The Shadow Prince

chapter fifty-eight DAPHNE

Haden’s body convulses in my arms, like he’s having a seizure. He twists and writhes in silent agony. And then he goes limp and still. So still and breathless that I think the worst.

No. No, he can’t be dead.

“Haden, come back!” I say, smacking his face.

Nothing.

I try a softer approach and press my lips to his forehead. “Please, Haden,” I say, brushing my hands through his hair and then pressing my fingers against his neck. No pulse. No nothing.

“Daphne,” Dax says. “I think he’s gone.…”

Haden lets out a great, gasping groan and sits bolt upright, like he’s waking from a horrific nightmare.

“Haden!” I throw my arms around him, holding him to me. “I thought you were dead.”

Haden’s vision seems to focus and he takes in the surroundings of the Sunny Ridge common room. The carnage of the events with Brim and Simon surrounds us. I can hear his heart pounding out a frantic melody.

“For a moment, I thought I was, too,” he says, his voice sounding more like a croak.

He flexes his fingers and a charred object that vaguely resembles the talisman falls from his hand, leaving a raised, blistering welt of its size and shape in his palm. “That actually worked,” he says, like he’d caused that kind of damage on purpose. “Scrambled the connection to the Underrealm … Sent me back here.” He pinches his leg like he’s making sure he’s truly back inside his body. “Half expected to wake up a shade in the Wastelands instead.”

“What happened?” I ask, searching his jade green eyes.

“He tried to force me to make an unbreakable vow that I would bring you to him. He said the only reason he hadn’t done it before making me Champion was because the Oracle tried to tell him it would backfire.… So I thought of the way you tricked Simon, and I … made it backfire. Quite literally.”

“How?” I ask.

“I vowed I would never let him have you, and electrified the water—scrambling the connection in the talisman. Almost killed myself in the process, though.” He raises his singed hand like he wants to brush his fingers against my cheek—but doesn’t quite have the strength to do it.

“Harpies. Talk about burning bridges. I knew you had it in you!” Dax slaps Haden on the shoulder.

Haden cringes. “ ’Scuse me?” he asks, his speech starting to sound slurred.

“Sarah and I have met before, remember? She told me things.…”

“You didn’t care to share?” I ask.

“I wasn’t at liberty to discuss it. The decision needed to be Haden’s alone. I’ll tell you more later,” Dax says. “We’ve got another problem on our hands.”

“Seriously?” Haden says, dropping his hand. “We almost all died in the worst children’s game I have ever heard of; I almost had to kill my man-eating pet; I stood up to my lunatic father—who has a major god complex, by the way—and had my soul electrocuted three times; and now you’re telling me there’s another problem?”

“Ha!” I laugh.

“What?” he says.

“That is the most human I have ever heard you sound!”

A clap of thunder rolls outside the darkened windows.

“Save the flirting for later,” Dax says. He points up. “Skylords are coming. Simon made a call before he came in here. I have a feeling his buyers are just about to show up. They’ll be wanting to take delivery of the goods, if you know what I mean.”

“Harpies.” Haden looks around. “Where did everyone else go?”

“I sent them to pull up the car,” Dax says. “Daphne and I were getting ready to carry your body out. I just hope they didn’t take off without us.”

Rain starts pelting the windows. There’s a clash of white lightning that makes me jump, followed by a roll of thunder so loud, it shakes the building. “That’s some storm.”

“Not a storm,” Dax says, helping Haden to his feet. “We’ve got to run for it.”

He and I lead Haden out of the empty hospital. Brim follows at my heels. Haden leans so heavily against me, like he can barely put one foot in front of the other, that it makes me dread finding out what else had happened to him in the Underrealm.

“Where are the patients?” I ask.

Dax explains that Simon had requested that the staff take all the patients on a walk—which is why no one had come into the common room during the commotion. Thank goodness.

The rain is so thick, my clothes are soaked through almost immediately after we exit through the back doors of Sunny Ridge. Lightning rakes the sky above the hospital. To my relief, Tobin, Lexie, Garrick, and Joe are waiting inside the car at the curb. Joe holds his wadded-up jacket against the top of his head, as if staunching a wound that must have been caused by the falling debris that had knocked him out. I am glad he is relatively okay, but at the same time, I can’t bring myself to say anything to him. I don’t have the time or energy right now for the anger that might unleash.

