Page 51 of The Unseen Hour

We exited the forest, and almost immediately I felt the world grow dimmer. Surprising, considering the Meadow that held the Shades was technically lighter, with no foliage overhead to block the sky, and the strange floating orbs that lingered among the Shades. But the floating souls somehow dulled the whole area. Orion was right. The Shades had no real life in them, and this was merely a holding place for thousands and thousands of people in between Unseen Hours.

“What if this is a bad idea after all? Why would my father be among the Shades? Surely he’d be in the forest with you, not here? How would he survive here, where Charon could find him?”

The truth was, I was almost afraid to look. If I found him but was wrong about the state he was in … I wasn’t sure what I would do.

“The woods are large. Perhaps your father has stayed away from me for the same reason you were hesitant to trust me. I’m Head Shade, after all.”

“Perhaps.”

I still didn’t move. I knew I needed to. It was foolish to come all this way and stop now. I’d already looked for him when I first arrived. But now, somehow, the plan felt more real.

A couple of the orbs floated in our direction.

“Do you know what these are?” Orion asked, tone light.

I shook my head. “I tried to figure it out when I got here, but I haven’t a clue. I thought they might be lightning bugs in a jar, but I was wrong.”

“You were close. Watch this.”

Orion placed his palm under one, guiding it gently closer to me. Then he reached his other hand up and stroked a finger over the top of the sphere.

It burst open, the flower-petal soft casing reshaping into two large, luminescent wings.

I gasped.

“It’s a moth!”

He smiled, watching my reaction.

“Mostly they float. I think they trap the air inside their wings somehow? Use the heat and light they produce to stay up? But they can fly.” He pushed his hand up, and the creature flitted away before wrapping itself back into a sphere.

“Not as clever as the birds, and they mostly stay in the Meadow. They’re warm, though.”

“And beautiful,” I said.

“Yes, breathtaking.”

I turned to see him looking at me.

“Ready, Starlight?”

He held out his hand, and I took it, letting him lead me toward the Shades.

CHAPTER 24

“You distracted me so I’d calm down,” I observed.

“Did it work?”

“Yes. I appreciate it. It’s silly, maybe. I was ready to risk the trip down here, without knowing what was awaiting me. Now that I’m here, though, now that I know there’s a chance he could be in the Meadow as a Shade and not how I’d hoped to find him—it’s as though if I don’t face it maybe it won’t be real.”

Orion squeezed my hand reassuringly.

“I can relate. When I first got here, when I realized what was happening … there weren’t so many Shades back then, of course. Not in that first hour, when it was only Emrys. I recognized many of the people who had been Taken. Seeing my brothers like that nearly shattered me.”

“Oh, Orion. I’m so sorry.” I felt ridiculously dense. Bloody ghosts, I’d been going on about my father and hadn’t even considered that he’d already found his family in the Ether. That they’d been here with him for years upon years.

If I’d been stuck in the Ether, with no guide and no way of knowing at first what was happening, and I’d seen Bram floating around, I might just have gone mad.