“I have my fingers in so many pies,” Hrista went on, smiling at me. “So many things to do. My plans are complex and stretch across dimensions. I’ve spent years, centuries, weaving them, putting every piece in its rightful place. Millennia passed in this realm as I waited for the Spirit Bender to come back to me, only to see him destroyed not once but twice by you Shadian bastards.” Her smile faded, lips twisting with disgust. This was personal.
Allowing my inner light to intensify, I briefly focused on the black mist near my boots. It seemed to pull back from me, reacting to my power. She’d frozen Regine and Brandon with it, and Myst knew better than to fight her on this. But I needed a solution to this problem. I needed to understand what Hrista had been doing and why she was so determined to kill me.
“You talk a big game, but it’s hard for us to understand the exquisiteness of your actions unless you tell us what this is all about,” I said, my voice trembling slightly. It was beginning to feel like a showdown, tension rising and crackling through the air between us. I doubted I’d leave this place alive if I allowed Hrista to do as she pleased, so it was important to keep her talking while I scanned our surroundings and figured a way out. Besides, she owed us some answers. I was afraid, but the thought of giving up now was unacceptable, especially with Brandon unable to fight. I had to hold on long enough for him to recover. Regine, too. “What’s the point, Hrista?”
“You know what? I’ve changed my mind. You people don’t matter enough to warrant a response,” she replied. “I’ve had my fun watching you, but you’re too boring to be allowed to live. I’ve had a little charm put on Brandon for the past day or so, and I’ve seen enough to confirm that you truly are a waste of a soul.”
She’d been watching us. Listening to us. That meant she knew about my private moments with Brandon, too. The thought made me shiver. “Did he know?” I asked. Hrista shook her head. “So, you’ve been spying on us.”
“Just to make sure you’d be coming over. It was only a matter of time.”
“And the clones?” Thayen asked, moving closer to my side. I knew Jericho and Dafne were ready to dragon out, but we couldn’t be sure what we could accomplish against someone like Hrista. Torrhen was perfectly capable of killing us on his own now that Brandon and Regine were down. I wasn’t sure Myst would be enough. We needed more time. “What purpose did they serve? Why did you make them?”
Hrista offered a careless shrug. “You ask questions as if you expect to receive answers. They serve a purpose. Obviously. Everything they have done has been for a particular reason and with a precise endgame in mind. Even the shimmering portals. Each one had to be opened in those specific places. There’s not enough time for me to explain everything to you. You’re going to die today.”
“What did Isabelle’s clone steal from our Shade?” I asked, unwilling to let her get to the murderous part. Glancing down, I noticed the black mist still hesitating in my presence. It would ripple and try to get closer to me, but my pink light kept pushing back. This wasn’t new, but it did feel different. Had I evolved, perhaps? My light felt stronger, more intense as it buzzed through my veins. This place was supposed to dull us down and drain us of our life force, but there had been plenty of circumstances where I’d pushed myself beyond my known limits. Was this proof I’d crossed a certain threshold, perhaps? If so, it meant Brandon had been right. I hadn’t tapped into my full potential just yet, or maybe I was just starting to now. “You had her with us for two months. What was it she took that you so desperately wanted?”
Hrista and Torrhen laughed and exchanged glances. It was funny to them, and I would’ve allowed this to get to me in any other circumstance—but our survival was paramount. Let them giggle, I thought, keeping an eye on the black mist as it enveloped Regine and Brandon’s boots. Inching closer to them, I made it pull back. There were only a few feet left between Brandon and me, so I wondered what would happen if I kept moving. The black mist seemed… afraid of me. Did Hrista know?
“Okay, you deserve to know. I imagine you’ve been racking your brains over this long enough,” she said, casually coming down the curving steps. The mist trembled in her presence, pulling back to reveal the white stone and the grass as she walked. “It’s an object the witches have had for so long, I’m not sure any of them even remember it.” She brought a hand up, showing us the tiny cube I’d seen Claudia’s double carrying. “It’s a remnant of the Black Witches, but they never understood what it did, mistaking it for an artifact.”
I’d never heard of it. And the Black Witches had been extinct for ages. It just went to prove that Hrista had been around for quite a while, traveling between realms without any limitations and without anyone knowing. It made her whole “web of plans” statement even scarier because it could absolutely be true. If all of this had been years in the making, what were our chances of stopping it?
“It’s the size of a game die,” Thayen muttered. “Isabelle had it inside her. Well, her clone. And Claudia’s doppelganger killed her for it.”
“Of course. Isabelle’s clone thought she could outsmart me,” Hrista replied. “I told her to get out and
