“Why would I have to?” I asked, wondering what he was looking for.

“Because…” he bent down and opened the cupboard below the sink. “I probably won’t be here.”

“Huh….Why won’t you…Alex what the heck is going to happen to you when I use the crystal ball.”

He reached inside the cupboard and pulled out a first aid kit. “I told you—”

I cut him off. “Just tell me, please.”

He looked at me, and I looked back at him, the electricity coursing all around.

“I’m just going to be gone for a little while,” he finally said with a shrug. “It’s nothing major.”

“But you’ll come back, right?” I asked, suddenly worried I’d never see him again. Hmm…That was weird.

He paused, considering what I’d asked him. “Eventually, yeah.”

Chapter 8

As Alex patched the bite on my neck, his words lingered in my head. Eventually. Eventually, he’d be back, but when? Did he even know?

I was sitting on the kitchen table, with my feet up on one of the chairs, as Alex stood in front of me, patting my neck with a cotton ball.

“What exactly do you mean by eventually?” I asked him, flinching from the pain. “’Just how long are you talking about? And why will you be gone? Can’t you just break the promise?” I mean he was good at breaking promises to me, so why not to Dyvinius.

He gave me a funny look. “You know, you ask more questions than anyone I’ve ever known.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, if you’d just tell me things, then I wouldn’t have to ask the questions.”

He shook his head, trying not to smile. “Well, I’m not sure when I’ll be back—there’s no time frame for what I’ll be doing. And I won’t break the promise because I can’t. It’s binding because I made it in the City of Crystal. It’s how things work—promises are unbreakable when made there.”

“Well, can you at least tell me what you have to do while you’re be there?” I asked as he pulled out a square piece of gauze.

“It’s better if I didn’t.” He peeled off the wrapper from the gauze. “Trust me, you’re better off not knowing.”

It was bad—I could tell. “Well, if it’s that bad then why are you doing it?”

He took the roll of tape out, looking very uncomfortable. “Because…as of right now it’s the only way I can think of to get some answers.” He ripped two pieces of tape off and tossed the roll back into the first aid kit. “And also because…” He struggled with his words as he taped the gauze to my neck. “Because I’m hoping if I do, then maybe you’ll start…trusting me more. And perhaps…” He closed the first aid kit, picked it up, and headed back toward the cupboard where he’d gotten it from. “You’ll forgive me.”

He said it so quietly I wasn’t sure if he’d actually said it. Before I could get around to asking him to please repeat himself, Laylen entered the kitchen.

“So I’m assuming you need a normal Foreseers crystal ball to get this Ira crystal ball,” he said to Alex as he slid onto the table beside me.

Alex shut the cupboard and nodded. “Yeah, does Adessa have one?”

Laylen nodded, and we followed him out of the room to go get one. I couldn’t help but look at Alex, thinking about what I thought he said—that I’d forgive him. The more I thought about it, though, the more I was convinced I’d misunderstood him.

 After we got a regular old vision-seeing kind of crystal ball from Adessa, we went into the now cleaned up living room. Evidently, Adessa had used magic to clean and mend up Laylen’s and Alex’s mess. The shelves were back up on the dark blue walls, the knickknacks standing on them. The apothecary table was no longer broken and the black candles were topping it once again. And the crack in the wall had miraculously been fixed.

It was really early in the morning, and Adessa had decided she needed to do some inventory in her store. Alex had suggested to Aislin that she should go help Adessa. I think he did it so that Aislin would be distracted from the fact that when Nicholas showed up, he would be taken away to the City of Crystal. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t going to tell her, but there was no use trying to argue with him. Whatever the promise was, he wanted to keep it a secret from her.

While we had been getting things set up, Alex had informed me that he still wasn’t sure if this was going to work. All he knew was that Foreseers did have a Ira crystal ball, which allowed them to travel to and from places that people normally couldn’t travel to—like say for instance The Underworld—but he wasn’t sure how it would work exactly. All we could hope for is that we’d be able to get Nicholas to tell us. For some reason, I had a feeling that this was going to be tricky. Faeries were tricky after all, so getting information from one seemed liked it would be tricky.

The violet ribbons swirled and danced inside the crystal ball, which was balanced in its stand on top of the apothecary table in front of us. Laylen sat on the one side of me, while Alex sat on the other side of me. I’d put myself in the middle of them intentionally, figuring it’d be best to separate them, just in case they decided to get mad at one another again.

I felt a little afraid looking down at the glinting crystal ball. I worried where I would end up when I went in, and if I would even be able to get myself out.  But we were all taking risks here, and I guess this was mine.

