Chapter 1 - Wings of Lies

They captured and poisoned me.

I struggled to remember why, how, who—whether it was one person or more—but the memory slithered away into the endless sea of inky black, much like everything else. There may have been a time when I remembered, before the burning sensation seared into my blood, gradually eroding parts of me, but that time has passed. At first, I fought. Whether it spanned weeks, months, or years, I fought the black cage I called The Void until… I gave up.

I let The Void claim a couple of memories. I no longer wanted them. They were as tainted as this imagined place. But the moment I surrendered one, The Void hungered for more—especially memories of her. Only a cluster of illuminated strands remained, entwining and pulsating with the remnants of my thoughts.

It was like someone locked me in a cage with my brain, granting me a front-row seat to its gradual destruction.

My mind faded as I watched the pulsing ball. Who was the she I forgot?

The thought ignited the disjointed, chaotic mess in my mind with a steady light, transporting me to a girly bedroom filled with the clamor of a panicked voice—a memory.

“Lucy, run! Run!”

No, it couldn’t be. But my mom had only used that tone—the one that brokered no questions, that held a thick layering of protectiveness—three other times. Each time, saving our lives. He was here. On my nineteenth birthday, no less.

I dropped my mom’s book. Fear raced down my spine, and, for a fleeting moment, I yearned for my amulet or her soothing touch. Both quelled the turmoil within. But I told myself I’d fight if this day ever came. For her.

The burst of light dimmed, and the memory faded, leaving me with the odd silver mass and a lingering sense of longing—a bitter, unyielding ache. For what? I couldn’t remember anymore.

But I was okay with not knowing.

Another section flared, brighter than the last, pulling me into another memory.

I was wrong. It wasn’t him.

My mom stood in the center of a quaint living room, surrounded by uniformed figures. Long ebony strands curtained her face and fell over her stiff shoulders. Chin raised, she faced them while I cowered around the corner, forcing my trembling knees to steady.

They outnumbered us. Or… her. But my mom couldn’t do this alone. I could catch them by surprise with all their attention focused on her. For once, I wanted to protect her more than I wanted to be soothed by her touch. The moment I moved to join her, she gave the tiniest jerk of her chin, and her eyes erupted in violet fire.

No. Wait! No!

The stubborn urge to stay and fight dwindled, replaced by a surge of urgency forcing my feet into a run. Once within the safety of the lush pines, the urgency yielded to calmness. She’d be okay. Everything would be okay.

The towering evergreens faded, and confusion returned. The Void’s slime attached to the bundle of strands, slowly consuming the white glow and reducing the knotted mess to a solitary strand of light—a mere speck in the surrounding umbra. My thoughts faltered, relinquishing thoughts of her. I felt something in the darkness for the first time—a deep sense of dread.

It sparked another image.

A blurred figure of red and black loomed among the trees.

“What’s happening?” I asked, my heart pounding in time with my growing uncertainty, disrupting the forced calm. “Why are you doing this?”

“You know why,” the figure said, blowing a black cloud of dust into my face.

The walls of darkness thickened around me, urging the poisonous black slime up the thread. Before The Void consumed the whole thing, a ball of brilliant, explosive light fractured my dark, numb world. A cloud of billowing shadows flew toward the silver speck, their wispy tendrils wrapping around the slime and halting its ascent.

Waves of heat blasted into The Void as two figures materialized—one composed of shadows and the other emanating pure, white light.

“Wake up, Lucille!”

I winced from the reverberations of her voice.

“You need to wake up, Lucille!” she yelled again.

I recoiled, needing to clutch my ears, but I didn’t have a body, did I?

Am I Lucille?

“Yes.”

The answer to my thoughts didn’t come from the body of light but from the shroud of shadows behind her. From a pained male voice.

He heard my thoughts.

From the ache that strangled his word, I sensed he knew me. They both did, but I didn’t know who they were.

A question teetered on the edge of my thoughts. What did I want to ask? I glanced back at the glowing speck of light. The thick slime pressed against the wispy shadows while the encroaching walls of black closed in on the white radiance.

Are you here to save me?

Her light flickered.

The Void darkened.

“Hang on!” she yelled, her voice wavering.

She walked closer, her strobing light doing little to stop the thick sludge.

“Lucy, I need you to open your eyes. The poison won’t destroy you if you open your eyes.”

