“Raya,” I stood and bowed slightly.
“You stayed.”
“Yes.” I realized that feeling that had compelled me to wait came from her. “You sent the intention to me, didn’t you?”
Raya nodded. “I did. I’m glad you listened.”
I waited for her to continue, but she stayed silent. “Why did you want me to stay?”
She shook her head almost imperceptibly. “It doesn’t matter why. I’m going to tell you the truth. You don’t deserve it, and you’ve done nothing that warrants me to incur the wrath of Lore, to defy her, and to tell you what we’ve been working on tirelessly for weeks. But I’m going to.” Her expression had the same immovable lack of expression that Death’s twin brother had on a regular basis. It was a bit jarring, however, because I knew that wasn’t her usual demeanor.
I cocked my head. “But why-”
“I said it doesn’t matter,” she cut me off.
“Okay.”
Raya took a deep breath. “Lore was lying because she was angry. Minerva isn’t back. Minerva… can never come back.”
I felt my shoulders relax considerably. I hadn’t even realized that I was holding so much tension. “How do you know?”
“We’ve been working on it for a while. There’s old magic, and with enough power from enough witches, it establishes a bridge to the Bay of Souls in the Underworld. We thought we could use it to let her cross over, or at least consult her. There are a lot of problems with it, not the least of which was finding a physical form. Hers is ash and swept into some corner of the damn castle now.”
She sighed. “The biggest problem is that the Bay of Souls just barely begins on the shore. The land is vast, and it’s complex. No one really knows what it’s like there, because it’s different for every soul. The Source of everything knows what the soul is responsible for, knows what it’s done, and it creates a reality based on that. Some call it karma. The worse your actions, the worse the punishment. The worse the punishment, the further within your soul lies. If it’s too far from the Bay, the living will never be able to reach it, no matter how strong the magic is.”
“So… you can’t bring Minerva back? Can you at least speak to her?”
Raya shook her head. “No. Not even that. If she was nearer to the shore, it would be possible, but instead, she’s… It’s almost like a privilege designed for those who lived better lives than others.” She chuckled at the thought. “It’s a lot to come to terms with. The woman we followed for years is condemned by the universe itself. What does that mean for us?”
I couldn’t tell what she was feeling. I couldn’t even tell what I was feeling. I’d known for months that Minerva had gone too far, but even so… the knowledge that I’d been her right hand for so long, so blindly obedient, and now she was in that state… the thought of what awaited me suddenly chilled me to the core.
“No, you can only contact a soul if they’re near the shore of the Bay,” she continued, trying to get her mind off that topic, I was sure. “Which is a crapshoot. No one goes their whole life living like a fucking angel. The longer you live… the more likely it is that you’re going to mess up somehow. So, you’d have to know who you’re looking for and how close to the shore they are.”
I paused in thought for a second. “How exactly do you know where Minerva is in the Bay of Souls?”
Raya’s eyes had drifted from me long ago and now seemed to linger on some tree or something in the distance. “We got lucky.”
I waited for her to answer, feeling myself get slightly frustrated at how withholding she was being. Though perhaps I didn’t have much of a right to feel that way. “How?”
“A Seer. Well… someone who read a Seer’s log.”
I felt my jaw tense with sudden anger at a realization. “You have-”
“You can’t use this information against us, Kalian.”
“You have spies in the Jewel Palace raiding the hall of the Seers!”
“Shut the hell up!” she hissed, rushing to close the gap between us and throwing her hand over my mouth, grabbing the back of my head so I couldn’t pull away. I could have sworn her gold eyes almost turned red at that moment.
There was a noise as the door to the cabin began to creak.
“Shit,” she whispered. She muttered words under her breath that I couldn’t make out despite being so close to her and then pulled away, turning just as the orange light from inside the house flooded the clearing before her. A silhouette stood in the doorway.
“Raya, what’s taking so long?” I recognized the voice as Lariza’s. I felt my blood turn cold, waiting for her to recognize me and for chaos to break loose.
“I-I told you,” Raya called. “I just need to be alone for a bit. I’ll be in soon.”
I heard Lariza sigh from about twenty feet away. “You shouldn’t be alone.” She began to close the door behind her. “I know that was hard, but I’m here-”
“I know!” Raya said quickly. “Really, thank you. I-I appreciate it, I do. But,
