Page 51 of Merciless Prince
It hadn’t taken me too long to decipher the riddle in the Hellfire Club invitation. The first two lines seemed like generic ‘come find us’ stuff that wasn’t particularly relevant, and the last two seemed like a basic ‘don’t tell anyone about this’ warning.
It was the third and fourth lines that mattered.
I assumed ‘Alice’ was a reference to a song, book, movie, or celebrity, but I wasn’t sure which one at first. When I read the next line—I am inside you but you can also be in me—I initially assumed that it had to be a sexual reference, but I eventually realized it wasn’t sexual at all. It was referring to water. I could be inside it by bathing or swimming, but it was also inside my body at all times.
As soon as I figured that out, I made the connection to Mirror Lake. The Alice from the third line had to be referring to ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ by Lewis Carroll, which featured Alice from ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, and I knew ‘looking glass’ was another term for mirror.
When I put those two things together to form ‘mirror water’, it immediately made me think of Mirror Lake. Now, here I was, freezing my ass off on a dark path as I trudged toward it.
Several other people were standing in the middle of the parking lot when I arrived. They all looked around the same age as me, and a few of them were wearing Bellingham sweatshirts. Most of them looked nervous.
This was definitely the right place.
I walked up to join the group. They stayed silent, but most of them gave me tight smiles or dipped their chins in brief nods to greet me.
I glanced at my phone. It was almost eight. The initiation process would be starting soon.
A couple of minutes later, a new guy strolled up to us. He wore dark jeans and a Bellingham hoodie. “Sup,” he said, lifting a hand in a casual wave. “You all got an invitation, right?”
One of the girls next to me glared at him. “We’re not supposed to talk to each other,” she hissed.
“Oh. Right.” The guy shrugged and glanced at his watch before mumbling something to himself about almost being late.
I did a quick headcount. Altogether, there were eighteen of us standing in the parking lot. I couldn’t see or hear anyone else heading down from the main road, so I assumed that was the final number.
The sound of footsteps caught the group’s collective attention. We all turned to look. Eight people in red hooded cloaks and black Anubis face masks were heading toward us from the direction of the lake.
Judging by their varying heights, the new group was made up of men and women. There was no way of knowing anything else about them, though, because every inch of them was covered.
When they reached us, the tallest member of the group lifted a palm to greet us. “Welcome, initiates,” he said in a deep, booming voice. “I’m glad you all found the right place.”
“Please follow us,” chimed in one of the other cloaked people.
In silence, we trudged after the Hellfire members, exchanging nervous glances with each other. We didn’t go up the elevated hiking trail that Cori and I took last time we were here. Instead, we were taken down to a dark path that wound right around the edge of the lake.
About a hundred yards in, the path turned away from the lake and headed into the thick expanse of woods beyond. The trees were dense enough to block out the starry sky, and the air smelled strongly of moss, damp wood, and earth. All I heard around me was the creak and groan of branches moving in the wind and the crunching of pine needles beneath my feet.
“Hurry up,” one of the cloaked people called out from somewhere up ahead. I picked up my pace, but it was a struggle to follow the crooked forest path in the darkness. Unseen roots and fallen branches kept hitting my ankles, and on more than one occasion, one of the other initiates around me lost their footing and fell to the ground.
A rhythmic drumming sound suddenly filled the crisp air, and the path ahead became more visible as some distant light crept in.
A couple of minutes later, we arrived in a large circular clearing. It was lined with tall burning torches with eerie green flames, and a flat stone altar sat in the middle. Shadows hugged a series of poplar trees that stood behind the torches on the outskirts. It looked like they’d been planted in precise intervals around the circle, around four feet apart.
I looked around, trying to figure out where the drumming sound was coming from, but I couldn’t see anything. The red-robed Hellfire members hustled us all into the clearing and demanded we line up in three rows of six.
“This is so creepy,” one of the girls murmured behind me. “How are those flamesgreen?”
“Borax on the torches,” someone whispered in response. “Didn’t you ever take chemistry?”
“Shh! I told you, we aren’t supposed to talk!” muttered the bossy girl who’d told off the guy in the parking lot.
I knew the person who mentioned borax was right about the torches, but the first girl was right as well—the emerald glow of the flames made the forest clearing seem eerie and otherworldly. Every hair on the back of my neck had lifted, and my stomach was churning with unease.
The eight Hellfire Club members lined up before us, near the stone altar. Now that I was closer, I saw an array of silver skull-shaped cups sitting on the altar, along with a large silver jug.
The tall man who’d welcomed us in the parking lot took a step forward and lifted a black-gloved hand to get our attention. “Welcome to the Hellfire Club,” he called out. “You’re probably nervous and curious about our organization, so allow me to explain a couple of important things to you.” He started pacing up and down the group of initiates, dark eyes peering out at us from behind the Anubis mask. “Some of you may have heard whispers of our existence before, while others might not have heard anything. Most of you are aware of the existence of collegiate secret societies, though. Yes?”
I nodded, as did everyone else around me.