Dax insists on driving. I imagine Haden lets him only because, at this point, he can barely keep his eyes open. I sit with him in the third row. We fly out of the parking lot as a strike of lightning explodes against a power pole. The downed lines flail out at us like electrified tentacles. Dax whips us out of their way and out onto the open road. If I’d thought Haden was a crazy driver, that was nothing compared to the way Dax maneuvers around lightning strikes and traffic to get us to the freeway.

“Who are these psychos?” Lexie shouts. “Are these more lightning freaks from your family?”

“Worse,” Dax says. “Skylords have lightning and thunder. But they are family, in a way. They’re kind of like our second cousins a few times removed.”

“What?”

“They’re the sons of Life,” Haden mumbles beside me.

“How?” I remember the story he told me about the twin sons Hades created and the Sky God stole. “I thought Life was torn apart by the Keres when he was just a kid.”

Haden nods.

“The Sky God pieced him back together,” Dax says, swerving around a slow-moving semi. The windshield wipers can barely keep up with the barrage of rain on the windows.

Tobin screeches as lightning strikes the tail end of the semi truck. He holds his hand to his face like he is merely stifling a sneeze. Brim jumps into my lap. I stroke her bristled back reassuringly.

“He can do that sort of thing, among others,” Dax says.

“So the sons of Life are the Skylords and the sons of Death are the Underlords?” I ask, remembering that Haden had said something about that earlier. “The descendants of two twins locked in epic battle.”

“Sounds about right. Except the Skylords have daughters, too.”

“They do?” Garrick asks, sounding surprised.

“Yes,” Dax says, like he knows this for sure. “Oh yeah, they can run through the clouds,” he says, pointing at the churning, gray sky above us. I can’t see any Skylords, but they must be up there in the clouds. “They’re like the new and improved model.”

“This was my worst trip to Vegas ever,” Lexie says as we sail past a billboard that says, NOT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS STAYS IN VEGAS. GET TESTED!

“Where are we going?” Haden asks. His head is leaning on my shoulder now.

“Ellis Fields,” I say. “Sarah made it sound like Ellis was some sort of safe haven. Like we could hide there without being found. I hope she’s right.”

“Good plan,” Haden says, sounding almost completely out of it. “You should stay there. Be safe. Forever.”

The idea of being trapped in Ellis is one that had haunted me my whole life. I’d kicked against it as hard as I could while still trying to respect my mother, but at this moment—and I can’t believe I’m admitting this—the idea of going back, of staying there forever, sounds more appealing than touring the world as a music star ever did.

The tempest chases us as we head for my hometown. The traffic is thin; probably most people are staying off the roads in this storm. Normally, it’s supposed to be a two-and-a-half-hour drive between Ellis and Vegas, but the way Dax is driving, we’ll be there in half the time.

Haden’s head lolls on my shoulder, and I worry he may be in worse shape than I’d thought. And what is to come of him and Dax and Garrick? Would they stay in Ellis with me? Or would they make a new plan and move on? Now that Haden had quite literally—from the sounds of it—burned the connection between him and his father, he has to be in more trouble than I can ever imagine. I can’t help thinking about the Oracle’s predicting that he may cease to exist. Would the path he chose today lead to his eventual death? Had he traded his life to spare mine?

And why would he do that?

I am lost in thought for so long that I almost forget that we are running for our lives—until a blast of lightning takes out the speed limit sign we’ve just careened past.

“Take the next exit,” I call to Dax from the backseat.

“What exit?”

“The one coming right up.”

“I don’t see it.”

Is the rain blocking his view that badly?

“Quarter of a mile,” Tobin says. “Right up there.”

“There’s nothing.”

“Trust me, there is.” Tobin leans forward and grabs the steering wheel. He yanks it to the right and we swerve onto the exit ramp just before missing it.

“Where did that come from?” Dax asks.

“Turn left … right now,” I shout.

He follows my instructions even though they seem to bewilder him. “Oh, there’s the road,” he says, as if he can see it only now that we’re on it. “What now?”