All I could do was cross my fingers, and hope that I would return to Adessa’s and find a more than cooperative Nicholas awaiting to tell me in detail what needed to be done to get my mother out of that horrendous place known as The Underworld.

But I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be nearly that easy.

“Okay, so now what?” Laylen asked. “Gemma’s just supposed to go into a vision and faerie boy will show up here and hand over this Ira crystal ball and then, BAM, we’ll just be able to travel to The Underworld without having to get dragged down through the lake by a Water Faerie?”

“Something like that,” Alex mumbled quietly as he stared at the crystal ball. He looked at me. “Whenever you’re ready, go ahead.”

I eyed the crystal ball warily. “Okay….” Well, here goes nothing. I reached for the crystal ball, but Alex caught my hand before my fingers grazed the glass.

“You need to make sure you go somewhere safe,” he insisted, holding onto my hand. “Just think of something simple that might have happened in your past. You have to be careful you don’t alter anything. Or get yourself stuck…You do remember how Nicholas got you out of the vision, when you went in with him, right?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “He just blinked and we were out.”

He frowned. “But he didn’t have you try.”

I sighed. “Look, I’ll be okay. I’ve gone in and out of visions on my own before. Some without using a crystal ball.”

“What?” Laylen said, at the exact same time Alex shot me a pointed look.

“You can go into a vision without a crystal ball?” Laylen asked, his bright blue eyes wide in amazement.

“Alright, let’s get this done and over with,” Alex said, before I could answer. It was funny, but I was realizing that Alex was doing the same thing with Laylen as he did so often with me—dodged the truth and answering questions.

Alex let go of my hand, and I took a deep breath and reached for the crystal. Then I was surrounded by nothing but light.

Chapter 9

I’m not sure what went wrong. But something was definitely wrong. All I could see was light, everywhere. Bright and blinding, stinging at my eyes. For a split second, I thought somehow I’d sent myself to the sun or something.

But it wasn’t hot or anything. In fact, it kind of made me feel sparkly, almost like whenever Alex touched me. It wasn’t making me panic or anything. In fact, I felt peaceful and calm.

I started to move through the light. “Where am I?” I whispered.

“You’re in your future,” someone said from behind me.

I spun around and squinted through the light. My nostrils were instantly hit by the smell of lilacs, rain, and forest. And I knew, even though I couldn’t see him, that there was a faerie standing out there in the light.

“Nicholas,” I called out. “Where are you?”

He didn’t answer, but I could feel him next to me, his warmth radiating from his body.

What is this place?” I asked, turning around in circles, searching for him.

“I already told you it’s your future,” his voice purred in my ear.

I jumped to the side, startled by how close he was to me. “My future…How do you know it’s my future.”

“Because I do.”

“But how…” I glanced around, trying to see something—anything—but was blinded in return. “How can this be my future? There’s nothing here.”

“Is that what you see?” Nicholas’s voice encircled me. “Nothing.”

I’d always been cautious around Nicholas. When I had gone into the vision with him, I had been careful not to let him know what I saw. But now…There was something off about this particular vision. I could feel it. I just felt…

I just felt too peaceful.

A feeling which I’d never felt before. Yet there was no prickle to help me acknowledge it. I just knew what it was.

“I see light,” I told him, my voice soft. “It’s everywhere.”

“Are you sure that’s all you see?” He whispered in my ear.

This time I didn’t flinch away. “Yes.”

“Well, then.”

“Well then what?”

There was a pause. “Then I guess that means your future’s dead.”

Dead. Dead. Before I could dig into the details of why he had said this—or if he meant that I would be dead soon—I felt his hand touch my arm.

“Let’s go back,” he said. “I have some business to take care of with Alex.”

Which was exactly what this was all about—taking care of business. But Nicholas was never supposed to show up in my vision. And I was never supposed to go into a vision so…heavy and severe. I was supposed to keep it simple. But if what Nicholas said was true, then I fail miserably.

For now, though, as hard as it was going to be, I was going to have to push this vision out of my mind so I could take Nicholas and myself back to Adessa’s.

So I did, shutting my eyes so tightly; wishing I could forget what I had seen—or what I didn’t see maybe I should say—but also wanting to keep the peaceful feeling with me.

“Alright,” I said. “Let’s go back.”

When I reopened my eyes, there was no bright light, the only light was coming from the chandelier on the ceiling. Dark blue walls surround me, and black and white checkerboard tile made up the floor beneath my feet. I was sitting in the velvet purple sofa with Alex on one side of me, and Laylen on the other. The crystal ball was no longer in my sight because Nicholas was standing in front of me, blocking it from my view.