Page 212 of Fallen Stars
“So what do we do? How do we get to The Graveyard?” Elara asked.
“Well,” Ophelia said, “the dead can lead you there. And the dead dream too.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
Elara sat in the centreof a circle, Enzo opposite her as Ophelia poured black salt around them.
“Fucking bad idea you’ve conjured up,” Isra directed to Ophelia. “A living person travelling to The Graveyard?”
The seer paced, watching Ophelia shrewdly. She’d awoken, lucid, moments before, with no recollection of the prophecies she had been mumbling.
“Ariete and I did it when we first entombed Piscea,” Eli said. “It nearly killed Ariete, and I could not move from bed for a week after we’d travelled there.”
“This is a really motivational speech,” Elara said. “Thank you, Eli.”
“You aren’t the Sun or the Moon,” Lias said to Eli. “Elara rules death, does she not?”
“Then I suppose it will be like a homecoming,” Adrian muttered. Elara cast him a dry look.
“All I mean,” Eli said, “is that you need to keep your wits about you. The dead there are restless. Unhappy. Like the witch said before, they are in a state of limbo, and the magick that coats The Graveyard is a draining one indeed. You cannot linger.”
“I have a name,” Ophelia said. Eli ignored her, and she sighed, turning her focus to Elara. Ophelia’s utter calm and confidence, though irking, soothed Elara’s anxious heart. “It’s All Hallow’s Eve. And Piscea isn’t yet fully awake, is she? It will be a walk in the park for the Sun and Moon to reinforce the wards around her coffin, to seal it with their own magick. Now, remember the plan. All you both need to do is meld powers, the way you did when you created duskglass.”
It still unnerved Elara that this Star was from another world and knew such things about them.
“Then you use those melded powers to coat her coffin, sealing her and her shadows back in completely, and that old bitch won’t haunt us any longer.”
“Yes, and if you harm a hair on Enzo’s or Elara’s head, or you are leading them into a trap, I swear I will encase you in ice and watch you die slowly,” Isra replied, her eyes cold.
“We’ll have to form an orderly queue,” Leo said brightly as Eli, Merissa, and Adrian all nodded. Lias merely sniggered, and Merissa shot him a look of contempt.
“You’ve got quite the supporters,” Ophelia said as she began to cast dried rue into the circle, as well as dreampoppy seeds and duskdaisies.
“It’s what comes when you don’t trick your way into worlds and declare yourself a Star,” Elara replied.
“You sure about this, El?” Merissa asked. “About going to this place?”
Elara nodded. “It won’t be any different than dreamwalking. I just need to make sure I’m tethered. I fought Ariete in his dreams, magick existed there. It will in the realm of the dead too. Just…walk me through it again.”
Ophelia consulted the spellbook before her, a tome with symbols and letters that Elara couldn’t make heads nor tails of. “Usually, an object that the dead once touched can be used to commune with the dead. You need permission from a soul to enter The Graveyard. That’s where we are going to start.”
Elara stroked her dagger, the one Sofia had gifted her, as her stomach began to swirl.
“El,” Isra began, “don’t put all of your hopes in this, okay? You’re not there to see Sofia—she may not be on the other side, or if she is, you may not be able to speak to her. This is incredibly complicated magick, one that only someone from another realm even partly understands. The object will get you into the realm of the dead—”
“The Graveyard,” Ophelia interrupted. Isra shot her a cool look.
“TheGraveyard. You find Piscea’s tomb and seal it with your magick. Then you get out.”
Elara nodded, her hands tremoring slightly. “I know. I know it’s foolish. But who else would come? Especially with this dagger?”
Isra nodded, squeezing her hand. “Just remember what Eli said. Do not linger. Do not listen. We’ll all be here, watching over your bodies. Should anything happen, we’ll pull you out.”
Enzo leaned over, kissing Elara firmly on the lips. “You sure you want to do this?” he whispered onto them. Elara nodded. “Okay,” he replied. “I’ll be with you the whole time.”
Elara kissed him again, melding their mouths together as nerves began to consume her. Enzo flicked his wrists, lighting the candles around her so her shadow splayed on the walls of the temple, large and grotesque.
But right before she closed her eyes, as Ophelia took a breath to begin chanting a spell that would help guide Elara and Enzo to The Graveyard’s entrance, Eli jumped forward.