Bound by Shadows (Kissed by Shadows Series, Book 2) Read online

  “Pest said the riddle changes every hour. We need to work it out. And fast,” I say.

  “And how do you suggest we do that?” Quinn asks.

  I shrug.

  “We just need to think about it. There has to be a logical solution.”

  I’m not sure I believe that, but I can’t let the team lose hope. Not now. Not when we’re this close.

  “Death,” Remy says suddenly.

  “Huh?” I say, turning to look at her.

  She stares straight ahead of herself, her eyes not leaving the words on the wall and her voice is strangely robotic as she explains.

  “It’s death. The beginning of everything and the end of everything.”

  I think she might be right, but the emotionless monotone and the way she looks straight ahead are scaring me.

  Regal glances over his shoulder.

  “It can’t be that. The island hasn’t appeared.”

  “But that’s the answer,” Remy insists.

  Quinn’s lips are moving as she rereads the riddle to herself over and over again. I’m torn between working on the riddle and trying to talk to Remy.

  Perry edges closer to Regal and I as we stand exchanging helpless glances.

  “Guys, there’s something wrong with Remy. I… ”

  Quinn’s excited shriek cuts him off.

  “It’s not death. It’s E,” she announces.

  “E?” I say. How can it be E?

  “Think about it,” Quinn says, turning to us with an excited look on her face.

  “Everything and eternity begin with the letter E. Time, place, and space all end with the letter E. I’m telling you, it’s E.”

  The letters before us flare brightly, and the flames lick around themselves and extinguish. I spin around when there’s a roaring sound behind us like a huge tidal wave is coming towards us all.

  The stretch of the sea behind us is covered in a carpet of red-hot flames. The roaring noise intensifies, and the water seems to be splitting apart.

  Suddenly, I can see it. The Lost Island of Kavan isn’t lost anymore.

  It sits in front of us, just over the water, but we have no way of getting to it. The flames are too hot for any of us to attempt to get underneath them and swim out to the island, and we can’t fly across.

  The water rolls up the beach in fast, angry waves, soaking us from the waist down. Luckily, the flames stay in place, or we’d all have been incinerated.

  As we watch, the water’s motion slows and returns to the gentle lapping motion it had when we arrived. The air above the flames starts to shimmer, and a bridge begins to form in front of us.

  I can feel my mouth hanging open in shock. The bridge slowly solidifies. It is made of what looks like human bones, and I feel a shudder run through me at the sight of it. Bones, long and short, thin and fat, merge in a macabre jigsaw puzzle.

  A large skull sits at the entrance, and I jump back when it begins to talk.

  “Congratulations, brave and clever one. You have unlocked the Lost Island of Kavan, and your reward is a safe passage to the island. But only one may cross.”

  “Why only one?” I demand, but the skull isn’t talking anymore.

  I sigh and step towards the bridge.

  “What are you doing?” Quinn asks.

  “I’m going to get the fairy dust. We’re running out of time on this quest, and quite frankly, I’m getting sick of Valerie calling the shots. I just want to get this thing over with.”

  “Atlas, wait,” Saudia says. “The skull said we’ve bought ourselves safe passage to the island. It didn’t mention anything about getting back. What if you end up trapped out there?”

  “Then figure out a way to get me back,” I say.

  I’m walking towards the bridge again when Regal steps in front of me.

  “We can’t risk losing you,” he says, his voice quiet and tender.

  Quinn frowns at him, and he clears his throat much too loudly.

  “What I mean is you’re the Seeker. You’re the only one who can complete Arken’s quest, and that’s the most important thing right now. So, you shouldn’t be the one to walk across the bridge. I’ll go.”

  “Regal, no. I—” I start.

  Remy doesn’t give me a chance to finish my protest.

  “Oh, screw this,” she says.

  She makes a run for it, and before any of us can react, she’s on the bridge. She runs across it, and I cringe as the flames lap at the bridge and narrowly avoid her feet.