My eyes were open.

“Your actual eyes! Wake up!”

Her blaring tone echoed as I tried to understand. She made sense. But I forgot why. The Void had stolen that answer a while ago.

The shadowed man stepped toward her and her weakening light. The inky sludge followed him, its malevolent presence repelled only by the faint wisps of gray and black emanating from his silhouette and the feeble glow she wielded.

“We can’t keep this up for much longer,” she whispered.

Why didn’t that scare me?

It should. I knew it should. But it didn’t.

The slime attacked, and she blipped out of existence.

The speck of light in the middle of The Void flickered, surrounded by a swarm of shadows that whirled protectively around it. However, the speck was no match for The Void, which loomed like a leviathan of darkness. I closed my eyes and waited.

“Damn it, Lucille! You don’t get to give up! Fight it!” the man bellowed.

Shadows and flames of purple and white attacked, their ungodly heat searing into The Void. I screamed as they burned away the cage around my mind.

Something eased inside me, and I opened a pair of heavy eyelids, expecting to see light, but I was only met with more darkness.

I tensed. But this was… different. My chest rose and fell, and a throbbing pulsed in my ears. I twitched my fingers against the cool press of metal beneath my skin. I scrunched my nose. What the hell was that smell?

Urine? Sulfur?

Who cared? This felt... real.

My eyes adjusted to a tiny crack of light seeping through the border of a door. The yellow glow slashed across my arms and chest, illuminating my dim surroundings.

Walls of damp concrete boxed me in, pressing against my naked feet and bending my neck at an awkward angle. I didn’t fit. On the table or in this… closet? Was I in a freaking closet?

I tried to plug my nose from the wretched scent, but something tugged on my heavy arm. I reached my other arm out to investigate, only to feel another tug in that one, too. My eyes traced from my shadowed shoulder to the tiny strip of light near my elbow.

And finally, I saw them. IVs.

They pinched my arms, legs, and groin. I reached for the hard plastic jutting from behind my knee and followed it to a rattling tube. My eyes shot up, looking for what they connected to. The dim closet made it difficult to see, but three bags of black fluid and one clear bag—hopefully filled with hydrating fluids—flowed into my body. Based on the uncomfortable tube inserted into my groin, I’d probably find a bag of my own urine somewhere below the table. That explained the ammonia smell. But nothing else.

My eyes jumped from the tubes to the bags to the sliver of light, my heart rate ratcheting with every jump, and breaths dying at the back of my throat. Sweat slicked my hands and forehead. I tried to dive back into my memory to find any explanation.

But my memories… they were… gone. At least all the ones that mattered—the ones about who I was and how I got here.

Who cared that I craved chocolate like a madwoman? Who cared that I loved the smell of winter and campfires? Who cared that armed with only bobby pins, I could pick locks like a pro?

The Void let me keep superficial facts about myself while the voices in my head reminded me of my name, and I knew my age from…

My body locked up, ears ringing. Something snaked around my heart, squeezing until tears pooled in my eyes.

Oh hell. Oh, heavenly hell. What was wrong with me? What was this feeling?

I couldn’t breathe as the memory tore into me. She should be with me now. She should be calming me, so I didn’t have to feel this… this… whatever the hell this was!

“Mom!” My voice cracked. “Mom!” I cried, clutching my sternum as if it could force air into my spasming lungs.

“What happened to us?”

A sharp pain sliced into my mind, and an unbearable itching consumed my skin. I cried out and tried to clutch my head but was stopped by the short tubes of the IVs.

Fuzzy purple images jolted into my mind.

I snuggled in a loveseat in a small cream-colored living room, my toes curling into the soft fuzz of the gray rug. A fire crackled behind a chicken-themed grate, filling the space with warmth and the smell of burnt oak. I took a sip of my hot chocolate, relishing its sugary taste, and took a break from the cracked yellowing pages of a book I’d stolen from my mom’s locked room. Its unique symbols made my head throb almost as much as the low jazz music playing in the background did. It wasn’t my kind of music, but I suffered through it often and through every monotonous day in this isolated mountain home for her.

Tears trailed down my cheeks. I squeeze my lids tighter, screaming at my brain to give me something more. I tried again and again, picking, poking, tearing apart my muddled mind to figure out how I got here and where she went. But there was nothing else.

“Shit!” I yelled.

