Page 147 of In Between Death and the Devil

“Do you think you’ve passed the third trial?” Daphne asked.

“Maybe?”

Trust what is. It was possible that my finding out about Fen’s addiction, choosing to come back, and trusting that I could handle whatever happened meant that I’d passed the third trial, but last time I’d been sure that I’d passed. I didn’t have that sense this time. I just felt tired.

“We should still pull Bea out,” Daphne said.

“You’ll have to shadow-step to get her,” Marcus said.

Fen pulled out his ring, the twin to Bea’s, and slid it onto his finger.

“Can you sense where she is with that?” I asked, remembering the way Bea had used it to send a message.

“Only if she’s in the process of leaving a message. If I’d left enough of my power on it to be able to always track her location, Death would have known she was a spy.” He frowned down at it. “I’ll need to find out where she is. It might take a while for her to answer.”

I bit my lip, hoping she answered soon. Time was something we didn’t have much of.

* * *

My visit to the Guardian confirmed that I had not passed the third trial, though they offered no help or hints on what it was or how I could pass. I barely held my tongue, swallowing the names I wanted to call them. Their creepy presence was overwhelming enough to remind me that insulting them was more likely to end in being shredded than provoking them into letting anything helpful slip.

On the way back, I stopped at the main stairs and dismantled the wall I’d created during our battle with the Wraiths with a wave of my hand. Fen had placed a couple of shadow portals there so people could pass through. I hadn’t had the power to remove it right after the battle, and then I’d gotten distracted. My cheeks heated at the sighs of relief and gratitude of the nearby Tempters. I didn’t want to be someone who inconvenienced everyone around me just because I was powerful.

Fen and Marcus were gone when I returned. Daphne told me he’d left a message for Bea and then gotten word of new cracks that had formed and gone to fix them. I went to join him, figuring filling them would go faster with the two of us.

We spent the next two days doing just that while we waited for Bea to respond. Every time we filled one crack, one or two more would form an hour later, like the In Between was fraying at the seams. Both of us felt it. The realm groaned under the weight of the souls that continually arrived from the World of the Living. It felt like there was a small balloon under my ribs that kept getting bigger, the surface of it stretching thinner and thinner.

I wondered if this was the third challenge somehow, if there was something I needed to do to ease the pressure, but nothing I did seemed to make a difference.

“Is it normal for Bea to go this long without answering?” I asked as I collapsed into a chair in the corner of Titus’s room.

Since the fire was already doused, we continued meeting here. Plus, with Titus in our midst it felt like our group was complete, even if he wasn’t conscious.

“Yes.” Fen said from the other side of the bed. He looked as exhausted as I felt.

“What if something’s wrong?” My body was tired, but my mind was strung tight. I couldn’t stop imagining Bea being discovered and imprisoned, or worse being shredded by Death.

“There isn’t anything we can do,” Marcus said, his voice gentle. “Nothing but trust her and wait.”

It was the third time one of them had told me that, and it wasn’t any more satisfying than the previous two times. I opened my mouth to argue, but all that came out was a strangled shout as a sharp, slicing pain in my chest made me double over.

Fen groaned across the room, and I knew he was feeling the same thing I was.

Something was desperately wrong with the In Between.

We both shot to our feet, preparing to go to the source of our pain, but another wave of it made my knees buckle as a tremor shook the ground beneath our feet.

“What is it?” Daphne asked, grabbing my arm.

I saw Marcus supporting Fen.

“The bridge,” I gasped seeing agreement in Fen’s eyes.

Without another word we both stepped into light and shadow and emerged at the entrance to the bridge.

My eyes went wide as I took in the cracks that spidered through the walls and windows. There were so many. “Fen.”

“Shit.” He leaned into the wall as the entire structure shook, and I was vividly reminded of what it had been like to stand in the middle of it in this state.