“Finding your stone legs again?” Hudson asks, like he knows exactly what I’m doing.

“Found them,” I tell him with a grin. And then I put a hand on the bright-blue string and love the way Hudson freezes, his breath catching as a shiver works its way through his body. “How about you?”

“I’m doing just fine,” he says, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before that changes.”

Vander, Flint, and I echo the sentiment, and I start to follow Charon…at least until I remember that Remy can’t come with us. This is as far as he goes.

I turn and run back to him, throwing my arms around him in a giant hug. At first, he’s completely stiff, but then he hugs me back so tightly, I can barely breathe.

“Thank you,” I tell him as tears burn the backs of my eyes. “For everything.”

“It’s all good.” He starts to pull away, but I hold him tight, not ready to let go of this ridiculous boy who somehow worked himself as far into my heart as Flint and Macy and the others.

“You’re going to be okay, right?” I whisper into his ear.

“I’m going to be great,” he whispers back. “And so are you.”

Now I’m the one who pulls away. “Is that a friendly comment or a you-see-the-future-type comment?”

“Maybe it’s both,” he answers before pulling me into another hug. “But if you want another prophecy, here’s one. This isn’t the last time we’ll see each other, Grace. But it’s going to be a rocky road for both of us before we do.”

This time when he pulls away, he takes a few steps back.

Worry for him churns in my stomach. “Remy—”

“Go,” he tells me with his patented wicked grin. When I don’t move, he flips his hand again, and smoke fills the room between us. When it clears, he’s gone.

I close my eyes and whisper a quick prayer to the universe for that brash, beautiful boy. Then I turn back to Hudson, who smiles as he holds out a hand for me. I smile back as I move to take it.

And then we’re racing down the corridor after Charon and his guards as we finally make our way back to the surface…and the light.

149

The Fragile

and the Sweet

Charon leads us down several hallways, each one sloping up until we finally make it to a large circular iron gate.

“This is it,” Charon tells us reluctantly.

“How does it open?” Vander asks.

Charon walks to the wall to the right of the gate and uses a key to open a small door. Inside is a keypad into which he punches several numbers.

The gate makes a loud clicking sound, and then Charon inserts another key—this one into the keypad itself—and the gate spins around several times before the eight triangles that make up the circle start to retract, leaving a circular opening wide enough for even Vander to walk through.

“That’s it?” Flint asks. “No magic? Just a key and some numbers?”

Charon narrows his eyes at him. “If you’d like, you can stay on this side of the gate until I make it more of a challenge for you.”

“Was there ever an unbreakable curse in this prison?” I can’t help but ask. He hadn’t performed any big spells or magic to set us free. “Or is the whole thing a scam?”

Charon lifts his chin. “Hey, don’t judge me. I give the people what they want. A place to hide away their monsters and an idea it’s for their own good.” He glares at each of us one by one. “Unless you feel maybe you shouldn’t get out before people who’ve been here longer…”

“No, we’re good,” Hudson says. Then he turns to me. “Ladies first.”

I think about arguing with him, but fuck it. The sooner I get through that door, the sooner everyone else does, too. So I squeeze his hand and, when his guard is down, send a huge rush of energy straight at him.

“Grace!”

“We don’t know what’s out there, and I figure it’s smart to have you in fighting form.”

He looks like he wants to argue some more, but I’m not up for that. So I just blow him a kiss and disappear through the gate. Vander comes right after me, followed by Flint and Calder, and finally Hudson—who looks half amused and half like he still wants to fight when he takes hold of my hand.

Behind us, the gate thwumps closed, and that’s when it hits us. We’re free. We’re actually free.

I turn to Vander, and tears are pouring down his face as he glances around at dawn breaking over the grass and the trees and the…sepulchres all around us?

“We’re in a cemetery?” Flint asks, and he sounds as confused as I feel.

“I guess?” I reply as I notice row after row of headstones.

“It’s definitely a cemetery,” Hudson says.

Vander walks over to me and pulls a key out of his pocket. “You did it,” he tells me. “You freed us.”

“We all did it,” I answer.

“You truly are worthy of wearing the gargoyle crown,” he tells me, ignoring my protests as he falls to his knees in front of me. “I can never thank you enough for what you’ve done, Queen.”

“I just held up my end of the deal,” I tell him quietly. I’m completely overwhelmed—and more than a little traumatized—to have someone kneeling in front of me as he calls me “Queen.” To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever be okay with it.

Which is why the words nearly trip over each other as I tell him, “Please get up. Please. You don’t need to do that.”

But Vander refuses to be moved as he proffers the key to me. “I never should have made those shackles,” he tells me. “I don’t know how I can ever look my Falia in the eye again.”

“You can look her in the eye because she loves you. Any mistakes you made millennia ago have long since been forgiven,” I tell him as I take the key and put it in my pocket. “Just go home and see her. Fix up your garden. Eat your daughter’s chocolate chip cookies—they’re very good, by the way. Right, Hudson?”

“Sure, they’re…delicious,” he tells me, but he doesn’t come any closer. Instead, he stays where he is and watches me with such pride on his face that I’m afraid I might start sniffling right along with Vander.

“My daughters,” he breathes as his face crumples. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I tell him. “From the bottom of our hearts. But how are you going to get home?” I ask as the logistics of the giant problem come to me in a rush. We can travel via Flint, but Vander is bigger than the dragon. No way can we give him a ride.

“Don’t worry about me,” Vander says, and he walks over to the nearest tree—a giant magnolia—and puts his hands on the roots.

Right in front of us, the ground around the tree starts to shift and move as the roots rise to the surface.

“Earth magic,” Flint says, wonder in his voice as the roots wrap themselves around a kneeling Vander, totally encompassing him.

The whole process takes a minute, maybe a little more, and then the roots start to right themselves, digging a path back into the soil.

As they finish unwinding, it becomes clear that Vander is gone.

“That was—” Hudson blows out a breath. “I’ve got to tell you, Grace. Hanging with you is never boring.”

“Right?” Flint laughs. “Though I do have one more question.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

“Any ideas if that earth magic works on manticores, too?”

And that’s when it hits me. He’s still got Calder draped over his shoulder.

“Well, shite,” Hudson says. And then all three of us start to laugh, because what else can we do?

We’re thousands of miles away from home, we’re hauling one stray manticore, and we just watched a tree absorb a giant. And that’s not even the weirdest thing to happen this hour…

Suddenly, a scream sounds behind us, followed by a familiar voice yelling, “I told you I felt magic over here!”

I whirl around in time to catch Macy as she throws herself into my arms.

150

I’ve Got Friends

in Eerie Places

“Grace! Thank God we found you!” my cousin squeals as she hugs me so tightly, I’m pretty sure I’ll have bruises. “We’ve been in this spooky cemetery for days just waiting for you to make your way out.”

“Yeah, but how did you even know this is where the prison leads?” I ask as I hug her back.

“Nuri told us after they took you from graduation,” Luca answers as he grabs Flint—and the still unconscious Calder—and lifts them both off the ground in a huge bear hug.

“You’ve been here all week?” I ask, shocked and touched.

“Damn straight,” Eden says as Macy finally lets me go long enough to throw herself onto Hudson. “You didn’t think we were going to leave you here alone, did you?” She gives me a very uncharacteristic hug, which I return.

“I…I don’t know what I thought,” I tell her.

“We’ve been trying to figure out how to break in for days,” Mekhi tells us once the hugs and fist bumps have all been dispensed. “But that place is more heavily guarded than the Vampire Court, which I didn’t know was possible.”

“Right?” Luca says with a laugh. “So eventually we decided we were going to have to wait for you to break out.”