Our jaws dropped.

“Oh, yes,” Medea’s face lit up with excitement. “Stephan is working to perfect the mark as we speak, and once he does, he’ll put it on himself, therefore marking us all immortal.”

I was struck speechless. Stephan was trying to mark himself with the Mark of Immortality. And if he did, every witch, fey, and vampire with the Mark of Malefiscus would become immortal too. So not a good thing.

Medea assessed me over, her gaze landing on my eyes.

“I need to take you to him.”

“No, you don’t,” I told her, taking a step back as I slipped the knife out of my pocket and flipped open the blade. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

She smiled, rising to the challenge. “We’ll see.”

“No we won’t!” Aislin screamed and threw the golden box at Medea.

It hit the floor in front of her feet and the lid flew off.

Medea’s dark eyes widened. There was a deafening roar and then she burst into flames.

“Run!” Aislin shouted, urging me to move.

And I did.

But Aislin didn’t follow. I stopped as she ran over to the counter and grabbed the box Medea had put the bags of herbs into.

She skittered around the flames. “Go! Go!” I sprinted past the burning Medea, with Aislin following at me heels. But when I tried to open the door, it was still locked.

“What do we do?” I cried over the crackle of the flames as I tugged on the door. “And why doesn’t this place have any freaking windows.”

The room was rapidly filling with smoke and the bright flames burned away at the floors and walls. Medea stood in the center of the fire, screaming at the top of her lungs, her hands thrown in the air.

Aislin ducked down to the floor. “follow me.” We crawled through the thick smoke, heading to who knows where—I couldn’t see a thing. Smoke filled my lungs and stung at my eyes. Finally, Aislin stopped crawling and pulled out her crystal and candle

“You’re doing that here?” I asked horrified as I glanced back at the flames crackling toward us.

She didn’t answer, fumbling with her lighter until she lit the wick of the black candle. Her had trembled as she dipped the red crystal into the flame. “Per is calx EGO lux lucis via.”

The heat of the fire melted at my shoes.

“Per is calx EGO lux lucis via.”

My body was burning up.

“Per is calx EGO lux lucis via!”

I was flying, falling, suffocating.

Chapter 12

I landed in the living room of the beach house and tripped into the coffee table, knocking Aislin down with me.

We both crashed onto the floor. The herb box Aislin had taken from Medea’s flew out of her hands, sending baggies of herbs all over the place.

Five seconds later, Laylen and Alex were running into the room. They were both struck speechless by the sight of us, lying on the floor, ash coating our skin and clothes.

Alex finally found his voice. “What—what happened?” He rubbed my arm with his finger, wiping away some ash. “Is this ash?”

“Yeah.” I coughed. “Well, it kind of turned out the store owner was this crazy witch with the Mark of Malefiscus.” Alex looked shocked. “Why do you have ash on you?”

“We burned her up.” Aislin stood up and swept the ash off her clothes, while Laylen brushed some out of her hair.

Alex blinked at her. “You burned the witch up?”

“It’s a long story.” I started to get to my feet, but Alex took my hand and pulled me up. My hand tingled and I quickly slipped my hand out of his. Why did he have to touch me like that? It was torturous.

Alex flexed his hand. “So what were you saying about the witch being crazy?”

“And that she had the Mark of Malefiscus.,” I reminded him, sinking down on one of the sofas.

Alex sank down on the sofa beside me. “I thought you were kidding about that part?”

I shook my head and started to explain. While I did, Aislin went back into the bedroom to do the Tracker Spell, which would hopefully tell me what was going on with my mom, and if I was going to have to go on a rescue mission to save her.

“So there are others with the mark?” Alex asked after I finished.

“From what it sounded like, yeah, there are.” I nodded.

“And they’re all just waiting around for Malefiscus to rise again or whatever.”

Laylen bit at his lip ring. “And they all might become immortal—Stephan might become immortal?”

“If he can figure out how to make the mark,” I explained, wiping some ash off the ugly olive-green lines on my arm.

“But it sounds like he hasn’t yet.”

“We need to hurry then.” Alex ran his fingers through his hair. “We need to figure out how to get you into that mapping ball to fix the vision.”

Man, I could feel the pressure. “I know.” A small wall clock ticked in the background as we all took in the severity of the situation. We needed to save the world, by using the mapping ball, yet we didn’t know how to use the mapping ball.

“But what if I change the vision back to whatever it was, and Stephan still lives,” I said, thinking out loud. “I mean I know Malefiscus won’t be freed, along with a bunch of Death Walkers, but if there are already people with the Mark of Malefiscus, couldn’t they still get together with Stephan and do some damage?”

Alex and Laylen both stared at me with stunned expression. Apparently, neither of them had been considering this.

Before we could go on discussing the possibility, Aislin came barreling into the room, breathless and flushed. “I found your mom,” she panted. “She’s at the castle.” I think part of me was holding onto the hope that maybe my mom hadn’t gone there; that she started to, but then decided against it when she realized it was probably a suicide mission.

“It’s bad too,” Aislin said. “She’s locked up in a room upstairs, and there are Death Walkers there, which means Stephan’s probably there.”

“Of course he is.” I sighed miserably. There was a time when Alex and I had both agreed nothing was ever easy.

And it always seemed to be the case, at least in this world.

“Are you ready to go?” I asked Laylen. “Or, if you don’t want to anymore, I can go by myself…I’ll understand.”

“Gemma,” Laylen said, all serious and intense. “Of course, I’m going to go.”

“Thank you.” I almost gave him a hug, but decided against it, figuring it would be weird with an audience.

“But you should change into some pants first.” Laylen pointed at the Levi shorts I was wearing. “It’s freezing up there at night.”

“Okay, give me a second.” I started for the hall.

“I still think I should go,” Alex said abruptly. “I don’t see why I have to stay here.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, not wanting to go down this road again. “We already went over this. It’s not wise for both of us to go because Stephan needs both of us in order to open the portal.”

He walked up to me and stood way to close for it to be in the safe-from-feelings boundary. “Then I should go and you should stay here.”

“We already talked about this too.” I inched myself back, smacking my elbow onto the wall. I rubbed my elbow.

“Ow…You have a sister you would be leaving behind. I don’t.”

Intensity burned in his bright green eyes. “You’re leaving me behind.”

I didn’t even know how to respond to that—I was too flustered and feeling things I knew I shouldn’t be feeling—so I turned away and headed off to my bedroom. Alex said something else, but when I shut the door it blocked out his words. And for a second, it blocked out all of the danger I was about to face. If only it were that easy. If only I could shut the door, lock myself in the room, and make my problems stay on the other side.

But like I said, nothing is ever easy

I pulled on a pair of jeans, changed my shirt, and rinsed the ashes off my skin. Then I flopped down on the bed, trying to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to do. But I was sure that was impossible. I was so terrified and deep down I wanted to run out of the room and tell Alex I changed my mind and he could go. But this was not his problem—it was mine.