“But Rego—will he even want to help us?” I asked, panicked. “After what you told him—”
“What I told him won’t matter. You’re—” Logan paused, as his Adam’s apple bobbed slightly when he swallowed back whatever it was he was going to say.
“What?”
“Over here, you’re a threat to him. Just like you could be used to assassinate the Queen, now you could be used to kill him. It’s in his best interest to get you home.”
He tilted his chin up, his eyes steely with resolve.
“And I’ll give him whatever he wants to make sure that you get home,” he vowed, holding me tightly. “Now hold on.”
Logan’s footsteps crunched faintly as he stepped out of the alcove, making a sharp turn right as he walked along the tunnel, hugging the dingy walls, which were coated in faded but colorful markings, scrawled in a sharp handwriting.
“Graffiti?” I whispered, and Logan shook his head, his jaw tense.
“Warnings,” he replied, and I gripped his neck more tightly as he picked up his pace. Red-tinged light beamed down through crevices overhead, dotting the tunnel with eerie spotlights which appeared as crimson splashes as they settled on the stark white rocks.
The only sounds I could hear were our raspy breaths and the crunching of rocks underneath Logan’s feet as he steadily but swiftly carried me through the tunnel. His breathing grew heavier, and I realized we were on an incline, until finally, the ground leveled out, with a faint blush of light appearing ahead.
That’s when we heard the first roar, the savage sound reverberating in the tunnel and making it even louder.
Logan began running, forgetting about trying to stay quiet in a race to escape the tunnel—and the bone monster that was somewhere behind us, patrolling the depths of the dark, cavernous space.
The second roar was a deafening, feral sound, a shriek layered on top of a primitive growl, and Logan began sprinting in earnest toward the light.
We could feel that second roar—our skin heated by the blast of hot breath that came out of the bone monster’s mouth.
“Hold on,” Logan ordered, his fingers clutching me tightly as he tilted forward, his wings beating rapidly—and I realized he was trying to gain enough momentum to take flight. I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his shoulder. And I should have left it there.
Because when I glanced behind him, I got a good look at what was following us. The immense skeletal face was a long white oval, punctured with gaping, empty eye sockets. Sinewy beige tendons held an underbite of spikelike teeth, which stayed low to the ground, snapping and snarling as the bone monster galloped in our wake, its gait almost canine.
With a rush of wind, we lifted off the ground, Logan’s takeoff wobbly but fast. We careened around the tunnel, the monster’s head swiveling and snapping as it tried to catch us, one large bony claw swiping at us in an effort to knock us out of the air. Logan dove low, skimming the ground as he dodged the creature, whose face took on a pinkish hue as we reached the exit.
Logan grunted with exertion as we flew upward, out of the tunnel.
“I think I’ve got this now,” Logan said, flying more smoothly as we gained height.
Over his shoulder, I could see the bone monster emerge—the skeletal head followed by six pairs of bony legs and a massive tail, which swung in anger as the monster raised its head, roaring at the sky in fury.
I shut my eyes and gripped him tightly, my fear of heights—and, you know, nightmarish bone monsters from another dimension—wrecking havoc on my equilibrium.
Just look at Logan. Just look at him and everything will be okay.
But when I opened my eyes to look at him, the expression on his face told me that everything would not be okay. I followed his line of vision and gasped in horror.
The sky was gray—not the shade of an overcast or stormy day, but the color of death, the sickly hue of corpses and illness. Hanging high in the center of the sky was the sun. At least I think it was the sun—a meaty red orb visibly pulsed, as if someone had torn a hole in the skin of the sky, revealing the putrid flesh beneath. Somehow, this bloody crimson sun gave a blush-colored light to the Dark City, which spread out beneath us.
Elongated dark skyscrapers pierced the sky, almost gothic in their gracefully curved spires and elegant points. Winged creatures, much like Logan, flew around the twisted spires, dipping and swooping low, the flapping of wings a low hum that settled in my ears.
In the center of the darkness, where Central Park should have been, was instead a glacial wasteland, a stark ice-blue dead zone packed with clusters of brittle, frozen trees.
My eyes sought out my neighborhood, and even though I’d known it from the map Rego had shown me, I still gasped when I saw that it was on fire, shimmering with smokeless red-and-orange flames whose heat radiated out in undulating waves.
“I will get you out of here,” Logan vowed. I pulled my eyes from the wretched landscape, meeting his determined ones as we hovered in place.
Logan shifted his grip to hold me more securely. His eyes turned back to the city that sprawled beneath us, his head lowering as his eyes targeted an area to the south.
And then we were off, Logan rapidly flying toward what would have been the Upper West Side. The nightmarish landscape blurred by as Logan picked up speed, the warm wind chapping my tearstained cheeks as Logan spread his wings, gliding downward like a hawk, flapping his wings to slow his descent as he came to stop on top of a building, jogging forward with the force of his landing.
He leaned down to let me slide out of his arms, my feet settling somewhat unsteadily on the rooftop, which looked like any other rooftop on the Upper West Side. It was covered in black tar, and the entrance to the stairwell was a nondescript red-painted door, housed in a little structure made of weather-beaten brown bricks. Wordlessly, Logan took my hand, leading me across the roof. He yanked the door open, the hinges creaking and causing me to jump at the noise. I peered inside at the dark stairway, before looking at Logan incredulously.
“It’s just a stairway,” Logan reassured me as he craned his neck to check out the shadowed staircase before taking a few steps down.
“Luserna Illuminabit,” he said, repeating the spell he had used to conjure light when the auditorium had been cast into darkness, and golden orbs of light raced ahead of us, illuminating the dark staircase. Logan pulled out his sword, holding it in one hand and gripping my hand with his other.
“Just a stairway?” I repeated, eyeing his sword.
“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared,” he muttered, before turning to face me. I was standing a few steps above him, making us eye level.
“I swear it to you, Paige. I will get you home, if it’s the last and only thing I do.”
With that, Logan turned around, and I let my love lead me down into the darkness.
* * * * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
YOU’D THINK WRITING a book just requires an idea and a laptop, but the truth is, an author needs—and heavily relies on—his or her support system to get those words down. I’d like to give thanks to the following people who supported me on this journey:
Natashya Wilson and the brilliant team at Harlequin Teen. I have to especially thank my wonderful editor Annie Stone for her exceptional insight and guidance, and Tara Gavin, who gave me the opportunity to live my dream with Spellbound. I’ll be forever grateful.
My fantastic agent, Lynn Seligman. I’m so lucky to have you in my corner.
Dawn Yanek. Paige and Logan would probably still be on a roof somewhere without you. Thank you for your invaluable advice, edits and, most of all, your friendship.