Page 62 of Forgotten Monsters
I levitate a fire orb closer to the rusted door. A bronze, dusty insignia decorates its panels, and I walk closer to it. Using my sleeve, I wipe down the insignia to reveal a phoenix. The majestic bird roars with its wings spread on each side.
I turn to Cole. “Allie said Darkwood thought the hollows were protecting a powerful relic. What if whatever lies ahead could cure Flynn and the others? Lydia said I was supposed to get to the source of Dark Falls’ power.”
Cole paces the antechamber. “It’s too dangerous, Jules.”
“I need to see what’s inside.”
“Jules!” He leaps closer to the hollows. Too close. “I’m going to jump.”
“You can’t.”
He raises a brow. “Try me.”
“I love you, but I need to do this last part alone. You need to trust me.”
“I won’t let you run off to your death again.” Cole says, one fist knotted in his jet black curls.
“I love you,” I repeat, my heart torn in two.
“Damn it, Jules.” Vicious tremors rock me from head to toe as he slams his fists to the rock wall behind him, the pulse of his power palpable.
“Wait for me here, it’ll only take a minute.”
Blood pounds in my ears as I turn on my heels and slip past the rusted door. If someone can follow me inside Dark Falls’ hell without any concern for his safety, it’s Cole.
I need to hurry.
23
FATES
The fresh, dry scent of overturned earth tickles my nose. On the other side of the door, a natural cave spreads out in concentric circles. The architecture is a faithful replica of the Fae chapel beneath the Hawthorn, but instead of a black obsidian stone, the centerpiece of the cavern is the six-foot-tall statue of a king.
A crown of bones sits atop his head, his back hunched and his arms spread to the sky, as though he’s holding the weight of the entire world on his shoulders.
The statue emits only a faint light, and I build a fire orb to see better. A series of round pedestals spread around the brittle king in a spiral, and a tall, broken mirror stands right behind him. Shattered glass reflects the eerie white light that fills the cave.
A silhouette slowly detaches from a shimmer in the wall, and my heart skips a beat. A long white braid curls over the woman’s slender shoulder, her delicate nose and patient expression achingly familiar. Her appearance is similar to that of Cole’s father, the Fae King. He too was there in essence, but not in flesh, and possessed the same ethereal-ness.
“Beth?” I croak.
The woman presses her lips together and shakes her head.
I wipe a tear away with the back of my hand.
“I’m Amalthea, but it warms my heart to meet you, Julia Winslow. Beth lives in you.”
The shock subsides. Beth’s doppelgänger draws closer, and I notice her silhouette is slightly translucent, and the skirt of her Victorian dress doesn’t disturb the dust at our feet.
“You’re not actually here, are you?” I ask.
“No, but I felt your arrival.”
The layout of the room is similar to where Cole and I got married, and I clutch my necklace. “This place…it’s a hall of mirrors. Like the one in Faerie.”
“This realm’s Hawthorn was destroyed by the Fae King a long, long time ago. To get revenge for burning our most sacred tree and weakening our magic, the Earthly King—” Amalthea raises her hand to the statue—“created and unleashed incorporeal creatures upon his enemy.”
“Hemadethe hollows?” I stare down the statue again, wondering how one man could be powerful enough to craft a plague—an entire species of monsters—that survived him.
