“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I whirled around, recognizing the voice before I took in the robe, the lank black hair and the skin whiter than the glacier behind us.
Crow was the only dark spot on this landscape, which was fitting. He was in darkness always, trapped in the world created by humans’ dreams. If dreams ceased, so did he.
“Where are we?” I said. The last time I’d seen Crow, he was where he’d been since the beginning of his existence, in a small glass bulb at the center of all the Lands, a space outside the laws of physics or time.
“We are at a place out of space, out of time and distance,” Crow said. “This was once your world, Aoife. It’s the only safe place where we can speak.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “One minute I was … well … trapped in another sort of dream, and now I’m here?”
Had I woken up? Or was this something worse, some other layer of Nylarthotep’s game?
“You’re not dreaming,” Crow said. “What he’s done to you is a perversion of a dream, using your own happiness and desire to forge prison bars.”
“I got that much,” I said. “But I left. I passed his test.”
Crow sighed. “No, Aoife,” he said. “You didn’t.”
I felt the void again, and I was plummeting through it, guts-first. It was the same sinking feeling I’d gotten when I’d realized Tremaine had tricked me, and again when I’d realized that the cost of setting right what I’d wrought would be freeing the Old Ones.
“He tricked me,” I said matter-of-factly.
“More like sidelined you,” Crow said. He reached for me and drew me into his robe, which was a welcome relief from the cold.
“He trapped you here to study you, to exploit your weakness. When you return he will present you with the only choice you can make: allow him his freedom from the Deadlands in exchange for your life, Dean’s life and the lives of everyone else in the Lands. He’ll try to scare you—”
“He does scare me,” I snapped, pulling away from Crow. “He made the Deadlands to amuse himself by damning souls. He’s evil, Crow. He’s the root of all evil.”
“I don’t disagree,” Crow said. “But he cannot be allowed to leave that unholy playground he’s created. You cannot accept his bargain, because if you do, the Old Ones’ coming will be the least of your worries. Nylarthotep is more than a creature of evil. He is a force of nature. He is the end of all things.”
“The one who waits,” I murmured.
“Who waits for the end of the world,” Crow said, “and for his chance to dance on the ashes.”
I looked back at the city. I still felt nauseated, but unlike the last time Crow and I had met, I didn’t scream and cry and try to wrap myself in denial as thick as his robes. I just sighed. “What do you need me to do?”
“The Old Ones trapped Nylarthotep the first time with the same power that turns the Gates,” Crow said. “The same power that flows in your veins. They created the opposite of a Gate, a lock so strong not even the first evil could break it.”
He pressed an aged piece of paper into my hands. “It’s called an Elder Sign—a representation of the Old Ones themselves, or at least their light half. The good they can bring to a world, the flip side of the devastation. The same minds that built this city here, this first place where living things crawled from the mud to begin what would become humans and Fae and even me, they created the Elder Sign. But the Old Ones have lost their way, and the knowledge has faded. Not even I can locate it.”
“What’s this?” I asked. I didn’t open the paper. I felt beaten-down and hopeless. I should have known that an impossible bargain with Nylarthotep was still too good to be true. That it wasn’t a bargain at all but a setup to permanently rid himself of the one person who could harm him, a person who would only be released when she was compliant and desperate, ready to free him instead.
“It’s the only clue to the Elder Sign I’ve been able to locate,” Crow said. “It was written down in the twelve hundreds by an Arabic scholar. He went mad, but he was the last to directly communicate with the Old Ones.”
“Probably why he went mad, then,” I said. Crow allowed himself a small smile.
“Likely. Good luck, Aoife.”
“Because I’ve had so much of that so far,” I muttered.
“Listen,” Crow said. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to bring back your dead friend. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone so much that you would cross oceans and distances and over from life itself to look into his eyes again. You did what you had to do for Dean.”
He took my face in his hands. They were warm, surprisingly so, and they stilled the horrible emptiness inside me, filled me with something that wasn’t hope, but wasn’t the sucking hopelessness of a moment ago, either. I felt myself stop shaking for the first time.
“Now do what you have to do for the legacy in your blood. For the world, and for everyone in it,” Crow whispered.
I shut my eyes, feeling a tear freeze on my face, and when I opened them I was back in the awful hallway, lying on my side with tears still wetting my cheeks.
Nylarthotep sat a few feet away, watching me intently. “So how did you enjoy my test?” he asked, that pure white-bone smile slicing from under his cowl.
“I’ve had better days,” I said, pulling myself to my feet.
“Don’t be snippy,” he said. “And don’t pretend you wouldn’t give it all up for even ten more seconds with that Dean boy.”
Here it was. I’d ask for Dean back. He’d threaten me. And I’d … what?
Dutifully, I said, “I did what you asked. Let Dean and me go.”
Nylarthotep laughed, and he kept laughing. “My, you humans are simple creatures. Every time I think evolution might have finally made a jump, you do something that convinces me all over again just how wide-eyed and stupid you all are.”
I tried to put a convincing tremble in my voice, at the same time praying he wouldn’t see I’d known this was coming. “But you promised …”
Nylarthotep stood to his full height, looming above me. I didn’t have to fake the trembles then. “Little girl, I made this world. What makes you think my promises need have any weight? I’m in control. Of you, of Dean’s soul, of every ounce of this place.”
“Yes,” I whispered, not able to look into the terrible blackness beyond his cowl. “You’re in control.”
“And I’ve been watching you, and I know that you’re weak. So you’re going to find me a way out of here, and I’m going back to a world of smoke and bone and blood, a world I can taste and touch. And if you do this, I might spare your life and Dean’s soul. Do you doubt me?”
I forced myself to look up, to face him. “No,” I said. My voice was small and raspy, like I’d been inhaling toxic smoke. “No, I believe you.”
“Good,” Nylarthotep said. He held out his hand, and I took it. The shock was like that of touching something long dead that had lingered underwater, grown spongy and rotten. Something that would corrupt you through your skin.
I drew back, wrapping my arms around myself. “I told you, I can’t go back to the Iron Land on my own. My soul is alive, sure, but I can’t put it back in my body like some stage-magic trick. The only way is if they wake me up.”
“Hmm.” Nylarthotep paced in a slow circle and then faced me. “Then I suppose we’ll just have to talk to them, won’t we?”
The thought of him getting his hooks into Conrad or Cal spurred me. “Show me that Dean will be safe,” I said, “and I’ll do it.”