  “Remy, be careful. The flames,” I shout.

  “I can’t feel them. The bridge is protecting me,” she replies.

  Now her voice sounds overly cheery. It doesn’t sit any better with me than her monotone did. I glance at Regal and see the same worried expression on his face.

  Remy reaches the other side of the bridge, and I’m just allowing myself to believe it’ll be okay, that there’s no catch, when she steps off it.

  The second she leaves the bridge it starts to rattle. Some of the smaller bones start to fall away, eaten by the flames beneath it. The rattling intensifies, and I know it’s only going to be minutes before the bridge is useless.

  “Remy, come back,” I yell. “We’ll find another way to get to Dax.”

  If she hears me, she ignores me. She’s already spotted the fairy dust, and she’s halfway up the tree.

  “Remy,” we all shout.

  Again, she doesn’t even glance back.

  We give up calling for her and watch in frightened silence as she scales the rest of the tree. She reaches out and grabs the vial and shimmies back down the tree. She turns back to the bridge, which is now shuddering so violently that it’s swaying wildly back and forth.

  Larger bones drop from it second by second, and holes are starting to form in its structure. Remy steps back a couple of paces and runs towards the bridge. She leaps on and keeps running, not missing a pace.

  The bridge swings more and more as though it’s trying to throw her off, but she keeps running, head down, arms pumping. As she reaches the halfway point, a bone drops out from in front of her, and she jumps, skirting the hole and landing with a bang that sends more bones skittering into the flames.

  The flames are getting bigger. They are no longer just burning at the edge of the bridge. They shoot up through the holes in the bridge and Remy has to zig and zag as she runs to avoid them. She looks down when a flame catches her lower leg.

  “Come on, Remy; you’ve got this,” Perry shouts.

  She’s three-quarters of the way back, but she’s still got a lot of ground to cover. The bridge is almost gone. She’s running along a single line of bone. She’s about twelve feet away when she hurls the vial towards us.

  Saudia snatches it out of the air and hands it to me. I push it deep into my jacket pocket and zip it up, leaving my hand over it. It would be such a shame if we lost it after everything we sacrificed to get here. The fact that Remy threw the vial tells me she doesn’t think she’s going to make it back.

  “Remy, watch out,” I yell as the bridge gives one final shudder.

  She’s about eight feet away, and she seems to sense this is her last hope. She bends her knees and leaps into the air as the last bones fall into the flames.

  She’s covering a good amount of ground, but will it be enough?

  She’s coming down fast, and I can see she’s not going to make it. She’s going to land in the inferno below her, swallowed up. Turned to ashes. Gone.

  Just as she is about to land in the flames, Regal reaches out and grabs her by one of her outstretched hands. He swings her up and onto the beach.

  I let out a long breath I didn’t realize I was holding as relief floods through me.

  Regal holds Remy at arm’s length and looks her up and down.

  “Oh my God, Remy, we almost lost you. You were so close to landing in the flames. I…”

  He trails off, the emotion overtaking him. I think I see tears shining in his eyes as he pulls Remy close and
embraces her. She stands there, stiff as a board, in his embrace. She makes no move to hug him back.

  He finally lets go, concern making him frown.

  “Remy? Are you okay?” I ask gently, walking to her side.

  She shrugs. “Sure. I’m fine.”

  I don’t like the way she sounds so robotic again.

  “You almost died,” I remind her.

  She shrugs again.

  “Whatever,” she says.

  She could just be in shock, but something tells me it’s more than that. I think Perry was right. There’s something very wrong with Remy.

  After the initial shock wore off, Remy seemed more like her normal self. She was still strangely robotic and emotionless, but not quite to the point where she was unrecognizable. As much as I want to find out what’s wrong with her and get her some help, now isn’t the time. I was conscious of our ticking clock at Valerie’s, and I was itching to get the vial of fairy dust to her so that we can move on.

