“So, she has the bodies made out there, in The Shade’s extension,” I replied, trying to visualize the process. I remembered Ta’Zan’s operations from the startling details in GASP’s history and science classes, but I wasn’t sure if it resembled Hrista’s in any way. “Does she use certain types of machinery or magic? Or both?”
“Both would be an appropriate answer. I have no idea of the details, however,” Brandon said. “I never set foot inside the labs. All I did was deliver the DNA samples. What I do know is that Hrista is perpetually bothered by her inability to make souls. She’s insanely competitive against the likes of Order, Death, and the Word. Of the three, the Word is the hardest to replicate. Order is our supreme authority, but she’s made us in her own image, more or less. Death… well, her magic and Reapers and scythes are pretty easy to figure out. I know there are stories in Purgatory about a time when a Reaper tried to come through and live with us…” He paused to laugh lightly, the idea clearly amusing him.
I, on the other hand, was instantly curious. “Wasn’t that the Spirit Bender, like Thayen said?”
“No, it’s someone else. The whole thing happened way before I was made. Perhaps Edda or Bodil might know more. Unfortunately, neither is here to help us figure things out,” Brandon said with a heavy sigh. “Sometimes, I wonder if they’d be able to do anything against Hrista. She’s got some serious mojo going on here, Pinkie. Mojo she’s not supposed to have, and I don’t know where she got it from or how. That’s what really scares me.”
It was the first time I’d heard him say he was afraid. It couldn’t be an easy thing to admit, especially for a punisher like Brandon—for a Berserker. I wished I knew what to say, but all I could do was place my hand over his. The feeling of our skin touching triggered strange reactions inside me, and heat bloomed in my chest as his gaze found my face.
The second that followed felt like the longest I had ever experienced. I waited for something to happen. Holding my breath, I didn’t look away from him. His eyes smiled when his lips wouldn’t. There were things he would’ve liked to say, that much was obvious. But he didn’t. He held it all back and stood, stretching his arms as if he’d just gotten out of bed.
“Come on, Pinkie. I’ve got two Valkyries to disappoint.”
I stood too, and he moved away from me, even as the tension between us persisted. There was something happening here, for sure. Something I wasn’t sure was real or okay. But the heart was a fickle thing, and I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t strong or experienced enough to know how to handle it.
We had one hell of a problem waiting for us at the end of this journey, so I chose to focus on that instead. The Valkyries might need me more than ever before. Thayen, my mom, my family and friends… their safety and wellbeing came first.
Leaving Mom with our “sleepers,” plus Richard and Soph, Brandon took us down the south side of the Black Heights, through the deep woods where only the occasional deer dared to graze. Neither the Berserker nor the Valkyries believed they were able to teleport us like my mother could—they assumed it had something to do with them being from Purgatory and not of the living realm, but that hadn’t stopped the Reapers from zapping us around. No, there was another issue at play here. While I was curious to figure out what that was, we didn’t have time to debate or study the phenomenon.
We trekked down the rocky and wooded mountain side until we reached the grassy hills leading to the Vale. From there, hidden from sight with invisibility magic, and careful not to get too close to any of the populated areas while Jericho covered our tracks, we made our way across the fake Shade and into the witches’ Sanctuary, which… wasn’t like our Sanctuary at all.
The whole place had been terraformed, for lack of a better word, and it was nothing like the rest of The Shade. The greens were greener here. The reds redder. This part of the charade was remarkably beautiful and realistic—a lush clearing with patches of tall grass and citron-yellow flowers blooming everywhere.
“This is not the Sanctuary,” Thayen whispered as we took a minute or two to understand what we were looking at. Brandon nodded his agreement.
“Witches don’t live here, for starters. This was made to suit Hrista’s desires,” he said. “It’s her residence.”
Regine grumbled. “This is wrong.”
No one said a word. We knew she’d have to accept the truth in her own time. Cautiously, we walked across the clearing, the occasional dry leaf crunching beneath the soles of our boots. Not far from us, a deer raised its head from a thick underbrush, casually chewing on roots and blades of grass. Its big eyes were strange, black, and devoid of any emotion. This creature only lived to serve as food, I realized. It had no other role in this false world. HQ must’ve taken DNA samples of animals and plants, too, in order to build this world.
Ahead, an elegant villa rose up, its white walls covered in lilac wisteria, fully bloomed and sprawling everywhere. It looked as though it was pouring down from the flat stone roof. Tall oak trees cast their cooling shadows against the house. Shadows born from the faint celestial glow and the orange-fire torches mounted around the property on a thirty-yard radius, while a carefully
