Leviathan smiled. “You continue to impress me.”
“I’m not doing anything to impress you. I’m doing this to save my friend,” I retorted. I didn’t plan on ever becoming his evil queen, so he could stuff that.
“Nevertheless, I am pleasantly surprised by the warmth you are showing toward these creatures. And your ability to reach the crossroads you are at, without my assistance. In return, I will grant you a valuable piece of information.” He lunged nearer, coming disgustingly close to my ear. There, he whispered a single word: “Inwalla.”
My brow furrowed. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
“It will mean everything to you.” He pulled back, all smugness and arrogance. “It is how you will get the pixies to obey. They will understand every detail of your instruction. No more mishaps. No more accidents. It is an ancient word of the Primus Anglicus; the only word they will listen to.”
“Inwalla? That’s all I need to get them to understand?” It seemed too easy, and with Leviathan, that was never a good thing.
“Yes,” he said simply. “However, I would urge you to be careful. You are entering a perilous unknown. Even I know very little about the Door to Nowhere and the land beyond it. It is hallowed ground, and the spirits are uneasy.”
I saw an opportunity to give him a few home-truths. “But not because of me, like you implied. You said I was the one who caused all of this by opening the gateway, but that’s not true, is it? It opened because they built the foundations of the new wing too deep and stirred the gateway back into life.”
He pressed a palm to his chest. “More and more remarkable with every encounter. What a wonder you are.” His eyes twinkled, his angler-fish bulb flashing a sultry pink. I realized he might’ve made his earlier digs about my apparent uselessness to manipulate me. Bastard. “I know you have been worried. I have heard your fears. I wanted to see if you could bear the weight of such responsibility, and you did. You did not crumble. You feared you would, yes, but you did not.”
How does he know that? Dread bubbled in my stomach. I hadn’t told him it concerned me, though I supposed you wouldn’t have to be a genius to figure that out. And yet, his certainty made me nauseous. Could he… read my thoughts when we were linked like this? I suddenly felt very exposed and vulnerable, my mind open for him to scoop out the highlights. It set a dangerous precedent. If he’d listened to my fears without me knowing, then what else could he hear?
“I do not delve too deep,” he said, as though he had heard everything I’d just thought. He laughed, without so much as a hint of malevolence. “I skim the surface so I can sense how you are feeling. I would not intrude where I am not welcome. A person’s mind is a locked box that should never be opened, unless the key is given. I reach only for your emotions. I do so because I wish to know your state. I do not like when you suffer.”
“Then why play games, why manipulate me into feeling guilty?” I felt breathless again, panicky. He’d allowed me to believe that I’d been the catalyst to these kidnappings. If that wasn’t suffering, I didn’t know what was.
He sighed. “Truthfully, I did not know about the new wing until after we spoke last. I said only what I thought to be true at the time. And I would have remedied your feeling of guilt during this meeting, but you had already figured it out yourself.” His voice turned soft and caring, which unsettled me more than his cool-as-a-cucumber act.
I could hate Leviathan. Hate was easy because he’d caused me so much upset. But to think he might actually be on my side, trying to help me through this in his own twisted way… That was harder to swallow. He was trying to get me to stand on my own two feet, like I’d wanted. And that notion boggled my mind.
Crap, can he hear all of this? I peered at him, but he showed no sign that he’d invaded my private thoughts. Maybe he really meant it. The idea alone sounded insane: it suggested he had some sort of moral compass. But if he had read my mind at that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to resist a dig at my expense.
“What lies beyond that door is likely treacherous,” he said instead. “It is a mystery. No one has ever come back from it. So, you must be cautious. Do not be foolish and get yourself trapped there, too. Take pains. Gain insight. Have courage. Never try to be a hero, for heroes have a tendency to die gloriously.”
I nodded uncertainly. “Then I need to get back to the real world, where I can make a difference. Genie needs me, now more than ever. And I will figure this out, because that’s what I do, even if you ‘highly doubt’ it.”
He laughed and reached out his hand, pausing just shy of my cheek. “Ah yes, the Atlantean firecracker. By all means, return and rescue the wench. That girl has grown on me in recent years. She is a good friend to you. And you will need good friends, later…”
Before I could ask what the heck that was supposed to mean, a blinding pain tore through my skull, and the shadows and the box and Leviathan’s eerie eyes vanished. This time, at least, I knew where I would wake up.
Twenty-Eight
Persie
“Persie?” Someone shook my shoulders. “Persie? Can you hear me?”
My eyes opened slowly to the hazy glow at the bottom of the sphere and Boudicca staring at me upside down from where she stood on my forehead. Nathan loomed over me, his expression deeply