“Keep following this road. It will take us through the canyon for a few miles before we get to town.”

We fly up Apollo Canton Road, dodging lightning. At one point, a strike hits the canyon wall beside us, and a tumble of red rocks starts to fall. We barely make it through before it crashes into the road. Lexie isn’t the only one of us who screams.

“Daphne, I don’t know about this!” Dax says. “Where do I go now?”

“Straight ahead,” I say as Ellis starts to come into view. “We’re almost to town.”

“What town?” Garrick says.

Joe groans like all of this is too much for his head.

“The one right in front of us,” I say. I can see buildings and homes through the rain, nestled in the heart of the canyon. Lit up like little lighthouse beacons beyond the storm. My mom’s shop is there. Home is there. The walls of red rock surrounding the town that had once made it feel like a prison, now make it look like a fortress of safety. “You can’t see that?”

“Daphne, we’re heading straight for a giant mountain!” Dax says.

From what I can tell, it isn’t raining over the town. That and the fact that Dax and Garrick can’t see it reassure me that Sarah was right. Safety is only half a mile away.

Lightning crashes right in front of us. Dax yanks on the wheel hard, and we swerve in a circle, spinning donuts in the red mud that covers the road to Ellis Fields.

“Just keep going!” I shout. “We’re almost there.”

The car speeds up. Thunder shakes the car, and a lightning bolt rips a hole in the road right where we would have been if we hadn’t surged forward. Dax clutches the wheel hard and clamps his eyes shut. He’s bracing himself for impact as we pass the WELCOME TO ELLIS FIELDS city limits sign. A second later, he relaxes and looks around, stunned.

“Well, I’ll be harpied.” He whistles under his breath.

“Where the Tartarus did this all come from?” Garrick asks, staring out the windows as we roll into Main Street, Ellis Fields.

I direct Dax to stop the car in front of Paradise Plants. The road here is dusty and dry as always. I get out of the car, followed by Dax and Tobin, and stare in disbelief at the storm we’ve left behind. It’s like a great fence of rain and clouds circles the whole town, but above us the near-evening sky is dusky but clear. Out on the sidewalk, a couple walking their dog stops and stares, pointing at the strange phenomenon. The door to Paradise Plants starts to open. I brace myself, expecting to see my mom or Jonathan for the first time since I left. I don’t know what I am going to tell them.

Can I possibly tell them the truth?

I hear the bells over the door and out walks Indie. She snaps a photo of the wall of rain with her phone. Then she sees me.

“Daphne?” She waves. “What’re you doing here so early? Did you see that crazy storm?”

“Yeah, just drove through it. I decided to come early for winter break,” I say. “Thought I’d bring some friends home for a couple of days to meet my mom.”

“Oh,” Indie says. “Didn’t you know? Your mom isn’t here. She and Jonathan went to Salt Lake City this morning.”

“What?” I ask, taken aback. “What could get my mom to leave Ellis? She wouldn’t even come to see me off to Olympus Hills.”

“I don’t really know. They took off in a big hurry. It has something to do with CeCe; I know that much.”

Dread pulls at my stomach. I listen to the thunder rolling in the sky beyond the outskirts of town. My family is out there somewhere. “What about CeCe?”

“I don’t know exactly. Jonathan called here this morning all in a panic. He said something about how he thought CeCe hadn’t left here on her own. It was like he thought she’d been taken or something.…”

“Taken?” There was that word again. It had haunted me in Olympus Hills and now followed me here. I want to sit down in the dust right here and now. On top of the day I’ve had, this last bit of information is more than I can bear. People aren’t supposed to disappear from Ellis. Bad things don’t happen here. This is supposed to be the safe place. My haven.

“Jonathan said he found a receipt for a bus ticket from Saint George to Salt Lake City in the stuff CeCe left in her apartment. Only the station said the ticket had never been redeemed. Jonathan said he remembered that CeCe had some friends in Salt Lake, and they just took off and left me here. Your mom said she was going to call you.”

Yeah, but my phone is in a bucket of rags back in Olympus Hills. She could have left a thousand messages without my knowing it.