The ringing in my ears increased. My spine begged to move from the unyielding surface, but all I could do was fling my weakened arm out toward what I assumed was a door. I hissed as the tape holding my IV wrenched against my skin.

“To hell with this!” Gritting my teeth, I took hold of the tape and plastic and yanked it from my skin. Blood dribbled down my arm, and I applied pressure, holding my hand against the wound for a moment before yanking the rest of my IVs free. No longer tethered to the tubes, I combed the door’s surface in search of the handle. Pins and needles swallowed my arm, forcing my hand lower and knocking it into the doorknob. Relieved, I took a moment to rest my useless limb, and then I twisted.

Locked.

I twisted harder. My sweaty palm shook, sliding against the metal. Metal that didn’t budge an inch.

No. No. No!

Needles prickled beneath my skin.

I heaved my other arm over and twisted with both hands.

Tears rolled off my cheeks. I jiggled the knob until my sobs were wet gasps of air.

“No!” A wild energy shot through me. Shaking, I forced myself up and toward the door. But even with the added strength of my upper body, my fingers could no longer twist.

“Let me out! Someone please! Let me out of here! Help me!” I screamed.

Dots invaded my vision, and sand weighed down my arms. Thump after pitiful thump, I pushed past my weakness and continued to bang on the door. I couldn’t stop. But the stabbing pain rose. The pressure pressed against every inch of my skin like something vicious begged to escape.

“Please!” I cried. “Help me!”

My screams tore through my throat, raw, guttural sounds. Darkness crept at the edges of my vision until a pulse vibrated the air.

Light lit up the tiny, damp room. I grabbed for the door in a frenzy. But the knob didn’t give.

I blinked the tears out of my eyes and gasped.

White flames covered both of my hands.

You always end up in cages, don’t you, Lucille? Except, this one’s your own doing.

That voice… It couldn’t be her, could it? But it sounded like her, only more bitter. The same voice from that dark hellhole I woke from. If it was her, maybe she could actually help me this time.

Stop freaking out and use the power on your hands to get out.

“Why are my hands flaming?”

Because you have powers.

“How?”

She didn’t respond.

“Hello? How is this possible?” I asked, waiting. “Why won’t you answer me?”

I can’t.

“Then why are you in my head? I need help!”

If you want answers, grow up and get out. I’m not allowed to explain.

She sounded so… angry and different from before.

“Answers? Like about my mom?” I asked.

Among others.

“Do you know where she is?”

Silence.

“Please, if you won’t tell me anything else, at least tell me that.”

Elora

“Where’s Elora? Where am I?”

Not Elora.

“Helpful.”

I don’t want to help you. But I don’t have much choice. You’ll find your answers once you get out of your cage. Escape and remember the names Oliver and Magda. Ask Oliver about Elora, then— She paused. Magda everything else, she rushed out.

“And I’ll find my mom that way?”

You’ll find your answers. But Magda’s answers come at a price. Her voice was fading.

If she knew where my mom was, I’d pay any price.

“Wait, but who’s Oliver? And how am I supposed to escape? The room is locked!” I yelled.

Use your powe…

“Wait!” I yelled, but she never returned.

I looked down at my hands, bringing them closer to my body. They flickered with white flames but weren’t hot. How in the world were they going to help me?

“Can you manifest keys?” I asked. Damn it, I was losing it.

For the sake of trying everything, I put my hand on the doorknob and said, “Unlock.”

It didn’t unlock. So, she was lying. Or, yet again, I was crazy.

“Open,” I said, trying again.

The flames danced around my hand and the cool knob, achieving nothing. No surprise there. Was this even real, or was I hallucinating?

Suddenly, metallic fumes filled the small space, stinging my eyes. I blinked as the doorknob melted into a pool of molten metal, then disintegrated into particles of glowing ash.

I sat there, trembling as the flames sank back into my skin.

This couldn’t be happening.

But I didn’t have time to understand. The door was unlocked. I could escape and find my mom. Once I found her, everything would be back to normal. It’d be okay.

I shifted, letting my legs dangle over the table, and felt a tug in my groin. Damn it, the catheter. Tensing, I grabbed the tube and slowly dragged it out of my body. I clenched my teeth. Black specks clouded my vision as it popped out, and the sensation worsened when I attempted to stand. Numbness shot up my limbs, and I collapsed against the table, blacking out.