Page 83 of Where Shadows Bloom

“She’s alive?” I asked.

“In a manner of speaking. Time does not pass here.”

That was all I needed to hear. “What can I do to bring Ofelia back? I will bargain for her. I will give you anything.”

The Shadow King touched a spindly finger to where his chin would be. “Would you take her place?”

“Yes,” I said. Despite her unkindness, despite our quarrel, despite her stubbornness, nothing made her deserving of a life drenched in darkness. She belonged in the sun.

“What a marvelous ballad that would be,” said the Shadow King with a sigh. He soundlessly clapped his hands together, and the candle wavered with the movement. “Sagesse knows how to perform the rite that will bring you here. You may speak to her in the Hall of Mirrors.”

“Hall of Mirrors?”

The god tipped his head like he’d misheard. “I created it recently. A punishment for your foolish king. A room where he can see the faces and hear the screams of those he sacrificed.”

A Hall of Mirrors. A room where the king could see Sagesse and—and Ofelia’s mother.

Ofelia had spoken of a place in our last words together. About the Hall of Illusions and a vision of her mother... that hall that the king kept hidden away, as if it was full of his shame—

“Your candle is dying, Lope de la Rosa,” said the Shadow King, his form flickering.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait—I need to know. Is there a way I can stop your Shadows from coming into our world?”

The Shadow King seemed to loom larger. “No. I have my reasons for their existence.”

Chills erupted across my back. I wanted to rage at him, to beg it all to end—but he held Ofelia’s life and her freedom in his hand. My fists clenched at my sides.

The Shadow King touched his hand to his head and swept in an impossibly low bow, nearly bending in two. “Until we meet again.”

I swept my coat off the end of the bed. My world had been turned inside out. I was heeding the words of a Shadow. I longed to return to that horrible golden palace. I was disobeying Ofelia’s orders. I was commandingmyself.

Come storms, come crowns, come gods themselves. With all my blood and all my strength, I would bring her home.

“King of Shadows,” I said, my voice confident and firm, “tell Ofelia to wait for me.”

23

Ofelia

When I lifted my spinning head, I was instantly aware of the strange, gritty sand clinging to my arms and my hands. My feet were bare except for my stockings—my shoes must have fallen off during my descent. I was lying on my side, and a short distance from me, Mother’s locket lay in the muck. I swept it up and cleaned up the front with my thumb, revealing theMforMarisol. Without thinking, without feeling, I hid it in my pocket and wiped my hands on my skirts. My hands were nearly white in the odd light from behind me.

I turned and found the moon—no, a massive, white crystal, glowing from within, from where it was suspended high, high above in a black void. Little white and purple crystals glittered around it like stars. And beneath them, pulsing slightly, back and forth, was a body of black water, extending far beyond what I could see.

Remembrance struck me like a blow.

I had been running through the gardens.

I had been running from my father.

“Ofelia, beloved of the king,” came a whispering voice from behind me.

My heart plummeted as I slowly turned. Standing on the beach was a Shadow. But it wore long black robes and a crown on its brow: a simple band of gold, with four long, threadlike spikes.

A king. A king made of darkness.

A scream was caught in my throat.

“Do not be afraid,” said the creature in that same everywhere-at-once whisper.

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