“If it happens, it happens,” I say, crossing my legs and placing my hands in my lap.

“If you join us, I would be more than happy to teach you.” Prince smiles.

“If I join you, will you take me to the Donatella Family?”

“Of course. Your grandparents would be more than happy to see you.”

I pretend to think about it. “You’re not the only one who can take me.”

“Not just anyone can get inside the Donatella Family gates.”

I shrug. “Doesn’t matter to me. I could waltz right through those gates and no one could say anything. So, I think we are done here.”

“You seem not to care about Jennis, despite his loyalty to you.”

“I pity you.” Standing up, I move directly in front of him. Looking up into his eyes, I cock my head and pat his arm. “It’s okay. Receiving loyalty is for leaders, not for people like you.” I smile and walk toward the door. “Besides, if you really try to do something to Jennis, you are the only one that will suffer.”

I leave, and then pop my head back in to see him staring wide-eyed at me. “And by the way, you should bring these two back to the surface before you do anything else. At least then they won’t hold this against us, though I don’t care what happens to them.” Then I wave and move back out of his sight. Muttering , I blink and nearly gag. I look around at my new surroundings with a hand covering my nose and immediately notice fresh blood splattered all over the dirt clearing and the surrounding bushes.

Following the trail with my eyes, I find a man tied to a tree trunk with rope, a knife in his abdomen. He’s unconsciously hunched over, nearly naked save for a single rag covering his lower part. I move to take a step when a voice stops me.

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“Ah, don’t move, don’t move!” Cordelia appears from behind a tree, and with a soft from her, she floats my body over. After setting me down, she glances over the area I was standing and her face visibly relaxes. “I was afraid you would mess up the circle!”

I gasp, looking at the ginormous magic circle with writing etched in blood written in five lines around the inner edge of the boundary. “This is how we are going to the demon world?”

“Yes. You have heard the saying, ‘The moment when the nightloques go through the rainbow is when the link between our world and the demon world is the strongest,’ right?” I nod. “The second part of that is, ‘However, the pollen of a nightloque mixed with the blood of a sacrifice will create a doorway through even if the weakest.’”

“The weakest?” I stare at her in dismay.

“Don’t worry too much, it’s just a saying.”

“But both of them are true, are they not?”

“It does say ‘even if,’ implying that it is not the weakest.”

“But it is weak.”

“Oh bah, I have used this method many times and there were never any problems, even when I travelled with Natasha.”

I gulp. “You kill a man every time?”

“That is not a man. That is a shapeshifter. It will wake up in a few hours when we are done.”

“Won’t it seek revenge?”

“They know nothing of the sort. Now, you’re just in time. The portal is ready to be opened.” She takes a small coin purse off the ground and opens it toward me. “Would you like to do the honors?”

I scrunch my face in confusion. “Do I just throw a handful of that stuff?”

“As much as you want, though I find the more pollen there is, the stronger the portal,” she replies, smiling sweetly at me.

Gingerly, I dip my hand in and grab as much of the dust as I can. In one swift motion, I pull it out and throw it in the air above the circle. Nothing happens for a moment. Then, the words begin to glow brighter and brighter and I turn away.

“Come come,” I hear Cordelia say, and then she grabs my arm and pulls me into the blinding light.