Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,126

of little that could stop them. The better option would be to prevent this other mortal from reaching them.”

“That’s what we’re trying to do.” Ronan gave Charon a small bow. “Again, our thanks.”

“I settle my debts.” Charon inclined his head slightly. “Speaking of debts, do you continue to ignore messages sent by your brothers and sisters?”

Ronan went preternaturally still. “I’ve had no messages for a very long time.” His tone was icy. “I’m sure I’ve been forgotten. I’d prefer it that way.”

“You were never forgotten,” Charon said. His robe fluttered, as if he’d started to raise his hand but reconsidered. “When the next message arrives, pay heed to it.”

Before Ronan could respond, the train jolted, throwing us all off balance. Ronan’s ball of light went out. When he rekindled the light, Charon was gone.

“People come and go so quickly here,” I quipped. No one laughed, or possibly neither got the reference. Malcolm would have laughed. I missed my ghost.

We emerged from the tunnel onto a vast lava field. The air shimmered with the intense heat radiating from the rivers of molten rock. The train traveled well above the lava, and for once I was grateful we weren’t on the ground.

Tall pathways made of stone crisscrossed the lava, much like the trails through the ash in the previous realm. Though we couldn’t feel the heat, the way the air wavered indicated just how hot it was outside. How Mariela could possibly have crossed this plain on foot, or in anything but Charon’s ferry, was a total mystery.

As far as I could tell, we’d traveled in a straight line since leaving the mountains behind. As we reached the middle of the lava field, however, the train banked sharply, and I saw what waited ahead of us.

“Oh, holy wow,” I breathed.

Across the lava field, a great walled city stretched almost from horizon to horizon. The lava rivers stopped well short of the wall, forming a kind of steep, rocky beach. Enormous fires burned along the top of the wall, providing light all along its forbidding perimeter.

Beyond the city loomed absolute inky darkness. I recalled Ronan’s description of Edis: a city on the edge, the gateway to the deepest parts of the Underworld and home to a number of very scary things. Given it lay in an infernal region of the Underworld, I’d pictured a burning city in ruins, but it wasn’t—far from it. The city was magnificent, with soaring towers visible above the walls and enormous gates.

Something moved along the top of the wall near the largest gate: a dragon so huge it made the creature Lucy had wounded look like a house cat. It stretched wings the size of a jumbo jet’s and settled on the wall, keeping watch over the lava plain.

Esme climbed onto my shoulder and hissed in the direction of the dragon. “You would not even be a snack for that thing,” I told her. “Let’s not pick a fight with it, okay?”

She gave me a disdainful look and licked her paw.

“Edis is enormous,” Lucy said, standing with her knee on the seat for balance as the train banked again. “How will we find the Erinyes?”

“Charon said the sisters serve as ministers of justice. We’ll start at the city’s Great Hall, or the bar closest to it.” Ronan picked up a stack of clothing from the seat next to him—a stack that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He handed us each a pair of pants, a tunic shirt, and a hooded robe. “It will be damn near impossible for us to blend in, but we should try. No need to advertise we don’t belong here. They’ll figure it out soon enough without us marching in there dressed as we are.”

We changed quickly, Lucy and I in the front of the car and Ronan in the back. He faced the rear wall to give us privacy. I didn’t see him sneak a peek even once—not that I watched him change, of course.

All right, I did watch out of the corner of my eye, because I wanted to know who and what he was. I got no hints about his true nature from seeing him mostly undressed, however. His body was human.

I couldn’t say I was entirely disappointed in the lack of clues, given the visual treat of Ronan sans clothes. My heart belonged entirely to Sean, but there was no harm appreciating a work of art—and Ronan was most assuredly a work of art. Had he been on the