An Isle of Mirrors (A Shade of Vampire #88) - Bella Forrest Page 0,89

in the same realm as Thayen and his crew, abducted by the clones. The worst-case scenario had them dead and stashed away somewhere in The Shade, but no one dared say it aloud. For good reason, too. Who would even want to imagine finding their child’s body?

These were difficult times. The only upside was that we’d seen enough of the clones and their methods to build up a more accurate profile. Derek and Sofia stayed close to one another, both concerned for Thayen’s safety. I couldn’t stop myself from trying to encourage them.

“Thayen’s more than capable of taking care of himself,” I said, then looked at Lethe, Zane, and the other parents present. “They’re all strong and resourceful. You’ve taught them well, and their will to live is strong. I have faith in your children, and I hope you do, too.”

Phoenix sighed heavily. “It’s not that we don’t trust them. It’s that we know almost nothing about the enemy they’re dealing with.”

And that was the real problem. We were facing an unknown that could kill more people than it already had. I wasn’t sure if Death would grant us more authority to support the Shadians. I wasn’t even sure we could get more Reaper boots on the ground here. I only knew that, for the time being, we had to make do with what we had, while hoping that Thayen’s crew and the other missing Shadians would be okay. The clones were masterful at sowing chaos and snatching people.

And their work, like Soul had argued, was nowhere near over.

Thayen

We spent a few minutes on this strange silvery beach, staring at a Shade that wasn’t ours. The more we stayed here, the weirder it felt. We certainly didn’t belong here, and we knew it deep in our bones. It was as if this replica island was telling us that we weren’t welcome. That being said, we had no immediate way of getting out of this place, and Claudia’s clone was still somewhere nearby, her strong scent teasing my nostrils.

“I think she went up that path,” I said, pointing to where we’d come from in our Shade. The trail was there, identical to the original but infinitely darker. Shadows danced between the giant redwoods—maybe bushes swaying in the wind, or wild animals, or maybe other clones waiting to catch us and tear our heads off. Either way, we would have to go through there.

“Well, since we’re here,” Jericho replied, only half joking. Astra had healed his arm completely, and she looked a whole lot better than she had twenty minutes ago, prior to the shimmering portal opening on the other side. She’d definitely been onto something when she said she could recharge herself, so to speak, in that passageway. There had to be some kind of energy that filled her reserves to the brim. It was written on her face—in her pink cheeks and vivid, almost black eyes. I found comfort in knowing we had her at full power again, because we were about to tread through dangerous and mysterious territory.

We could use all the magic and power we could muster.

“Come on, let’s go,” Soph said as she walked toward the path. We stayed close together, careful of everything around us. The deeper we went into the woods, the harder it became to focus on only one thing at a time.

The startling similarity was just one of the aspects that threw us off. The unsettling feeling that came with it was the second. By the time we reached the small clearing where, in the real Shade, Dafne and Jericho had fallen when injured by metal arrows, I realized that we were in way over our heads. Every single detail in this place had been modeled off our world, and each second we spent here made me shudder.

“If we consider this to be the source of the clones, which it most likely is, then we’ll need to be ready for an entire society of them, mimicking ours,” Astra whispered. She gave me a sideways glance. “Is Claudia’s double nearby? Do you still smell her?”

“Yeah, we’re on the right track,” I replied.

“I think Astra is onto something,” Jericho said. “Just like they infiltrated us, we’ll have to… you know, infiltrate them.”

Lights flickered somewhere in the woods to our right. We stilled, holding our breaths for a second before we hid behind one of the trees. Dozens of clones were coming through a shimmering portal, and similar glimmers could be seen farther still. Multiple portals