Maybe so. But there had to be a way to turn back time. Rhys had done it, so it could be done. Luc would do it, too.
Ahead in the water, a faint glow caught his eye: swirling colors, like an underwater tornado, one that lay sideways instead of reaching for the sky. He surfaced once more for air, then submerged again. He didn’t even have to swim toward the colors: he let himself sink, let the weight of his sneakers and his sweatshirt weigh him down.
Then, once again, the water changed. It became lighter. He could breathe. At the same time, he lost control of his movements. The colors picked him up and spun him, and he found he was caught inside the spinning cycle of color.
The Crossroad was different this time.
Hostile.
The winds tore at his body, trying to rend him. Pain exploded in his arms and legs, and he couldn’t get his bearings. Things were moving too fast. He remembered a story he’d once heard, about people who drowned because they couldn’t tell which way was up.
The pressure on his lungs was so tight that he couldn’t take a full breath. But somewhere in the swirling chaos, Luc felt something solid beneath his feet. He got down on his hands and knees and crawled along blindly until he found the membrane-like walls of the Crossroad.
He wished he hadn’t lost the knife. He took the archer from around his neck and popped the tiny hinge. Luc drove the tiny arrow into the membrane and ripped downward.
It was a small opening, but he managed to push his hand through. He grabbed a piece of the membrane and ripped it open. The Crossroad shrieked around him and the winds picked up, gusts flying at him. He didn’t stop until he was able to drag his whole body in.
His vision grew dark until there were only flickering lights in the corners of his eyes. It was several minutes before he realized that the flickers of light weren’t only in his imagination. They were real. Sizzling flashes of light zipped over his head.
Immediately, Luc felt his blood grow thicker in his veins. It took tremendous effort to push to his feet and even more to draw in a breath. Up and down the tunnel the lights raced.
He trudged along, not even sure which direction he was going in.
It felt like he was making his way through quicksand, and each passing minute his limbs grew stiffer, as if he were turning into a statue.
Miranda was right.
The tunnels would kill him.
He had to find a way to turn back time, but how long did he have until the tunnel claimed him as its own?
There were so many wires—millions of them—it was impossible to tell which was the right one. His throat tightened, and for a second he thought he would cry, or scream. How would he know what to do? How had Rhys known? Rhys, who was always talking about love and unity and the importance of finding your Other. What had he said the last time Luc saw him? The path to righteousness goes straight through the heart.
“What does it mean?” Luc found himself shouting. “What am I supposed to do?”
Above him, the wires shifted again. From within the thick ropes of steel and copper, a new wire was revealed: thicker than his arm, different from the rest. Instead of bright white sparks along its length, there were red ones. Almost like blood flowing through a vein.
Another wire of the same thickness and weight was severed—buried under more layers of copper.
He had to try. This was it, his last effort.
If he failed, there would be no more. He had barely enough strength left to lift his arms over his head.
Luc reached up and grabbed an end of both wires with each hand. He tugged hard on the ends until he finally got them to meet, and a scarlet fire showered down on him. The tiny embers burned his skin, but he held on. The wire pulsed under his fingers like a heartbeat.
His shirt was soaked with sweat as he struggled to keep them together. A wind began to whip through the tunnel, and it buffeted his body, making it hard to hang on to the wires.
And the wires themselves writhed in his hands, as if trying to escape from his grasp.
The acrid smell of burning flesh filled his nose as the sparks rained down on him faster now. The air around him whooshed harder and