to go.” He looked at me, eyes cautious. “What exactly did Gavin tell you about it?”
I shrugged, tried to recall the specifics. “Not much, really. Something to do with exile, right? I think Audrey mentioned you can go there to have the curse removed or something....”
“Yeah, that’s a part of it.” Joel sat quiet for a moment, sliding his glass back and forth between his hands. “It’s for those of us who’ve requested the curse to be removed. On the surface, sounds like a good thing, I guess.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Samira’s bound to send us there, if we sincerely request it. But it’s not without sacrifice, obviously. It’s a banishing, not a luxury vacation. For our desire to be lifted out of the cursed state, we have the privilege to live as a mortal. No bloodlust plaguing us, no more deaths on our conscience. A chance to be freed from the life we have to live here on earth. But in turn, we’re cut off from the world, from anyone we’ve left here on earth and we’re overseen by Samira herself—directly. For the remainder of eternity.” He looked up from his glass to analyze my face.
It took a second for it to sink in. “Once you’re in, you never get out,” I whispered, then stood to leave.
Joel nodded.
“You’re saying he’s never coming back. You brought me here to tell me he’s never coming back. None of them are. I can’t believe this.”
I darted away from the table, so angry I felt like I could punch a hole in the wall. Weaving my way through the crowd of swaying monsters, I moved swiftly toward the exit.
“Camille!” Joel’s voice boomed from the back of the building, and I knew in just a few seconds, he would be next to me. I had to move fast, had to get out of here. Now I was stuck in London with no way home, and no one to help. Panicked, I pushed through the front door with force, took a deep breath of fresh air. My eyes darted around the street, tried to focus, searched for signs of any humans. It was late though, and the alley was barren. Before I had a chance to hightail it to the end of the sidewalk, my body was whisked into the night, back into Gavin’s spare Maserati.
I kicked the dashboard with my feet, reached for the door handle, squirmed frantically in the passenger seat. “Stop it. Will you just let me go? I don’t want this anymore.”
He reached across me to hold the door shut, waited. My struggle was no match for his strength of course, so I surrendered, having recently learned that lesson.
“Camille, you have to listen to me. Running from this is not going to solve anything.”
“There’s nothing left to say. If you’re telling me he’s gone, then there’s nothing left to talk about. Every part of me I had left is gone now, do you understand that? Everything I just rebuilt—demolished. The ones I love are gone, and they’ve done nothing but betray me.” I slumped into the seat, wrestled with tears.
“You didn’t let me finish, and you’re not listening.” He released the door handle and sat back against the driver’s seat, sighed heavily. “I didn’t bring you here to tell you he’s not coming back. I brought you here to tell you his plan. He didn’t go to Amaranth just to confront Samira and lift his curse: He went to defeat her. He knows what he’s doing, and he didn’t lie to you about that.”
“How—?” My stomach churned. “How is that possible? I know nothing about this other world of yours, other than what you’ve told me. But I’m smart enough to recognize a stupid idea when I hear one. Attempting to defeat your ruler is downright stupid.”
“He’s not stuck in Amaranth until Samira grants him permission to enter past the gates. And he doesn’t just plan on barging in and fighting with her. He wouldn’t do something that careless, you know him better than that.”
I sat quietly, considering his words, and wrapped Gavin’s oversized suit jacket tighter around me to keep warm.
“Camille … what I brought you here to tell you is, this is worth fighting for. He has a plan. You don’t have to understand it right now, but if you stick around long enough, I guarantee you will. In time.”
I pulled my feet off the dash and slowly swerved in the seat to face him, bit my lip as I