Page 21 of Veil of Monsters

I want to die.

ChapterThirteen

CALLIOPHE SPRITE

“Are you sure you’re well enough for this?” Posy asks me for the hundredth time today. She’s like a mother hen, constantly worrying, and I roll my eyes at her. “I’m ready for this, and I have been for a few days. Lorenzo is going to come into the bathroom looking for us in a moment if we don’t leave quickly.”

It took me two days to get out of bed after the fever broke and one more day for me to feel strong enough to stand up and do some training with Lorenzo and Posy. My fae healing has kicked in, and I’m back to normal. Better than normal because Emerson is always around, even if he hasn’t kissed me in a really, really long time.

Posy grins at me. “I wish we had a way to get to weapons. I don’t like only using our powers there.”

“They aren’t going to give us weapons,” I say, clicking the lock on the bathroom door and turning on the shower to make Lorenzo hesitate to come in here. “We promised them no more portals.”

“Yeah, well, that was a lie. I had a portal planned in my mind as I told them that. I’ve also been searching the castle for books on Junepit until I found a drawing good enough for me to see where I’m going. I don’t know anyone there, so it’s harder to make a portal,” she explains to me. “Come on, we have a kid to steal off the streets.”

“You make us sound awful,” I groan.

She shrugs a shoulder before holding her hand out, and the room grows colder as a portal slowly builds in thin air. “It’s true. We are lucky Louie hasn’t attacked Junepit yet. The last thing we needed to do was run around the city, looking for a boy while monsters are killing everything living. He’ll likely be killed before we even get there.”

The portal builds until it’s big enough for us both to go through, and on the other side, I see the sparkling city of Junepit. A big part of me can’t help but be excited to see Junepit. I’ve dreamed of this place since I was a little girl. I was told so much about the city where the goddess died. About how they built a temple in her honor around her grave, with a giant sword tipped high into the sky that water freely flows from. The City of Delights, as they nicknamed it. Yes. It has its dark side. There’s still slavery, and fae rule to an extreme. Ethereal City was better in the sense the fae pretty much left the supernaturals to what they liked, and they paid the mortals who worked with them. Here? No, they are slaves from when they are born to when they die, and they are not given their own money any more than their own freedom. “Ready?”

I turn to answer Posy. “Yes. Are you excited to see the city?”

She frowns at the question. “No. Why would I be? You couldn’t have seen much more than I have of the world.”

“Do you not like traveling?” I ask.

Posy steps closer, the wind blowing stray locks of her dark hair around her cheeks. For a moment, I wonder how much she can fight. Was she ever taught? This could be seriously dangerous for her if we need to fight. “Oh, I like traveling, but I’ve seen quite enough of big cities to last me a lifetime. I prefer somewhere quiet, in the middle of a forest, where the trees are more company than people.”

“I prefer a city,” I answer, and she smiles at me. We step through the portal together, straight out onto a dark sandy beach with the city right behind it. A few people openly stare at us, but I ignore them as I take it all in. Junepit reminds me of Ethereal City in a sense. They both start at the beach and then build upwards, so most of the city overlooks the sea, but it’s different. The base of Junepit City is a massive dug-out mountain that’s dipped in the middle where the majority of the city is built around the temple of the goddess. The buildings sparkle against the sunlight, all of them made with red sandstone that makes it look like the entire city is a giant sandcastle. It really is quite beautiful.

Fae children run down to the sea with boards to swim on, and I turn back, looking at the horizon where I see no ships. Louie will come from the sea, so they’re not here yet. “Where do we start?” I question Posy as the next part of this is down to her.

The rows of huts on the beach spread as far as I can see, and there’s so many people gathered just here. Most of them are surfing on the water or ignoring us completely, but the odd one or two are watching us. We don’t exactly blend in with our leather clothes, whereas most of them are wearing glittery, nearly see-through dresses and shirts.

Posy’s lips part. “I can sense him.” She closes her eyes. “It’s strange. It’s like tasting the forest when I reach for him. He’s like me, but different.”

I watch the endless city, all the way to the goddess statue. It’s far bigger than I ever imagined it would be. The falling water can be heard from here, and it catches the sun as it leaves the tip of the sword, casting rainbows across the cloudy sky. “How so?”

“He is like the salt of the earth, grounded and innocent. Good,” she remarks, her eyes still closed. “He’s only seven years old, and yet he is deeply distrusting of the world. I can almost read his thoughts when I focus.” She snaps out of it, shaking her head. “Weird magic, but it’s familiar. It feels like how my mother could speak to me. I could always sense my mom near, but I imagine being trapped in there somewhat inhibits the bond. When we were under the sea, I could sense my uncle there, but again I believed that the magic was trapping him. All of them share a connection. My uncle spoke to me in the test, only once, and he made it clear the blood between us was nothing to him. He wanted me dead and I was useless to him as a bat. This boy is different. I think he knows I’m here too, and I think he’s going to run.”

“Then lead the way,” I suggest, my eyes turning back to the sea. She might sense the demigod, but I sense someone else nearby too. I hope Louie doesn’t know I’m here too.

Posy nods before she moves, and I stay at her side, keeping an eye on our surroundings as we rush into the busy city. There are far, far too many people here when Louie’s army is so close. They are stupid to stay. I look up at the statue right in the middle of the pitted mountain, the goddess reaching tall with her sword. “There’s somewhere I need to go while we’re here.”

We skirt around some vendors who shout prices of various foods at us. “Now you tell me. Is it more important than the boy?”

The dream of the goddess flashes before my eyes. “Possibly. I need to go to that temple.”

Posy stops, turning to face me, her hands on her hips. “You mean the Goddess’s Temple? The one with this enormous sword of water falling from the tip of it that everyone visits, and it will be packed with people? That temple?”

I nod, and she sighs, rubbing her head. “I’ve lived with you for years, so I know it’s pointless to tell you this is a stupid plan. We’re not splitting up, so we get the boy, then we go to the temple with him. He might know a shortcut and actually be useful.”

We carry on, and Posy links her arm through mine, mostly to stop people pushing us apart in the crowds. “The Wyerns are going to notice we are gone when we take this long.”

I shake my head. “But they will remember us when we get back, and it matters more than pissing them off, but maybe we should hurry for different reasons. I sense Louie.”

Posy doesn’t hesitate to start shouting for people to get out of her way, and she is scary enough that they move. We quickly get near the main part of the city, and I’m surprised when we walk through, that there are no signs of slavery. The city itself is relatively peaceful, in the chaos of how many live here. We pass several groups of worshippers just praying to the goddess on the streets. We pass so many groups of families out together, blissfully unaware or simply not caring that death is on their shores. This city is thriving. There was so much freedom in Ethereal City, but it still was never as peaceful as this. “They are slaves, but they wear a smile and no chains like I expected.” I follow Posy’s gaze to some mortals walking by, holding shopping bags.

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