Page 62 of Broken Shadows

I catch the angle of his smirk before he turns his head to look ahead.Sure. I mean, I’d do it regardless. I do enjoy being the source of his terror.

How bad are these trials going to be?I ask as I watch Gideon place a good three feet between him and Ezra, who falls back to walk with Rosa and Aiden.

They’re intended to test new souls who are sent to the underworld. Except, we’re arriving in our mortal forms. Well, you are,he explains, then continues in a somber tone through our bond.Humans are usually dead when they arrive—with just their souls. The spirits are ferried across the river by Asher before entering the trials from the beginning. Evangeline’s gateways to hell will likely drop us in the middle of some trial, so it’s likely we won’t have to go through as many. I doubt she’d want to wade through hundreds just to make her way to the Human Realm.

A soft patter of rain drizzles onto my face and hair. I cover Gomez with my dark strands like a curtain, pulling my hood over my head, searching for pockets of warmth.

You think she visits the Human Realm?

I notice him shrug in my peripheral vision.Maybe. I doubt she can sneak away from my dad for long enough.

I pause, peering into the darkness as the abandoned mill comes into focus, its decrepit walls cloaked in the shadows of the trees, windows dark and hollow with vines choking the ancient stones forming what’s left of the building.

My magic vibrates the closer we get, and I spot another iron gate, this time less weathered and taller.

“Thank fuck,” Ezra says, sighing. “I’m ruining my shoes.”

Lorcan rolls his eyes. “We’re going to be dragged through the earth, fuckwit.”

Ezra leans closer to Aiden and Rosa and snickers. “He’s extra grumpy tonight.”

Ignore him,I command, unwilling to listen any more of their bickering. Partly because I have a headache, but also because their sibling rivalry and quips remind me of my relationship with Caden—of when I had a brother.

Gideon storms through the gate first, his sword glinting from the moonlight, still strapped to his back. His long, braided hair catches against dangling vines hanging from a low branch, that brush his shoulders like the fingers of the grim reaper.

Ezra goes next, followed by Aiden, then Rosa, who accidentally runs her fingers through a web stretching between two trees. She screeches, making Aiden and Ezra jump, her entire body rolling with a shudder.

“I’m done,” she exclaims breathlessly. “I need light.” Her eyes focus on Ezra as she places her hand on her hip. “Can’t you do something? You are a demon.”

Ezra snort-laughs. “I’m not a damned flashlight, Sugar. Just stay close. We’ll be there soon.”

My heart skips a beat when I reach the gate, creaking against a gust of air. The magnetic pull of the mill draws me closer, beckoning me to wander inside and join the lost souls of my ancestors.

My magic pulses as the violent energy of the Fallenmoore witches and their sacrifices bubbles around us. Except no one seems to notice except for me. Their ghostly desires knot with mine, and I’m suddenly nauseous and dizzy.

I whip my head around to look at the spirits watching me from the mill with charcoal eyes and smoky forms, like slow-moving tornadoes growing closer. They want me to go to them. They can sense my magic.

Lorcan’s voice is sharp and pointed when it arrows into our bond.Tell them to fuck off.

I flick my gaze to him, noticing how his black hair shadowing his eyes has curled against his forehead from the rain.

Dark lashes frame his intense, pastel-green eyes when he says aloud, “You’re alive. That means you are so much more powerful than them. That includes Evangeline or any of the demons or spirits in Hell.”

“Except for you,” I reply, focusing on him until the spirit's translucent, glowing figures fade from my peripheral view.

His boyish smile makes my heart leap. “I’m the exception. I was born a demon, not made into one.”

I blink twice, the moment holding us together with an invisible tether, until he locks his fingers with mine and pulls me toward the gate.

The second I’m through the gate, the nausea dissipates.

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth gates are unremarkable, and the ghosts and spirits don’t bother us again, as the wrought iron entrances emerge in the darkness along the long, winding path through the dense woods.

But the seventh gate is unlike anything else.

I hold my breath when we see it, shimmering in dark purple and obsidian as it appears out of thin air between two twisted trees, the bark on the trunk resembling skeletal beings trapped in time.

The spires on the top arrow through the canopy above.

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