“I think they’re totally overreacting, if you ask me,” Indie says. “So what if she didn’t take the bus after all? I still think she jumped at a chance for a new job to get out of this hellhole.”

“Daphne,” Lexie calls out from the car. “I don’t think Haden’s doing so well.”

Dax and I exchange a worried look.

“Um … carsick,” I say to Indie.

“Yuck. I’m out, then. I’m supposed to finish watering plants before I can lock up.”

She goes back in the shop, and Dax and Tobin help me get Haden into the house. He’s grown very cold; his fingers and lips look blue. We settle him on the couch and I pile blankets from the linen closet on top of him. Each one smells like a piece of home to me.

Brim curls up in a ball on top of Haden’s chest and starts purring. My mom always claimed that the frequency of a cat’s purr has restorative properties that can help a person heal more quickly. At the moment, I hope she’s right.

“This place is … quaint,” Lexie says, coming through the door, followed by Garrick and Joe. Garrick plants himself at the kitchen table, looking as forlorn as possible. Joe lingers in the doorway, like he’s not sure he’s welcome here. “You guys have running water, right?” Lexie asks.

“Yes,” I say. “But if you’re looking for a bathroom, you’ll have to trudge to the outhouse in the backyard.”

Lexie looks like she’s about to faint in horror.

“I’m kidding. The bathroom is upstairs, second door on the left.”

“Oh good,” she says, but from the bewildered sound of her voice, I’m sure she thinks that a house with only one bathroom is almost as archaic as one with an outhouse.

She makes her way up the stairs, with Tobin trailing behind her. Garrick lays his head on the kitchen table. Joe clears his throat from the doorway.

“You can come in, Joe,” I say, but I don’t look him in the eye as he enters the house.

He starts to approach me as if my invitation to join us had meant more than that. “Daphne, I …,” he starts to say, but I hold my hand up to stop him.

“Don’t, Joe,” I say, barely able to keep my anger in check. “I don’t want to hear any more of your apologies right now. I don’t have the energy. I don’t know if I ever will.”

“Daph, please.” He holds his hands out in front of him.

“I forgive you, Joe, for what you did. But that doesn’t mean I can forget.” I know that Joe hadn’t intended on trading me personally to the Underrealm when he made that deal, but knowing that he would give up the idea of me for fame and fortune still stung like hell. It sucks knowing your father would have chosen to make it so you never existed in order for him to become a rock star. “Now respect me when I say I don’t want to talk about it.”

Joe nods and slinks to the kitchen table, where he sits across from Garrick. Both of them bury their heads in their arms.

Dax opens the fridge and asks if he can make a taco for a snack with the meat and tortillas he finds in a couple of Tupperware tubs.

I nod my approval and I find myself wondering just how long I’ll be stuck in this house with all of them. It’s not like they can all stay in hiding forever.

But where do we even go from here?

How do you combat a race of beings that can control the weather?

Guilt eats at me. This is all my fault. My very existence, apparently, is putting everyone in this house in danger. My instinct is to figure out a way to protect them, but I don’t even know where to start.

The things Sarah said about my origins and my destiny come back to me. She’d called me many things other than just the Cypher. She said I was the Keeper of Orpheus’s Heart and Soul. The Vessel of His Voice. I remember Joe telling me about how Orpheus was such a great musician that he could control the elements with his voice—animals, trees, rocks, and such. Even monsters and gods were not impervious to it. I think about how I was able to calm Brim when she’d gone all beast cat, and how my voice had caused the Keres to go solid enough for Haden to kill it. I’d even been able to use Simon’s persuasive tone against him to weaken his hold on my friends.

Did inheriting Orpheus’s voice mean that I had inherited his supernatural abilities with music, too? Maybe my musical OCD isn’t an impairment at all—maybe it truly is a gift, like I had always thought. Maybe Orpheus had been able to hear the tones and sounds that the world and people around him gave off—and tapping into that was how he used music to control the elements.

Maybe this is why I’ve always felt my voice was meant for bigger things than what Ellis had to offer.

There’s a small potted bonsai tree on the coffee table in front of me. Its serene tone reminds me of Asian meditation music. I’d always thought it had a calming effect. I listen to it for a minute, soaking in its song. Then concentrating all my energy at the little tree, I hum the same tone back. Move, I tell the tree with my thoughts as I hum. Come to me.

