potentially deadly mistakes.”
I certainly understood what he meant. Dying was pretty much the last thing on my to-do list, given the fresh hell we’d been forced into by the Hermessi. Most importantly, I couldn’t bring myself to perish without at least saying goodbye to Caspian and seeing him again, one last time. No, I would not die out here. No way.
Something pink and shiny caught my attention. Another stardust stream, swelling and flowing in an endless spiral. It crossed the one we’d been riding for the past four or five hours, and it went in two different directions—each farther away from where our stream was going.
“Do we have to stay on this one stream?” I asked.
He must’ve read my mind. Before he even replied, Ramin swirled us both into a round cloud of luminescent sparks and jumped off the river of pink-and-orange stardust. For a few seconds, we were victims of vacuum, once more, until we drifted right into the other stream. From then on, our speed rivaled that of light itself.
“It’s a good thing to change directions, sometimes,” he said, memorizing everything along the way and passing it down to me.
Another hour must’ve passed as we continued our journey in an unknown direction. Only, this time, the ignorance was not permanent. I soon began to see something glimmering in the distance—something I’d seen before in my travels to and from Neraka.
Twenty planets. One sun. A thread of fuchsia-colored dust swirling around it like a protective barrier. The Daughters’ celestial magic, designed to warn the Eritopians of any incoming threat, natural or otherwise.
“Oh, my days…” I managed, nearly breathless.
“Eritopia,” Ramin replied. “I suppose the stars favor us today.”
“Calliope… Let’s head to Calliope. I just need some time to speak to our witches there, maybe even the Daughters. We’ll figure out a way to get me back without having you go back to Neraka—at least for a while, until we stop the ritual and break the Hermessi’s influence on the fae.”
We descended through the stardust stream, allowing it to swoosh us past countless other planets, until Eritopia opened up before us. The fuchsia-colored thread was made up of billions of particles of crystal dust. I could feel each one as we passed through it. The dust tickled senses I’d thought I’d left back in my body. Soon enough, we’d reach Calliope.
And I might get to save myself.
Vesta
Zeriel and my parents had come over to visit me in the sanctuary. I was still adjusting to the constant gut-wrenching feeling that their presence and their suffering gave me. I couldn’t stand watching them like this, but I couldn’t look away, either.
This time, however, they barely said a word to one another. And zero to me. I found the silence rather comforting. What more could they say, anyway? We all knew where our world stood. Three and a half million fae were affected by the Hermessi’s influence. Soon, it would be four million. Then five million, followed by the end, the greatest end to end all ends.
Seeley was present, as always, and he kept his mouth shut. I was allowed this brief comfort with the people I loved most in this world, even though I couldn’t touch them or tell them I was still here. The idea had been circulated among those present—after all, Vikkal had been clear: the soul is booted from the body, but we all die when the Hermessi’s influence is complete at five million fae. Of course, they didn’t know about the life-chains blackening, which I was pretty sure were, in fact, connected to the growing influence, regardless of the varied speeds with which they succumbed. I wondered if death would come with five million stricken fae or with all links blackened on my life-chain. Either way, it didn’t really matter, since I couldn’t communicate any of this to the living. They were still wondering where our spirits were, given that the Hermessi had yet to hit that reviled number. Were we still here? Were we perhaps asleep, with our physical forms, sealed inside the crystal casings?
I knew the answer all too well, for I was the living embodiment of a lingering spirit. I was also extra special, apparently, because I was one of the few who could see my Reaper. Seeley had referred to me as an anomaly, but I took it as a compliment. I was facing death right in the face, and I was in no mood to go. Without a body, I was also limited in