I frowned at it. In fact, it was the crow’s presence that finally allowed me to get out of the car.

  Morpheus tilted his head back and stared at me. “Save the realms.”

  I nodded at him.

  I didn’t say another word. In silence, I walked toward the graveyard. I was ready. I might not have the strength or the force of will or the understanding the other guards did – but I was here. And that was all that mattered.

  6

  As I approached the cemetery, fear rose within me. It was like it was some kind of picture book of my old life.

  Every time I’d stared at the gates and shivered – every time I’d driven past and felt as if cold hands slipped across my shoulders. All that came back.

  It wasn’t tempered by the fact I was now magical – that I now had the power to deal with the things that once made me afraid.

  The fear was raw. It surrounded me as I finally reached the gates. I stared at them.

  I fancied they somehow stared back.

  The crow was still there. He sat atop the left side of the gate. He stared at me then tilted his glossy black head back and cawed. The sound echoed across the graveyard. Hell, by the power of it, I swore it echoed across the city and then the rest of the world.

  I pressed my lips together. I nodded at it. I had no clue if it was my friend or foe, but I went with what my body wanted to do.

  It nodded at me too. Then it took flight. It flew further into the cemetery.

  “Here we go,” I muttered under my breath.

  I walked forward.

  I reached the threshold of the cemetery. Something stopped me. My old self rose. The old self that had crumbled over the past week and been remade anew. She reached up from the past and grabbed my shoulders, locking me in place. And she screamed in my ear that once I walked through there, there would be no turning back.

  I knew that. And it was the point.

  I shoved forward.

  As soon as I walked in over the threshold of the cemetery nothing happened. At least, nothing overt. The ground didn’t start to shake, the heavens didn’t open up, and ghosts didn’t rise up from their graves to sweep around me. But inside me, I felt something twitch.

  I took another step, then another. That thing within me continued to twitch more and more.

  I stared at the gravestones and crypts further off in the distance. It started to rain. I hadn’t been aware of the fact there were clouds in the sky earlier, but now as I tilted my head up, they flooded in from everywhere.

  As every fat, relentless drop hailed down, it felt like judgment.

  I took another step forward. I arrived at a row of gravestones. I began to walk down it.

  Thomas had said there would be a maze. Everything looked logical. I made it down the end of that row then saw another path to take. I took it.

  I took ten more paths like that, and it took a long damn time for me to realize that I was walking without knowing where I was going. I stopped, turned, and saw the gates. I headed toward them. But I couldn’t reach them. No matter how close they seemed, I could not get closer to them. My gut kicked as I realized I was already well and truly stuck within the maze.

  “Dammit,” I hissed under my breath.

  I rubbed my face and tried to figure out what to do.

  Thomas had also said that I would walk into a psychological maze and that would be far worse. But I seemed fine. I even slapped my cheeks and let my fingers trail down my chin as if I was somehow checking the integrity of my mind.

  There was nothing wrong.

  I continued to walk. I didn’t know how much time went by, but it took another 10 rows until I stopped. I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was just walking in circles. For a second, that fear flared within me until it dulled once more. I took another step then another. But once more, I walked without there being anywhere to walk to.

  I stopped on the top of the hill. I stared down at the rest of the graveyard. My fear tried to rise within me as it desperately attempted to tell me that something was wrong, but the rest of my mind pushed it down. Wasn’t the point of life to move forward, anyway? And yes, while some people genuinely got to progress, not everyone did. The majority of life, in fact, is simply putting one foot in front of another because that’s what humans are meant to do.

  Real progress is often confused for forward momentum.

  I knew all this. But it didn’t stop me from continuing to walk.

  At the back of my head I remembered something Morpheus had told me. I couldn’t afford to waste time. I didn’t know why.

  As I took another step, I stopped in front of an angel. Her outstretched hands were filled with rain. It dribbled down her cracked wrists. I watched as it trailed its way down to a puddle before me.

  I leaned forward and wiped the dirt off the name on the plinth. “Penelope Hope,” I whispered in a completely empty voice.

  I went to walk away.

  I saw another angel. I stopped. I cleaned the dirt off this name, too. “Penelope Hope,” I whispered again. This time I read the date. The death date was today.

  I got a few more steps. I stopped. I stared back at the angel. I looked at the name. Was that… was that name important to me?

  I rubbed my face. I shook my head and went to leave, but I stopped.

  Didn’t… didn’t someone important tell me not to waste time today?

  I dismissed that thought.

  I continued to walk. Unbeknownst to me, with every step I took, I lost more of my mind. I left my memories behind me, distributed through the graveyard like corpses.

  I started to feel more and more empty. I was just like a husk. Only one that could walk.

  I stopped again. This time there was a massive stone angel in front of me. If I’d had an ounce of reason, I would’ve appreciated that it was far too large for the cemetery. It looked more like some kind of political statue you’d get in a square in front of some kind of parliament house.

  I stared up at it.

  The thing was encased in shadow. As it ran around its form, I thought I could catch a glimpse of what was beneath if only I stared hard enough. I wanted to know what was underneath. But the longer I stood there, the emptier I became. It was like I was nothing more than a flower fluttering around on a wind it could not control.

