might have been nice,” she muttered.
The river was wide and black as coal, glittering and swirling in a way that made her stomach twist in response. It looked cold.
“Warnings are unimportant,” Demian said. “You must cross the river one way or the other. Knowing about it in advance does not change that fact.”
Donna crossed her arms. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who has to get wet.” She glanced at him hopefully. “Unless there’s a bridge? Newton said something about a Wailing Bridge … ”
Thinking of Newton made her think of Nav, and fresh panic bloomed in her stomach. She still had to find him, make sure he was safe. And she still had to, somehow, get her hands on the tear of a demon. One thing at a time, Underwood, she told herself. One thing at a damn time.
A muscle flickered in Demian’s jaw. “Newton talks too much. The River of Memory and Forgetting does have a bridge, but it is not that which he named. That one is in the main part of the city.”
“Figures. So I have to swim.” Donna’s shoulders slumped. “I’m not a very good swimmer.”
“No,” Demian said. “There is a choice. You can enter the water and relive a forgotten memory, or you can walk across the Bridge of Lies.”
Donna searched the river bank, gazing longingly at the grove beyond it. “There’s no bridge. What are you talking about?”
“Look again.” He pointed, and as she followed the line of his pale hand she saw a crumbling bridge rising out of the water like a black spider.
She shivered. “What happens on the Bridge of Lies?”
“I cannot tell you. It is different for each person who crosses.”
“Will it hurt me?”
The corner of Demian’s mouth lifted. “Not many survive it.”
“But I’m dead anyway,” she said, trying to control her fear. “So I suppose it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
His smile widened, almost imperceptibly, but he didn’t reply.
“What about the river? How safe is that?”
“If you don’t swallow any water, you might yet live.”
“Fine.” Donna sat down and began unlacing her sneakers. “I was just thinking that it looks like a nice day for a swim.”
Twenty-two
Her feet were the first part of her to hit the shifting black waters of the River of Memory and Forgetting. She didn’t even look back at the Demon King—she just acted. Now was the time to rely on instinct. Time might operate differently down here, but she didn’t want to waste any of it. What if she did manage to get out? Who knew what time—what day, even—it would be back in her own world? All along, Donna had been determined to make amends for past mistakes. This was her chance, and there was no going back now.
As the waves crashed over her head and she became fully submerged, she held her breath and kept her eyes as tightly shut as physically possible … until everything faded away. The blackness of the water seemed to fill her, and Donna found herself able to open her eyes and look around. Not that there was much to see.
She was suspended in a vast space, cold and wet and tired—she was vaguely aware of those sensations, on some level of consciousness—and yet it also felt like this might be the closest thing to death she had yet experienced. She felt faint and dizzy, especially when she realized that she’d begun to breathe again without even meaning to. Despite being underwater, breathing was the most natural thing in the world. Keeping her mouth tightly shut, she tried to force her eyes to see something in those dark depths. A direction to swim in. A sign. A spark of light … something.
Her consciousness began to fade, but then a voice from her past forced her back to full awareness. Her father’s words echoed in her mind, strong and true:
“Run, Donna! Don’t look back! Whatever you hear, promise me you won’t look back.”
The last thing Donna remembered was the water tugging at her, the river taking her into its cold embrace and dragging her down, down into its shadowed depths, deep into the heart of the Otherworld.
Into the heart of Memory and Forgetting.
She watched the little girl with her father, surrounded by swaying trees and blowing leaves with the huge dark sky overhead. The memory caught in her chest, like her heart had snagged on something sharp and was slowly unraveling.
The night closed in as the images sharpened. Donna—grown-up Donna—pressed herself against a tree and