House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City #3) by Sarah J. Maas

Hypaxia said calmly, “Why did the Reapers first defect from Apollion and join you?”

The Under-King flinched. “Do not speak his name here.”

“My apologies,” Hypaxia murmured. She didn’t sound at all sorry.

But the Under-King settled himself. “In Hel, the Reapers fed on and ruled the vampyrs, and when the vampyrs defected to this world, the Reapers followed their food source. And found the other beings on Midgard to be a veritable feast. So they have left the vampyrs to themselves, feeding as they please on the rest of the populace.”

Ithan couldn’t stop his shudder this time. He couldn’t imagine what Hel was like, if Reapers and vampyrs had just been walking about—

“But you are not from Hel,” Hypaxia said.

“No.” The Under-King’s milky eyes settled on Ithan. “I was birthed by the Void, but my people …” He smiled cruelly at Ithan. “They were not unknown to your own ancestors, wolf. I crept through when they charged so blindly into Midgard. This place is much better suited to my needs than the caves and barrows I was confined to.”

Ithan reeled. “You came from the shifters’ world?”

“You were not known as shifters then, boy.”

“Then what—”

“And she,” the Under-King went on, gesturing to that unusual depiction of Urd towering above him, “was not a goddess, but a force that governed worlds. A cauldron of life, brimming with the language of creation. Urd, they call her here—a bastardized version of her true name. Wyrd, we called her in that old world.”

“That is all well and good,” Hypaxia said, “but my friend’s request—”

“Go speak to your brother, boy,” the Under-King drawled, almost melancholy. As if all the talk of his old world had exhausted him. “You have seven minutes.”

Ithan’s mouth dried out. “But where—”

The Under-King pointed to the exit behind them. “There.”

Ithan turned. And there was Connor, as vibrant as he’d ever been in life, standing in the temple doorway.





82


Ithan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as he sat beside his brother on the front steps of the temple. Hypaxia remained inside, speaking quietly with the Under-King.

Connor appeared exactly as he had the day Ithan had last seen him, cheering in the stands at his sunball game … except for the bluish light around his body. The mark of a ghost.

Ithan had found out the hard way what that meant—he’d tried to hug his brother, but his arms went right through him.

Seven minutes. Less than that now.

“There’s so much I wanted to say to you,” Ithan began.

Connor opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Ithan blinked. “You can’t … you can’t talk?”

Connor shook his head.

“Ever? Or just—now?”

Connor mouthed ever.

“But Danika talked to Bryce—”

Connor tapped his chest. As if to say, In here.

Ithan rubbed at his face. “The Under-King fucking knew you couldn’t talk, and—”

Blue glowed in his vision as Connor laid a hand on his shoulder. It didn’t have any weight. But the look his brother gave him, pitying and worried—

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Ithan said, voice breaking.

Connor slowly shook his head.

“I should have been there.”

Connor laid a finger on his lips. Don’t say another word.

Ithan swallowed down the tightness in his throat. “I miss you every single day. I wish you were with me. I … Fuck, I’m knee-deep in shit, and I could really use my brother right now.”

Connor angled his head. Tell me.

Ithan did. As succinctly as he could, aware of each second counting down. About Sigrid and Sabine and the Prime. About what he was now. About the parasite and its antidote.

Ithan glanced at his phone when he finished. Only two minutes left. Connor was smiling faintly.

“What?” Ithan said.

His brother laid a hand on his heart and bowed his head, a mark of respect to the Prime.

Ithan glowered. “It’s not funny.”

Connor lifted his head, shaking it. There was nothing but pride in his eyes.

Ithan’s throat closed up. “I don’t know what to do now. How to be Prime. How to fix this shit with Sigrid—if it can even be fixed. We’re all out of Athalar’s lightning now, anyway. Maybe I’m an asshole for not making Sigrid a priority. But I need to help Bryce and the others first. I’m so fucking far out of my league. And … there’s more I can’t tell you. I wish I could, but—”

Connor glanced behind them, to the temple and the Under-King inside it.

When he was assured that they were truly alone, he extended a hand toward Ithan. A sparkling seed of light filled it. Connor lifted it to his mouth and mimicked eating it.

“You know?” Ithan whispered. “About the secondlight?”

Connor nodded once.

Ithan snorted. “Trust the Pack of Devils to figure it out.”

But Connor reached into a pocket and laid something on the ground between them.

A bullet.

It was crafted of the same reeking metal as a Death Mark. As if it had been created from all those coins tossed into the river. Whatever properties its metal held must have allowed it to be touched and moved by the dead.