  The statue moved its hand. I stared at it. I didn’t scream. I didn’t bolt back. I barely thought it was interesting. It moved its other hand. It started to pull itself off that plinth.

  “Second guard of the dead,” it said in this endless, powerful voice, “your end is finally here. You gave yourself to me. Within, you recognized there is nothing you can do. So submit.”

  As it pulled itself off the plinth, the statue became smaller and smaller until it was roughly the size of a man. It reached a hand out, getting ready to clamp it around my head.

  I just stood there. There was nothing I could be scared of, because it wasn’t as if I remembered what being scared entailed.

  The statue’s fingers sunk into my forehead.

  This flickering memory rose within me. It told me this wasn’t the first time someone had done that to me today. But… it was irrelevant, wasn’t it?

  I just stood there. I had nothing in me but this present moment. I had nothing to warn me, nothing to protect me.

  I started to feel something crack up inside me as the statue tightened his grip.

  Energy pounded from him into me.

  I stared at him. I started to shake. I fell down to my knees. My whole body quaked, but I simply smiled vacantly. I did not move to save myself.

  “After you, there will be no resistance.”

  “Resistance,” I repeated that word in a voice that sounded as empty as deep space.

  “The last of your shadow magic will flow into me. You will be the key that unlocks everything. The secrets of his soul will finally be revealed. He will not be able to resist me further.”

  “He will not be able to resist you further,” I repeated vacantly once more. But vacant ended as one word became stuck on my lips. “Shadow… shadow magic.”

  Those words grabbed hold of something deep within me. a spark. This tiny bundle of hope.

  I winced. It was like I was finally remembering that I should be in pain, and trust me, I was in absolute blinding agony. As the statue kept his hand clamped over my forehead and more magic sailed into me, I was being broken up on the deepest level.

  “Shadow,” I repeated, my voice breaking.

  “There is no point in trying to fight me now. You have no mind. You have no memories. You are nothing more than a husk.”

  I ignored what he said. That one word seemed to be the most important thing in my entire life. So I held onto it. I started repeating it over and over in my head. I used it like a chain. It corralled my mind, holding it in place. “Shadow,” I repeated once more. This time I only just moved my lips. There was nothing else I could do. My whole body was quaking under the force of the destruction ripping through it.

  “It’s over, second guard.”

  “Over.”

  Over…?

  Over?

  No. It would never be over.

  I… I had not come this far to give up now.

  That determined thought flew through my mind. It was the fastest most powerful thing in my head right now, so I held onto it. It started to pull me up out of the darkness that had surrounded me.

  “There is no point in fighting me, shadow witch,” Pyro snarled.

  … Because his name was Pyro.

  Pyro was attacking me. He’d almost killed me.

  I….

  I opened my eyes. I tried to jerk back, but Pyro simply grabbed my head harder.

  As true fear bolted through me and my memories rose up to fill my otherwise empty mind, I stared at his shadow. I don’t mean the shadows encasing his form. I stared at the tiny shadow right behind him. It was no bigger than a matchstick.

  I pumped all my attention and the last of my magic into it until he shook.

  It was only the slightest movement, but it didn’t have to be something massive. Jerking up, I elbowed him and broke his grip on my head.

  I thrust to the side. I rolled and started to run.

  Pyro screamed.

  As I fled, I encountered lines upon lines of gravestones that were exactly the same. There was nothing at all to differentiate them.

  Though I didn’t exactly understand what had happened previously, I could guess that mindlessly walking through this maze had destroyed my memories. Obviously there was something about it that sapped one’s will and psyche.

  But I couldn’t exactly stay where I was.

  I thought I heard the call of a crow. It was off near a crypt.

  As I ran desperately, tears trailed down my cheeks.

  I had almost lost, and the fight hadn’t even really begun. Everything was dependent on this, dammit.

  I reached the crypt. I threw myself around it. I pressed my back up against it. I waited. And I waited. I could hear Pyro. He called for me. He screamed. He smashed up stone angels in anger. But he did not find me.

  Still shaking, I pressed my hands over my eyes. I did not dare allow myself to sob too loudly. He would hear.

  Something fluttered above me. I inclined my neck up to see the crow. It sat on top of the crypt. I could only see one side of its glistening body.

  It had led me here.

  If the crow really was working for Pyro somehow, then Pyro would find me. But he didn’t.

  He continued to search. He smashed up the cemetery. But no matter how hard he looked, he could not find me.

  I remained there with my back pressed up against the wall. I shook badly. I cried so much, it was a surprise my body didn’t turn into the Sahara.

  But nothing changed. Pyro continued to look for me.

  I was safe…. But I wasn’t safe. All I was was paused.

  As I went to inch out of hiding, I froze. I reminded myself of how easily he’d attacked me. I had no chance against him. If I continued to run through this maze, he’d simply sap my memory once more.

  So I shrunk back into hiding.

