Nicholas frowned at me. “Gemma, where did you take us?”
“I-I already told you,” I stammered, my eyes locked on the fog crawling toward my feet, “we’re in the middle of the desert.”
“No, we’re not,” he said, following my gaze. “What do you see?”
“Nothing.” I said as a cluster of Death Walkers emerged from the glass doors of a nearby building. Stay calm. Stay calm. “Can we just go back to the house? Please.”
Nicholas watched me, the weight of his sandy eyes nearly burning into my skin. “You know whatever’s out there can’t harm you, right?”
I looked at the Death Walkers, the glow of their yellow eyes reflecting across the ice like fireflies, their black cloaks trailing along behind them with a swoosh. “Yeah…I know, but I…”
“You what?”
The Death Walkers were so close now that I could make out their faces—the rotting flesh, the bits of and pieces of bone showing through their skin like a corpse. The sight almost made me gag.
I blinked my eyes a few times, trying to blink us away, but it didn’t work. “Nicholas please,” I begged. “Take us back.”
Nicholas tapped his finger on his lip, glancing in the direction of the Death Walkers. “I don’t think so. Whatever’s scaring you, I think you should face it. It’ll be good practice for when we go to The Underworld.”
I glared at him, my heart thumping in my chest, which seemed to match the thumping of the Death Walkers march. The closer they got, the more the fog twisted around us, spinning in circles, clouding my vision in a menacing way. Closer, closer, closer they marched. I held my breath as they went by me, one by one, glaciating the air with their chill. My breath rose out in a puff, as my teeth chattered. I held as still as a statue, my muscles tensing up when one of the Death Walker’s shoulders went through mine.
“Gemma,” Nicholas said, oblivious to what was going on. “What are you doing?”
“Be quiet.” I breathed through my teeth, and then tried not to freak out when one of the Death Walker’s glowing eyes landed right on me.
I held my breath until they all had passed and disappeared around the corner of the street. I didn’t relax, though. I wouldn’t relax until we got the heck out of here.
I let out my breath, about to ask if we could go, but I stopped when I caught sight of someone else emerging from the building. Stephan. And beside him was Demetrius. Without even thinking, I jumped toward Nicholas, bumping my shoulder into his.
He grabbed his shoulder. “What are you—”
“Shhh,” I hissed.
Standing out in the middle of the icy street, I felt vulnerable with Stephan and Demetrius walking toward me. Demetrius’s Death-Walker-like cloak swished behind him, and Stephan, dressed all in black, held something shiny and silver in his hand…The Sword of Immortality.
“I wish you wouldn’t carry that around,” Demetrius said to Stephan. “It makes me nervous.”
“It makes me nervous when I’m not carrying it around,” Stephan replied. “It’s the one thing that could end all of this.” He gestured around at the frozen, desolate street.
“Yes, but who is left to get a hold of it?” Demetrius asked with a laugh. “The ice killed everyone off who was still left around.”
“There are a few Keepers around who might try.” Stephan held up the sword, twisting it in his hand as he examined it, the jagged blade hitting the light sharply. “Do you remember when Octavian made this after the vision was first seen?”
Demetrius laughed. “He was so convinced that if he created it, I would never be able to pull of what he’d saw. Too bad for him, he didn’t see you.”
“Well, that was the doing of my parents.” Stephan touched the jagged scar on his left cheek. “Thinking if they cut off the mark, it would change things—change who I was. But they couldn’t change the blood that runs through my veins, could they?”
The scar on Stephan cheek was a mark that had been cut off by his parents? I cringed at the idea, and then cringed again at the idea of what kind of mark would make a parent cut their child’s face just to get rid of it.
Stephan and Demetrius were close to Nicholas and me now, their footsteps hitting the ice with a dull thud.
“The Mark of Malefiscus is a gift,” Demetrius told Stephan. “My parents seemed to understand this.”
“Yes, but your parents weren’t Keepers,” Stephan replied bitterly.