He spins the crystal ball on the floor. “So who’s your father?”
Good question. “I’m not sure exactly.”
He quizzically raises his eyebrows as he slams his palm down on the crystal ball, stilling it. “You’re not sure? How’s that possible?”
“When your mother refuses to tell anyone before she gets trapped in The Underworld,” I reply dryly.
“So, for all you know, your father could have been some almighty and great Foreseer.” He pauses and a mocking grin plays at his lips. “Your father could be Dyvinius.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s disturbing. He’s like sixty.”
Nicholas shrugs. “You never know. Some girls have a thing for older guys. Like you and Alex.”
“He’s only a few years older than me.” I move my feet out of the way as the crystal rolls toward them. “And how can you touch that thing without being sucked into it.”
He presses two fingers to his temple, his lips curving upward. “Mental talent.”
I let out a slow breath, tired of playing games. “Can we just get on with this? The longer I’m up here, the longer my mother’s stuck down there.”
He stares at me blankly, cupping the crystal in his hand. “I want you to ask nicely first.”
I bite down on my tongue. “Pretty please.”
He drops the crystal onto the floor so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t break. “So, until we can get you going into and out of visions that you’re intentionally trying to go into,” he starts in a bored tone as if he’s done this many times. “There’s really no point in us trying to travel into The Underworld… 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 nod. “So how does it work, exactly? We enter The Underworld through that ball. Then what?” I lean back on my hands. “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 anyways?”
He shakes his head. “The Queen can’t keep us there—it’s the law that comes with using the Ira.”
“It sounds kind of difficult.”
“It will be,” he says matter-of-factly. “It’ll take a lot of power and control to pull it off, and I have no idea how you’re going to get the Queen to let your mother go.”
“Neither do I,” I mumble. “But I’ll find a way.”
He stretches his legs out in front of him. “Sure you will.”
“I will.” I stare down at the crystal ball only inches away from my feet. “So what do I do first?”
“The first thing that’s going to happen is I’m going to go into a vision with you,” Nicholas explains, sitting up straight. He holds out his hand toward me as he carries the crystal ball in the other. “Give me your hand so we can go into one together,” he says. With reluctance, I take his hand, his skin clammy and cold against mine. “Good, now we need a simple vision to go into. I think it would probably be best if you just thought of a memory. Maybe something from your childhood.”
That’s not simple at all. “Does it have to be from my childhood?”
“As long as it’s simple, it doesn’t really matter,” he says.
“Okay….” I search for something simple to picture, but all I can see are broken images and darkness.
“Gemma, place your hand on the crystal ball,” he instructs, growing impatient. “And channel your energy.”
A brief glimpse of my mother and me in a field flashes through my head and I reach out to touch the crystal ball in Nicholas’s hand, but I pause. “Wait, how do I channel my energy?”
“The best way is to use your emotions, despite what Dyvinius says,” he tells me. “It’s quicker and easier, so whatever you’re feeling right now, channel it.”
I’m a little surprised at his answer, and suddenly, I begin to wonder if the appearance of my Foreseer ability came from the fact that I’d started to experience so much emotion.
I do what he says and channel what I’m feeling, which is a combination of irritation, fear, and longing. As soon as my skin brushes the glass, I’m yanked forward into a tunnel of light. Nicholas clutches my hand and we sink and spin while it feels like I’m being ripped apart. Finally, we reach the bottom and I immediately let go of Nicholas’s hand.
I sigh in relief until I take in my surroundings. I’m not in my past, but I think in the future, standing on the main street of Vegas beside a massive pirate ship. The busy city is no longer busy, instead it’s dead quiet. A layer of glistening ice covers everything as if a million Death Walkers had marched through and breathed their Chill of Death on everything.