“I still don’t understand why something that’s important to the Queen would be out in a forest,” I said breathlessly to Alex.

“But yet it is,” he said, and sped up. Apparently, he’d gotten over his weakened state.

I sped up too, the fabric of my clothes scratching against my skin with my every movement. Also, since I had been wearing flip flops when I fell into the lake, they fell off of my feet, and now I was walking around barefoot. The leaves, twigs, and rocks rubbed sharply against the soles of my feet as I practically ran to keep up with Alex. But that was okay. Alex was barefoot too, and if he was tough enough to do it, then so was I. Besides, I’d felt worse pain in my life, both physically and emotionally.

Laylen trailed off a little ways behind us. He’d taken off his shirt while he walked and was ringing out the water. I didn’t mean to stare at him for so long—I mean it wasn’t like I never saw a guy without his shirt off before. And really, I wasn’t staring at him because he had his shirt off, so much as what I saw on his shoulder. (Well, that was stretching it a little, but I was still partially staring at his shoulder). Cupping his shoulder was the Keepers mark—fiery-gold flames bordering a black circle. So there it was; the mark that had branded him a Keeper. And right along his forearm was his other mark; the one that had branded him not good enough to be a Keeper anymore.

Laylen shook out his shirt and then noticed me gawking at him like a stalker. He gave me a funny look and I turned around, rolling my eyes at myself.

We walked through the forest for awhile, with Alex stopping every so often to glance around. He looked lost, and finally, with his forehead scrunched over, he muttered, “Where the heck is it?”

“Well, if you tell us what you’re looking for, then maybe Laylen and I can help you,” I pointed out as I shooed a bug away from my face.

“I don’t know…” He was hesitant, which meant there was something he didn’t want to say. “There’s this little hideout I use to hang out at when I was little…

there’s a hill somewhere with a bush covered by violet flowers.”

Well, there you go. I actually knew the solution to this problem. Go figure.

I turned in a circle, scanning through the trees and bushes, until I picked up on the direction I’d wandered in when I was in the vision and found the little hideout.

“It’s over there,” I pointed in the direction where I was ninety-nine percent sure the hideout was.

Alex gave me a funny look. “What is?”

“The hiding spot we use to go to when we were kids,” I told him, adding emphasis on the “we” to make a point that I remembered.

“You remember that?” he asked, taken aback.

I watched him as I started to explain, wondering how he was going to react to the fact that I knew about our little promise we made when we were kids. “While Nicholas was taking you to the City of Crystal, I unintentionally went into a vision here.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Anything important happen?”

I shook my head, trying not to think about how I had to watch my own soul get detached before I could leave the vision.

“Nothing important at all?”

Now I gave him a funny look. “What does forem mean?”

For a brief second, his bright green eyes widened in surprised, but then the look quickly disappeared and was replaced by Alex’s lying poker face, as I was going to call the straight-faced look he got whenever he was going to tell me a lie.

“I have no idea what forem means,” he said, acting all whatever.

My gaze drifted down to his hands and I looked for a very faint, very small scar.

He clenched his hands into fist and started off in the direction I had pointed toward.

I didn’t follow him. Instead, I turned around and called out to Laylen, “Do you know what forem means?”

I heard Alex mumble curse words under his breath, but I ignored him.

“What?”Laylen came to a stop in front of me, his eyebrows dipping down.

“Forem. Do you know what it means?”

He gave me a puzzled look. “Yeah, it means—”

“Found it!” Alex yelled louder than was necessary.

Laylen and I headed off in the direction his voice came from and found him standing on the side of the hill, holding back the branches of the blooming violet bush. I climbed up the hill, my bare feet sliding in the rocks and mud, and Alex gave me his hand and helped my over the bush. I dropped my feet down into the hole and onto the first step of the ladder. Then I climbed down into my old childhood hideout.

Laylen, not even bothering to use the ladder, dropped in right behind me. It was pitch black, except for the soft sunlight trickling through the hole.

“Anyone have night vision?” I asked, and Laylen let out a laugh.

Alex pushed past us and vanished into the darkness. There was a lot of banging around, and then he struck a match. The pale orange glow orbed around the room as Alex hurried and lit a candle. Then he placed the candle down on top of a table, sat down on the floor, and began digging in the dirt floor.

“It’s buried in the floor?” I asked, squatting down next to him.

He nodded, digging quicker until there was a fairly good size hole. Then he stopped and pulled out a small wooden box. On the top of the box, written in child-like handwriting was the names Gemma and Alex.

“We had a secret box?” I asked him in awe as he pried the lid open.

He shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, but the glow of the candles showed a twinkle in his bright green eyes. He lifted the lid off, and all three of us leaned over the box, like we had just opened a trunk of buried treasure.

I had to wonder what was going to be inside a box that was made by two kids—two very strange kids I might add. There was nothing too strange in it, though: a rock, a bracelet, a photo of me and my mom, which I immediately snatched up. In the photo, my mother and I stood out in a field dusted with violet flowers. The sun shined brightly in the background, and we were both smiling—happy.

I glanced at Laylen, remembering our silly little roll ercoaster ride, and wondered if it was the same kind of happiness as what I felt when this photo was taken.

Alex removed everything from the box, and piled all of it onto the floor, except for one thing: a sapphire-blue teardrop diamond.

“Thank God,” he said, clutching the diamond in his hand.

“That’s it? That’s what’s going to get the Queen to agree to free my mom?” I slipped the photo of my mother and me into the back pocket of my shorts, which were almost dry now, and leaned toward Alex to get a better look at the blue diamond resting in the palm of his hand.

“Is that the Cruciatus diamond?” Laylen’s eyes were huge as he stared down at the teardrop diamond.

“Yeah, it is,” Alex replied, his voice wavering.

“Is it—does it do anything?” I asked nervously, worried that maybe my energy would set it off or something.

Alex closed his hand around the diamond. “The Queen use to use it to suck the fear out of people before one of the Keepers took it from her.”

“But if no one can enter The Underworld, then how did they take it from her?” I asked.

“A long time ago things use to work differently,” Alex explained drowsily. “The Queen used to be able to come up to the castle to discuss matters of business and to make truces with the Keepers. That’s how the Keepers ended up sending people down there as a punishment. This,” he held up the diamond between his fingers, “was once used during a bargain.”

“Well, how did you end up with it?” I wondered.

He almost smiled. “You and I stole it.”

“Stole it,” I said, stunned. “Why would we do that?”

“For fun,” he replied with a shrug. “We used to do a lot of things like that.”

Interesting, I guess, and it was kind of nice that he was giving me a little insight into our past.