“I suspect a spell is at work,” I answered. “I felt something inside that ship, something odd that shouldn’t have been there. It was a spell, one conjured by an extremely dangerous practitioner—the elven queen. If she was involved, that may explain why you were having such horrible mental delusions and side effects from the lost memories. The elves used your knowledge of rocket mechanics to help them fuel their spacecraft, and then they stole your memories from you. They wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know where they’d transported the egg.”
“Yes, yes, the egg. It had something to do with the egg.”
“You remember something else about it?”
“It’s a hazy memory, like trying to recall something you saw a long time ago. It feels like I’m grasping at smoke. There was more about that egg than I remember, and I think the elves were trying to hide the truth from me.”
“If that’s the case, then how will you be able to remember?”
“I thought you would know.”
I glanced at my mirror. “We could try the spellcasting again. But this time, I want you to focus on the lost memories, the ones you didn’t see just now. Maybe that will help. I will warn you, though, I’ve never done anything like this. I don’t know how safe this is.”
Zack breathed deeply. “Let’s try it.”
He knelt by the mirror once again. I held the egg on the chain, letting my magic flow into the stone. With the second spellcasting, a wave of dizziness washed over me and I felt my energy being drained from my body.
“Are you all right?” Zack asked.
“Just a little dizzy. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready, but are you sure about this? You look very pale. Maybe you should rest. We can pick this up tomorrow after the doctors have looked you over. You took a nasty blow to the head.”
If only I could make him understand how dire the situation was. My stepfather would die if I didn’t get that egg back. It didn’t matter how I felt at the moment. I could rest later. But once Silvestra killed my stepfather, I would never be able to get him back. No amount of begging or pleading would save him once she’d killed him, and the frightening thing was—I knew Silvestra would do it. She was too proud and too precise not to follow through with her threats.
I pushed away my panic to stare at the mirror’s surface, coming face to face with the desperation reflected in my own eyes. Glancing away from the screen, I focused on Zack.
“I can’t rest now,” I said. “Please understand when I say this is the most important thing you may ever do. If you help me retrieve that egg, you’ll be saving more than just my stepfather. You’ll be saving an entire kingdom—an entire world.”
He studied me a moment, then reached for the screen and placed his palm on the glass. I touched my own hand to the screen, keeping the egg between the mirror and my hand, letting the magic absorb all the energy from us, when the world faded around us, the light dimmed, and an uncontrollable shiver of fear raced down my spine.
We stood in a dark, cavernous room. Sounds of dripping water echoed through the stale air. The smell of damp earth filled the room, and the chill air prickled my skin. Usually, the memories didn’t replay with such clarity, making me wonder if we’d entered a memory at all.
Zack stood beside me, his eyes wide as he took a step forward. We stood on a balcony overlooking the room below. Beneath us was a circular platform. Fanning away from the raised area, I counted seven ornately carved coffins.
Seven coffins. Like the seven Madralorde brothers.
A magical presence pushed against my own, forcing itself against my skull, a gradual pressure that slowly increased. I rubbed my temples as I tried to concentrate on the scene unfolding beneath us.
I counted four elves gathered in the room and recognized one of them as Queen Euralysia. She wore dull gray robes, and unlike the first time I’d met her, she looked aged and sickly. The color had drained from her cheeks, and her limp hair was more gray than golden.
An elven man with red hair and pale white skin also stood in the room. He had an unusually thin frame, even for an elf, and he moved slowly, as if it pained him to walk. I was certain I’d seen him before, but couldn’t remember where.
An elven woman with long, midnight blue hair and velvet, navy-colored robes stood with the others, but my gaze snagged on one man in particular.
He stood taller than the rest, with dark, stringy hair and chalky-white skin. A shiver of fear ran through my body as I stared at the man. I’d never seen him before, yet the taint of his magic was unmistakable. It came to me, challenging my own, making me step away from him, although I knew I had nothing to fear as this was a memory.
“Do you remember this?” I asked Zack.
He shook his head. “No. I don’t remember any of it.”
“Then why did the spell bring us here?”
“You don’t know?” he asked.
“No. It should have brought us someplace where you were, but I don’t see you anywhere.”
Fear settled in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure what sort of magic had brought us here, but it wasn’t something I was familiar with. Below us, the elves gathered around a raised pedestal atop the center dais. The man robed in black placed something atop the surface. As he stepped back, I gasped.
The egg.
Its golden bands shimmered in the dim light, swirling against a backdrop of onyx. Its warmth radiated through the room, even up here, I felt its power and strength.
“That’s it,” Zack said. “That’s the egg I saw. I remember that feeling because it’s stayed with me all this time. Even after I returned to Earth, I knew that
