The Shadow Prince

chapter fifty DAPHNE

I realize as I sit with Tobin near the fountain, that the lobby of a Vegas hotel isn’t the best place to tell him the worst news of his life—but it’s too late. I’ve already made up my mind to do it, and if I stop now, I don’t know how I’ll find the courage to do it later.

“I know what happened to Abbie,” I say before my words fail me. “She’s gone, Tobin.”

“Yeah, she was taken by one of these Underlords, right? That’s why I need to go see this Oracle. She’ll tell me how to get her back.”

“It’s not that simple.” My voice catches, and I clear my throat.

“What is it, Daphne?” he says, like he can see the trepidation on my face. “What’s wrong?”

“I am afraid … I’m afraid she’s dead.”

He pulls his hand out from under mine. “How do you know that? You can’t know that!”

“I met the Lord who was supposed to bring her back to the Underrealm with him.…”

“What do you mean, ‘supposed to’? Like he didn’t …?”

“Your sister really did run away, Tobin. Or at least she tried to. The Lord who was supposed to take her, Dax is his name.… They fell in love and tried to run away instead of going back to the underworld. But something went wrong. Somebody came after them. And she died.”

“What went wrong?” Tears flood his eyes. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” I bite my lip, trying to hold it together. “I don’t know any more than that.”

Tobin covers his eyes with his hands. He crumples forward and I catch him, leaning his head against my shoulder. He quakes as I hold him, giving off notes so strained with sorrow that it drowns out the Christmas music and hotel noises. They wrap around me and I feel as though I am engulfed in a cocoon of his grief.

“There’s more, Tobin.” I don’t want to say it, but I have to. I can’t keep the truth from him any longer. I would want to know if it were me. “That list you showed me. The one of all those missing girls. Those have to be all the girls who have been taken to the underworld; these Boons as they call them.… And if my name is on your mother’s list now, before … before I was even taken … that means …”

Tobin’s sorrowful melody shifts suddenly into harsh, broken notes. He lets go of me and I can see the anger flashing in his eyes, not just hear it coursing off him. “It means my mother knew,” he says, finishing for me. “She knew that my sister was one of their targets. But why wouldn’t she try to stop them?”

“Tobin, I—”

He looks at me, anger hardening his face. Or maybe it’s determination. “I’m going to get her back,” he says. “I’m getting Abbie back.”

“But she’s dead.…”

“That Orpheus guy did it. That’s what your dad’s play is about, isn’t it? He went down there and got his wife back.”

And failed. “I don’t think it works that way.…”

“I’m going to get her back.”

I feel Tobin clinging to this idea like it’s the only thing keeping him from falling into a dark hole of despair. I can’t bring myself to tell him that even the son of a god had failed at trying to bring his loved one back from the world of the dead. Instead, I just nod and let him keep holding on. In the meantime, I can feel myself slipping off the edge.

When the others retire to our hotel room, I can’t bring myself to follow. Talking to Tobin had done exactly what I feared it would—it had made all of this real. Far too real. The soft, filmy coat of denial I’d been looking at everything through had been eaten away by cold, harsh reality. Tobin’s hope only makes it worse. It makes him seem naive and delusional, and made me realize that I could no longer deny what is happening. That the world, as I have known it for seventeen years, is a lie, that it hides terrible secrets like monsters and vengeful gods, Cyphers and Keys, and a selfish underworld prince who isn’t going to stop until he gets what he wants: me.

Is there even anything this Oracle can do to help me stop it? Is there anywhere I can hide where they wouldn’t just hunt me down? And if I do escape, would the consequences of losing the Cypher be as catastrophic as Haden had tried to make me believe?

Do I really have a choice in any of this?

I wander the hotel, looking for a distraction. Anything that can bring back that easy film of denial. Anything that can help me forget. I try going into the casino, where people sit at machines, looking like dull zombies, but someone barks at me when I try to step off the carpet walkway that leads through the area. No kids allowed. I keep walking until I find myself at the Crossroads Blues Club—the place where my parents met all those years ago. The place that led to a drive-thru wedding and a three-day honeymoon before Joe got a call from that talent scout and he ran off to become a rock star. I expect someone else to yell at me when I walk into the club, but instead, the man in the entry takes one look at me, slams a green stamp on my hand, and tells me that the right half of the room is reserved for “contestants and their families.”

The club is dim and smells thick of booze—which seems fitting since it reminds me of Joe. This is the place where it had all started. I probably wouldn’t have ever been born if my parents hadn’t both ended up here that fateful night.

I laugh to myself at that word. Fateful. Fate. That thing Haden clings to and I desperately want to escape.

I want to forget.

A waitress stops at a booth with a tray of shot glasses. She sets it on an empty table and starts flirting with a group of frat boys who’ve called her over.

I’ve always despised Joe for his drinking. I’ve never understood his need to drown out the world. But at that moment, I get it. Because all I want is to forget—if only for one night. I want to stop feeling. I want to be numb.

I want to make it all go away.

While the waitress is distracted, I snag four shot glasses—two in each hand—and retreat to a secluded booth in the back of the club. Where I can drown in the dark.