Page 196 of Infernal Secrets

Like they did when I was a child, they stayed near me without a word. I sensed they were shielding me from something, but I couldn’t figure out what.

“I wish you’d speak to me.”

The one closest to my right turned its head in my direction.

“They plan to kill me. Do you know that?”

The other two turned to look at me—or at least I thought they were looking at me. Without visible eyes, I wasn’t sure what they saw.

“They said in two days I’ll be executed for hurting the princes.”

A choir of desperate howling echoed through the space, punctuated with broken sobs and shrieks.

“I didn’t hurt them!”

More distressed wails from the fog made me think whatever lived there didn’t believe me either.

I reached for Mom’s necklace, only to remember Cyn had taken it.

Pain tightened my chest, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the burn. He’d stolen the one thing I had left of Mom.

“Grandma was right,” I said, drawing the attention of my three shadowed companions again. “She said the shadows would come for me again. I always knew she meant the monsters—well, infernals. I don’t think she knew what any of this was. Mom either.”

Their silent presence comforted me, like when I was a child—though I still wished they’d speak.

I slumped against the bars, scrubbing my face to push away the fatigue before dragging my nails across my scalp to push my hair back. Lifting my eyes, I froze.

Dressed in the pretty chiffon blouse and ankle-length skirt we buried her in, Grandma stood on the other side of the courtyard, glowing with ethereal white light, sadness in her eyes.

I scrambled to the front of the cage, clutching the bars in a white-knuckled grip. “Grandma?”

My shadow friends stood, backing into the edges of the courtyard, dissolving into shadows along the fog bank as Grandma drew closer.

She came to a stop in front of me, kneeling with a grace she’d never had in life. The teary-eyed figure looking at me wasn’t alive, but she wasn’t a corpse, either.

“Why are you here?”

Of all the things I could have said first…

“Sweet Pea, I’m dead. That’s why I’m here.”

My lips twisted. I knew that, but I didn’t enjoy hearing it. “Do you know where this place is? How can I see you?”

Her cold, spectral hand rested over mine. She wasn’t corporeal, but the pressure of her touch made my eyes brim with tears. “This is the land of lost souls. A place where others like me go when they aren’t ready to move on.”

“But why?” I swallowed the lump in my throat as a tear slipped down my cheek, chasing the ones that had fallen before it. “Why are you lost?” My voice cracked. “What can I do?”

“The night I died, your friends over there visited me.” She glanced at the rippling shadows, and I knew the three figures waited, watching us. “I knew something wasn’t right, and I needed to get to you. I knew your time was up.”

“But I’m fine.” I sniffed. “I’m not dead.”

She chuckled. “I didn’t think you were gonna die, Sweet Pea. Whatever curse the women in our family survived all these years finally reared its big ugly head.”

The fog shifted with a chilling breeze, enough for me to see beyond the isolated courtyard. Hundreds of spirits drifted among gnarled, moss-draped trees across the empty land blanketed in dead leaves and creeping vines.

“Don’t look at ‘em. They want a way out of here.”

I turned to Grandma again. “What do you mean?”