Just when I start to think that this whole idea is as cracked as possible, the little bonsai tree—pot and all—lurches forward a good two inches. As if it is actually trying to come to me.

I jump and glance around the room. Nobody else seems to have noticed what I’ve done. What I can do. I decide that, for the moment, it might be best to keep this new development to myself. Until I know how I want to use it.

I start nodding off to the sound of Haden’s rhythmic breathing. It reminds me of sleeping beside him in the hotel. I am about to give in to the slumber that pulls at my mind when Tobin shakes me awake.

“Daphne?” He sticks a framed photo in front of me. It’s one that normally hangs on the wall between the bathroom and my bedroom upstairs. “When was this taken?”

I blink a couple of times and focus on the picture. “Last winter. The town has a Christmas party every year. Jonathan made us all matching elf costumes.”

“Last winter? As in, a year ago?”

The urgent notes coming off him make me sit up—the usual syncopated beat that had attracted me to him has increased in rhythm tenfold.

“What’s going on?”

“This girl,” he says, tapping the glass. “Who is she?”

I look at the photo and see who he’s pointing at. Her untamed red hair curls out wildly from under her elf hat, and she looks so pale compared to the rest of us desert folk in the photo. She could never spend much time in the sun because of her fair complexion. “That’s CeCe Caelum.”

Dax makes a noise from the kitchen.

“The girl who’s missing?” Tobin asks.

I nod.

He sinks into Jonathan’s easy chair with the photo on top of his knees.

“What is it?”

“That’s my sister,” Tobin says, holding his fingers splayed over his mouth. “That’s Abecie.”

“What?” Dax says, dropping the taco onto his plate.

“Are you sure?” I ask. “I mean, you’re Japanese and CeCe … um, isn’t.”

“Half sister,” Tobin says. “But I never thought of her that way. My mom had her before she married my dad.”

I nod. The reason Tobin reminds me so much of CeCe in both tone and personality finally makes sense. Almost all that time she’d been missing from his life, she’s been in mine.

“She’s alive,” he says.

Dax grabs the photo from Tobin. “Abbie,” he says. “I’ve been looking everywhere.… And she was here. That’s why I couldn’t find her.”

“You said she was dead,” Tobin says, standing. “Daphne said that you told her that she died!”

“Not exactly,” Dax says. “I just didn’t deny the idea.”

“Why would you do that?”

“It was better for people to think she was dead—for her protection—and I had vowed not to speak of her. Or of what happened. I … I don’t know why I can speak about her now.… The Oracle must have released me from my oath when she died.…”

“Then you’d better start explaining.” Tobin looks like he wants to punch Dax in the face.

“What do you know about Abbie’s biological father?”

“Not much,” he says. “I know my mom hates his guts. She never treated Abbie the same as me and Sage. It was like Abbie was some burden she had to bear.”

“Abbie’s father was a Skylord.”

“Whoa, you mean Abbie is like those people who were chasing us? She’s part Skylord?”

Dax nods. “Though her powers were mostly dormant when I met her. Your sister wasn’t just any Boon I was sent to fetch. The Court was desperate to have her, so they made a deal …”

“With my mother,” Tobin says, and I can hear a string of discordant notes rattle through him. “I started putting the pieces together after Joe admitted to the deal he made—why my mom was covering up those attacks in Olympus Hills. My mom was always all about her work when I was little. She was obsessed with this new wind turbine that she and my dad engineered. She said it had the power to change the world, but they couldn’t get the backers they needed to finish it. That is until some mysterious benefactor came along. He made my parents’ company take off the way it did.… And then they sold the company to him and brought us to Olympus, and she took over as mayor. That benefactor must have been Simon. My mother is working for the Underrealm, isn’t she? And she didn’t just know that Abbie had been chosen to be taken—she traded my sister and her allegiance for the money she needed to finish her life’s work, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Dax says.

Tobin nods, anger ringing off of him, as he accepts the terrible truth. His mother had not only traded Abbie like Joe had traded me—but she had done it knowingly.

