly. “We have agreed to grant you one spell. You can take advantage of that, or you can lose everything.”
16. Operation Veronique—Evangeline
My heart hammered against my ribs as I skulked along the fifth-floor shadows toward the Red Room. “I don’t get it. Where is everyone?”
“I agree. Based on the expected inhabitants, this is suspicious.” Wraith didn’t skulk. He stalked forward with a stiff spine, unfazed by the bizarre emptiness of Viggo’s place. Where my head almost rotated three hundred and sixty degrees, looking for hidden sorceresses in crannies, his dead blue mirrors stared straight ahead. No fear.
Since sneaking in through the underground garage, we hadn’t crossed a single soul. Hadn’t heard a step, a voice, a yell. Nothing. It was as if the place had been abandoned. Every fiber of me screamed, Get out of here! I ignored it. Not without Veronique. Not without Julian.
As we rounded the last corner before reaching the Red Room, a low sound drifted down the hall. A confusing mixture of dread and relief swarmed me. They were still here.