Fate's Demand (Twisted Fate, Book 3)

Chapter Fifty-One

Marcus's tour turned into a one-room visit, though the setting was too spectacular for me to dare to complain.

Even the diamond room from Glory Academy had its counterpart in Hell's Fire, just as beautiful and shiny. The rays of light were dark, shadowed, and stemmed from the smoothed surface of black granite walls. A moat of fire circled a center podium made of the same cobbled stone as the bridge granting access to it. It would be a great place to curl up with a book so long as you never fell asleep and rolled off the side.

"Why are we here?" I asked.

Marcus looked at me out of the corner of his eye, but then focused on the point past the centerpiece to the back wall. On either side, tucked into the corners, there were two passageways. Both were void of light like a hallway without a power supply.

"Okay?" I looked to my right, but he stared straight. I twirled back. "What? Use your words, Marcus. Tell me what I'm supposed to see."

He laughed. "They are doorways, Aly. You said you wanted to know if Deryk was safe, right?" He pointed to the right. "Well, if he comes through the door, he will be."

"They lead into the Void?" Unconsciously, my curiosity took a step forward.

Marcus placed his hand on my shoulder to stop me from taking another. "The one on the right does, so stay clear. The other door leads back to the Mortal Realm."

"Seriously?" I shrugged his hand off and stared. Just steps away there was a door leading to my parents. I turned my head to look at him still standing behind me. "I could walk through the door on the left and go home?"

"And traumatize your parents when you mist from their hug?"

"But I won't mist."

"Not here, you won't," he said, "but that doesn't help you there."

Part of me wanted to ignore him and try anyway. It'd be worth it to see them. My parents already felt like a fading memory and there was no way I would allow that to happen. With David, I hadn't known better, but this... Well, now I did. Would they care? I mean, if their lives had fallen apart without me, would it really matter how they got me back? My soul was what really mattered.

"You're not trying to think of a way back to your parents, are you?" he asked, and I found him studying me when I looked back.

"Why would I do that?" I rolled my eyes and looked at the other door. My shoulders slumped. "So, if the Void is so dangerous, why do you have a door leading into it?"

"It makes things simple."

"What? You're too lazy to complete the spell, or you just go there so often, it's handy?"

"Neither."

"But aren't you afraid the Void will spit some nasty-ass creature in here?" I asked, tilting my head sideways to see Marcus while still facing forward. "That's what it does, right? If someone—or something—from another world goes into the Void and shines a light, they could get booted out and land here. Why risk it?"

He shrugged. "We don't," he told me matter-of-factly, like somehow, what he said was supposed to be making sense.

"Uh huh." Waving my arm through the air, I arched an eyebrow and said, "I don't follow. Sorry."

"We built Hell's Fire as a replica of Glory Academy."

"No kidding! You did a piss-poor job if you ask me."

"No replica is ever exact. There are areas that had to be altered to be effective," he told me.

"What do you mean?"