  The team reluctantly agreed that we had to make delivering the vial our priority, and now, we’re all in our standard seating arrangement at Valerie’s house.

  “Well, I have to say you are all full of surprises,” she says.

  “How so?” I ask.

  “Well, for starters, I didn’t expect you to be able to find the island. Let alone retrieve this without dying.”

  She throws her head back and laughs as she brandishes the vial of fairy dust in front of her.

  “I almost wish I’d sent you to find me something useful,” she adds.

  “What do you mean?” Saudia asks.

  “Well, it’s not like I don’t have more of this stuff,” she says.

  “So, you sent us there hoping we’d die?” I snap.

  “You seem upset about that,” Valerie says.

  “Not at all. We love almost dying for no reason whatsoever,” Perry puts in.

  “So it would seem, judging by the actions of your friend Langston,” Valerie smirks.

  “How do you know about that?” I ask.

  Valerie rolls her eyes.

  “Well, let’s see; maybe because the whole shadow world is talking about it.”

  We exchange glances. Maybe everyone talking about it is a good thing. It might help Sadie to find someone who can help.

  “Leave Langston out of this,” Saudia says.

  Valerie glares at her, then shrugs and carries on talking.

  “So, once again you’ve all surprised me on how quickly you’ve completed the task,” Valerie says.

  She waves her hand and brings up the clock.

  “You still had over twenty-four hours left to complete this task. I’m impressed. You know I actually considered keeping you all here and making you my servants.”

  “I don’t think so,” Quinn snaps.

  Valerie holds up her hands in mock surrender.

  “Don’t worry. I know that wasn’t a part of the deal, and I don’t go back on my word.”

  “So, what’s next?” Regal asks.

  “Oh, I think you’ll like the next one. You don’t even have to bring it to me. You just have to have it. And no cheating. I’ll know if you’re trying to cheat me.”

  I do not doubt that that’s true.

  “Now, as I said,” Valerie says in an all-business tone, “I’ve constantly been surprised by how quickly you have completed your tasks. So, for this one, you have until midnight tonight.”

  “But it’s 3:00 p.m. now,” Perry objects.

  “So it is,” Valerie says with a sly smile. “You’d best hurry then. Your third task is to have your friend Langston awake.”

  “You can’t use that as a mission,” Quinn says.

  “Actually, I’m pretty sure I can,” Valerie says. “Are you saying you don’t want her awake?” she challenges.

  “No. I’m saying leave her out of this,” Quinn snaps.

  “But she’s already in this. She was part of the original deal.”

  “What if we can’t wake her up in time?” I ask.

  “Then you fail,” Valerie says.

  Her tone implies that she thinks we’re dense.

  “But… ” Saudia says.

  Valerie’s smile fades.

  “No buts. Atlas here made a deal with me. To give me her heart’s desire for the information she wants. Her heart’s desire is to have all of her team alive and well. So, that’s your task.”

  “Assuming we agree to this, how would we get the information from you? You said we don’t have to come back,” Remy says.

  Valerie’s smile returns.

  “Finally, someone who asks the right questions instead of wasting our time.”

  She picks up a black glass orb. She hands it to me.

  “When—sorry—if you complete the task, the orb will reveal Dax’s location to you.”

  I reluctantly take the orb and turn it over and over in my fingers. It’s smooth and cold.

  Like Valerie.

  “We need more time,” I say. “Waking Langston up isn’t going to be easy.”

  Valerie shrugs. “There’s a very quick way to complete this mission, and you know it.”

  “You’re not suggesting—” Saudia starts to ask.

  Valerie cuts her off.

  “That’s right; kill the human.”

  It’s official. I hate Valerie with a passion. I keep hearing her too-loud laugh, seeing her cruel smirk, and I want to reach into my mind and punch that smug look right off her too-perfect face.

  But I can’t do that of course. Because no matter how much I hate Valerie, we need this information. Without it, our quest will be over before we even find the second object, and as the last Seeker, I’m the last chance of stopping evil from infiltrating the earth and rampaging through it, killing everyone in sight.