  The crow looked at me. It didn’t caw. It didn’t really try to communicate apart from with its gaze. And that gaze was penetrating.

  I swore he begged me to let my mind turn in – to let it delve into the depths of my soul to find the secrets hidden within.

  But I did not have the time.

  Pyro was close. I shrunk further back behind the crypt. He didn’t find me. He shifted past. He destroyed everything in his wake.

  I didn’t know how many tears I’d cried now. To be honest, it was irrelevant – there were always more to replace them.

  I had come in here with such strength. Now it had completely disappeared.

  Would I just… stay here for the rest of my life? Obviously there was something about this crypt that Pyro was confused by. Maybe it wouldn’t last forever, but maybe it would. And maybe from now until the end of time, I would have to hide behind here, a hand over my mouth as I kept away from him.

  That thought had a chance to settle. But Pyro was close by again.

  Once more he did not find me. And once more I just held myself back.

  … But I couldn’t do this forever.

  It wasn’t just the fact that everyone and everything was riding on me. It wasn’t even that I needed to break my father free. It was that… I wasn’t built to hide in the shadows. I was built to seek them out and liberate them.

  I dropped my hands.

  I stared at my shadow. I remembered what Morpheus had said. In order for me to find out if Pyro was summoning himself through my soul, I had to stare at my shadow. I was the only one of the guards who could do it. But to do that, I needed a catalyst – an emotional path stronger than any other.

  I gazed at my shadow. It was only slight. It was dark behind this crypt. Most of it was shadow. It was hard to differentiate which bit belonged to me and which belonged to the rest of the graveyard.

  I continued to concentrate until I realized that was the point.

  Why differentiate shadows at all? They are simply occluded light. The larger the light source, the more shadows blend together to become the same unit.

  As I stopped looking for my shadow and just stared into the shadows themselves, I started to feel energy within me. It wasn’t this enormous surge – this massive spark. It was subtle – far more subtle than anything I’d ever encountered before.

  As I pushed a breath deep into my chest, I got down on my knees. I touched the shadow.

  A little magic spread from my fingers into it, but that was it. I was holding myself back. I always had. Though I’d accepted what I was, I hadn’t really.

  I’d always thought of myself as a fundamentally scared individual. All sorts of things had freaked me out in the past. Yet I had grown out of them over the last week. But had I really grown that much?

  Even now I held back. While I touched the shadow, I didn’t plunge my mind into it.

  Because I would be alone when I did. It would just be me and whatever spirit I found within. No one else in existence would be able to see what I could see. For the shadows were a fundamentally lonely place.

  A tear trailed down my cheek. It was just one. I was done crying in fitful hysteria at the fact Pyro was hunting me.

  I was aware of the fact the crow was still above me. Either it was watching over me, or it was just waiting for me to rise to my own defense.

  I didn’t turn my head up and stare at it. I touched the shadow. I allowed myself to recognize the fear that was still pounding through me. I didn’t open my lips and tell myself I could do this.

  It was dark. But the more I stared at it, the more I saw just a single spark from within. It wasn’t big, but it didn’t have to be. Shadows weren’t repositories for light. If anything, all they ever contained was a spark or two. They weren’t meant to be as bright as the sun. But they didn’t need to be. They were that which could not be seen but needed to be.

  I’d spent my whole life running from the shadows in my mind. They’d scared me. I hadn’t once appreciated the fact that they had wanted to be seen. They needed to be, in fact. There wasn’t anyone who could glimpse their depths and recognize the light within but me.

  I let out a breath. It came from deep within me. As it rose up my chest and shook out of my lips, it brought with it this unusual power that had been sitting within me my whole life. This energy I’d never been able to recognize.

  I opened my eyes again. I stared at the shadows. They were starting to gather underneath me. Where I hadn’t been able to differentiate my shadow from that of the rest of the graveyard previously, now I could. It seemed as if all of the shadows from the graveyard were flocking toward me to enter into the shadow of my body.

  I stared at them, and I smiled. I searched for Pyro.

  I told myself that even if he was there, I would not freak out. I would not turn away. I would see what was really there. He wasn’t. There wasn’t anything in my shadow but my shadow.

  I smiled.

  I rose.

  I could hear Pyro again. He swept close to this crypt once more.

  I could not stay here forever. I had to fight him.

  I couldn’t do that in this graveyard, though. I needed to head home.

  Scarcely had that thought traveled through my head did the crow hop around to the other side of the roof.

  I frowned at the guy.

  Though I’d been locked in hiding for God knows how long, now I confidently walked around the side of the crypt. Pyro didn’t suddenly find me and strangle me. But I did face an open crypt door. It led down to a set of stairs. As crazy as it sounded, I thought I could see a stained-glass window at the end of the stairs. One that depicted me.

  … Somehow this crypt was the gate point. The crow had led me here.

  I wasted no more time. I rushed down the stairs.

  The end was here, and it was time to embrace it.

  7

  As soon as I reached the base of those stairs, I faced off against a stained-glass window. I saw it for what it was. Me holding a scythe. The scythe was made out of shadows. Not glass – an active, writhing shadow.

 

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