“If Abbie chose to run away rather than fulfill my mother’s end of the bargain,” he says, “I can see why my parents act like she’s dishonored our family. My mom must be in pretty deep with the Underrealm because of it. But what I don’t get is how she even got involved in all of this in the first place. I mean, this is all just so insane. I’ve been searching for the psychopaths responsible for what’s been going on in Olympus Hills, and it turns out I’ve been living with one of them all along? How does that even happen? How did she get hooked up with Simon in the first place?”

“You see,” Dax says, “centuries ago, all humans worshipped the gods of the five realms. But as those selfish gods kept warring against each other and decimating the earth in the process, humans started to turn away from them in favor of softer, friendlier versions of deities. Instead of a vengeful Sky God, they wanted more of a divine father figure. Most humans lost faith in the realm gods, but there are still select groups who worship and serve them. Secret societies who keep their dealings very private. They’re rewarded with fame, fortune, power, or whatever they desire in return. Your mother was sought out by Simon, the leader of one of these groups—of Hades, the god of wealth, worshippers, because she had something the Underrealm wanted. Your sister.”

“You mean there are more people who’ve made deals like Joe and Mayor Winters?” I ask.

“Yes,” Dax says. “Olympus Hills is home to many of their members.”

“Wait!” Lexie calls from where she stands on the stairs. I didn’t realize she’d been listening in on this conversation. “You mean, like more of my neighbors could be involved in this sort of stuff … maybe even my parents …?”

“You’re Lexie Simmons?” Joe asks from the table. “Your father is one of the owners of the Crossroads Hotel, right?”

She nods.

“There are all sorts of stories about people making deals with the devil down by the crossroads,” he says. “That’s why I played at the Crossroads Club all those years ago. I had some silly notion something might happen, but never thought it really would. Only it wasn’t the devil who came knocking.…”

Lexie sits heavily on one of the steps, as if the weight of realizing she may not be immune to all of this is too much for her at the moment.

“So the Court wanted Abbie,” Tobin says, bringing the topic back to his sister.

“Abbie was chosen by the Court because they thought they could use her to reinvigorate the bloodlines of the Underlords,” Dax says. “They wanted to use her for prime breeding stock for the Court.”

“That’s disgusting.” Tobin balls his fists like he wants to take his rage out on Dax.

“I agree,” Dax says. “I fell in love with your sister, and she fell in love with me, and the thought of her being used by the Court in that way … I knew I couldn’t bring her back there. We found the Oracle and she gave us instructions. Sarah told Abbie to find a place to hide until I could come back for her.…”

“But why did you leave her in the first place?” Tobin asks.

“Because that was part of the bargain I made with the Oracle. I had a role to fulfill before Abbie and I could be together. I’ve been trying to find her since I returned—doing research, and sneaking off to check out our old haunts, and searching some of the hiding places we’d discussed. I thought I had a line on her about three weeks ago, the night of the festival, but it turned out to be a dead end. I was beginning to think I might never find her. No wonder. She’d found the best hiding place in the world. It seems as far as the Skylords and the Underlords are concerned, Ellis Fields doesn’t even exist.”

I can’t help wondering if CeCe—I mean, Abbie—had been bound by a similar oath not to talk about all this stuff. Otherwise, she would have told me. I considered her as much my real sister as Tobin did. A pang of guilt hits me. Over the last couple of months, I’d been so hurt by the thought that she was trying to cut me out of her life, I hadn’t stopped to consider that she might really be in trouble.

“But it sounds like someone did find her,” I say. “She’s missing again.”

“Marta,” Joe says. “It could have been her. She might have recognized Abbie when we were here.”

“Marta is in on this, too?” I ask.

He nods. “She’s one of Simon’s lackeys who’s supposed to keep an eye on me.”

“But it could have been the Skylords, too,” Dax says. “If Marta spooked her and she ran from town, they could have gotten to her. They’ve wanted her back ever since they found out the Underlords were after her.”

“I can’t believe it,” Tobin says. “I got this close, and now she’s gone again. She could be anywhere.”

“We’ll find her,” Dax says. “The Oracle told me we’d be reunited again if I helped Haden find his true path.”