  That’s too important to give up on, no matter how hard it might seem.

  We still don’t have anything that can help, but I’m still pinning my hopes on her coming through for us.

  We sit in the bookstore now, combing through every book we can find. Phone calls are being made left, right, and center as everyone calls up anyone who might be able to help us. It seems no one can.

  There’s one more person I can think to call: Pest. I’m reluctant to call him because I don’t want to be a nuisance. I’ve already called him for the last part of Valerie’s quest, and I’m starting to think he should have been made the Seeker instead of me.

  I also don’t want to call him because it means I have to think about Kane, which I’m trying not to do. I can’t let myself get distracted.

  With a sigh, I push my chair back and move away from the group. Saudia looks up at me, and I wave my cell phone at her. She nods.

  “Hi, Atlas,” Pest says as he answers my call.

  He sounds amused. “He’s still fine,” he says.

  “Thanks, Pest,” I reply, “but that’s really not why I’m calling. I assume you’ve heard about Langston?”

  It seems everyone has heard about Langston. Just no one seems to know what to do to help her.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Atlas. It must be hard to lose a member of your team. And especially mid-quest.”

  “Can you help?” I ask, hardly daring to hope he can.

  “I wish I could,” Pest says. “As soon as I heard about her, I started scouring all of my books on mixtures and their effects. I haven’t found anything that even hints that it’s possible to undo this.”

  I don’t know what to say. I feel like my last hope just died.

  “I’m sorry,” Pest says again.

  “Pest, can I do that thing with Langston? The thing I did with Kane?”

  The last thing I want to do is end up in someone else’s head again, trapped in their nightmare, but I’ll do it if Pest says it can work.

  “It isn’t the same. Langston isn’t trapped in a nightmare that by rights she should be able to exit. She’s trapped in a state somewhere between life and death. I guess you could call it limbo.”

 
; “But there has to be a way out. Otherwise, anyone could use that mixture as a weapon.”

  “It can’t be forced on anyone. The person who drinks the mixture has to want to make the swap. Their intention is what activates the power. Because it needs a person’s own free will for it to work, there’s no antidote, because there’s never been a need for one.”

  “But making an antidote could be possible?” I ask.

  Pest considers my words.

  “I guess it would be possible, but it would take years to develop.”

  “Oh, I’ve got it,” I say, excited suddenly. “The potion only works because the person wants it to. Right?”

  “Right,” Pest agrees.

  “So if we can make Langston want to deactivate it, then she’ll wake up. If we can convince her that the only way we can complete our quest is to have her awake, she’ll have to undo it.”

  “I don’t think that’ll be enough, Atlas. I’m not saying she doesn’t care about the quest, but her actions suggest she cares more about Drew. The only way your plan could work—and there’s only the tiniest possibility it will work at all—is to convince her that Drew isn’t worth saving. But she knows him far better than any of you, and you’ll have to come up with something huge to convince her of that.”

  “Thanks, Pest,” I say, and I hang up the phone.

  He’s right—the possibility of this working is tiny. But it’s all we have, so we’ll have to make it work.

  “New plan,” I announce when I walk back over to the team.

  “You have something?” Perry asks.

  I shrug.

  “It’s a long shot, but maybe. Quinn, Perry, Saudia. I want you three to go back to the house. Keep calling anyone you can think of. Quinn, double-check every mixture you have, every spell book you have. Keep in contact with Sadie. Remy, Regal, you’re coming with me.”

  “Where are we going?” Remy asks.

  “To see Drew,” I say.

  Drew is still in the hospital. The doctors there want to keep an eye on him for a few days, to make sure this really is happening. I guess to them he’s a wonder of medical science, a miracle. A success story.

  Unfortunately for us, this means they’re still treating him, so he’s getting stronger and stronger, which means Langston is getting weaker and weaker.