Enflame (Insight #6)(66)

“Why is the looking glass in your living room?” Marc asked in disbelief.

“One too many rings to be mocking that,” Landen answered.

“Not anymore. A few hours after you left, right when Stella and I went back to Esterious, another ring was added. It’s still under water, but it doesn’t look as solid as the others. Stella said she thought that it would be soon.”

“You built this?” Phoenix asked in dismay.

“Donalt did. He had the star.”

“He had half the map. I bet he thought if he had her energy, he would have the rest,” Phoenix said in disgust.

“I don’t understand this. Why do you need my blood?” I said with a shaky voice.

“Your soul absorbs your body, your blood. Your soul knows where you have been, what you have done.” He handed the dagger to Landen. “Just a drop on the top of it. Same time would be best.”

Landen took my hand gently and kissed my fingertips, letting his warm hum absorb me before he stretched my fingertips above the illusion. He pulled the knife between our fingers, letting drops of blood fall down on the illusion. Phoenix pulled the knife from his hand as Landen’s energy healed my wound before I could feel the pain of it.

As our blood rained down, it absorbed the illusion, taking everything out of sight for a second or two. When it became clear again, the planets on each side were still there, the wall was, the light, but now what I thought was The Realm was not before the wall. It was veining through the planets, around the strings. It caused one side of this to look almost completely dark. The other side was dimmer, but holding on. Through the light in the center, there was what looked like a crack, probably not noticeable to the boys. I only saw it because of my eye for art, detail. I also noticed that what was The Realm in the last image, the darkness before the light, seemed denser on the dim side.

“What does this mean? We are really losing now?” I asked the silent room.

“You could say that,” Landen said under his breath as anger engulfed him. “The Realm, the lost souls, has grown so massive that it is closing in on reality. The veil between the living and dead is nearly gone.”

“Oh, don’t be so downtrodden,” Phoenix stated. “It also says help is coming from the other side. Among other things that have been made apparent by Skylynn, Charlie Myers made it through that Fall, left his daughter here. Now we know how to track how we’re doing, so we’ve added a few billion souls to the list of people to save,” Phoenix offered, only to get a dismayed look from everyone.

Something was off about him. I was almost sure he and Landen already knew that something had made it through that Fall. What I didn’t know. But I had the notion, was that it had to do with me in some way. More importantly, someone else. Maybe the scarf girl. I should have added the question of who she was into my impromptu interview with Phoenix.

Marc was looking down at the sphere of energy. He leaned down to see beneath it. “These eight points line up with that light in the middle.”

“Sirius,” Phoenix and Landen said at the same time.

“The star?” Marc questioned.

With a blank stare, Landen nodded. “It’s the gate to the other side.”

“Why are we trying to get there?” Marc asked.

“Balance. We are supposed to move with each life, but we haven’t. It’s hurting us as a whole. If we are trapped here and fail, darkness will override one side and spread to the other...our destruction will come.”

“Why on Earth would the darkness want us to end as a whole? Why would it be that self-destructive?” I said in exhausted wonder.

Landen glanced down at me. “We rarely see how our actions impact us as a whole. We think we make decisions that will never hurt anyone or anything, that they are insignificant. But the truth is, every action has a reaction. This darkness does not want an end. It wants power, and it does not see that power as its death as well. The light is not much more innocent. They are defending themselves, thinking that by gaining over the darkness they will know when and where to stop. No one is thinking of balance.”

“We are, right? We can undo this, right?” I asked him as the hope that my sister would be fine began to fade.

“We know that we have a web of spells to undo. We know who we have to stop. We are stronger now that we starting to come together. Now that we’ve found the souls we were all looking for back when this began.”

Phoenix tensed, then looked away as what I thought was sadness engulfed him.

“You and I are talking about this later,” I thought.

“I’ll explain it a thousand times.”

“No, not this. Whatever is going on with Phoenix and his scarf girl.”

A ghostly grin echoed on his lips. “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

He sat down and pulled me next to him.

“Not when it comes to matters of the heart,” I thought.

I curled up against Landen’s humming body as I gazed at the illusion in the center of the table. All at once, the illusion collapsed and the necklace fell to the table. Both Phoenix and Landen glanced at the wall like they were watching something mysterious unfold.





Chapter Fourteen


The others followed their gaze, trying to understand what they were looking at. I felt compassion within Landen, but no reason for alarm.