Lewis stumbled along, using the walls for support. His entire body felt cold and numb since the shadows had left his body. Only now was he starting to get the slightest bit of warmth in him that wasn't from the Spiritbound Stone. It was like they had drained everything out of him, and with each passing minute that he was away from them, he could feel himself starting to recover.

He had to keep moving; Emily was here somewhere, looking for him. The thought of seeing her after all he had been through was the only thing that had kept him going. The visions of her lying, bleeding to death, on the floor of the office were burned into his mind even though the shadows no longer possessed him.

A scream echoed down the tunnel from somewhere behind him, encouraging him to move faster for fear that it might be Tristan who had noticed he was missing. 'Help me, please,' a faint voice called, a bony, porcelain hand reaching out from between the bars on the cell door ahead of him. 'Please, I know you're there and you mean no harm.'

Lewis stopped dead in his tracks. What should he do? Could this be a trap or a ploy to slow him down? A face appeared at the bars, gaunt to the point that her skin seemed to be all that was left clinging to bone, all definition gone. 'I don't know how to open the door.'

'Please, you have to try,' she begged, her milky white, unseeing eyes looking in his general direction when he spoke. She tugged at long, grey hair anxiously with one hand, clumps of it falling away. 'Please.'

'I'll try, but I need to be quick. If I can't do it, I can come back later with help,' he said, hurrying over to the door with a glance over his shoulder.

'Bless you,' she said, reaching out a hand towards him.

The moment her fingers grazed his skin, her white eyes turned pitch black, and smoke began to emanate from them, spilling out into the corridor. Behind it, the woman's body crumpled to the floor, disappearing out of sight as one of the shadow guards began to form, towering over him. It spoke in a language he didn't understand, its guttural voice echoing.

He tried to back away, but one of the dark hands gripped his forearm in a vicelike grip, twisting as it pulled him closer. The mouth opened, a wretched howling coming from within as their eyes lit up bright white. That feeling he had felt before—the sharp pain as it tried to push its way into his mind—came crashing over him once more.

There were flashes of Emily lying on the floor in the office. Blood, so much blood, but he pushed back against it. Emily was fine; she was here; she was coming to find him. In between the visions it tried to force on him, he saw flashes of black smoke and Tristan standing over a brazier, looking down on him. His hand appeared, casting tiny chunks of obsidian over him, and suddenly he had a form. He towered over Tristan, and yet he was still submissive to him, awaiting orders.

'Go, awaken the lost ones. Make sure he doesn't escape while I complete the archway,' Tristan said. He felt himself nod before he turned, catching a glimpse of an enormous stone archway to one side with scaffolding around it. Piles of silver and gold were scattered on the floor, along with a steady procession of people carrying things in. Before he could take in more of his surroundings, there was a blinding light like the sun itself and a screech.

Lewis' eyes shot open, blinded by the light. Against it, he saw the silhouette of the shadow writhing, leaping from one side to the other as it tried to escape the light before it exploded into a million pieces. Slowly, the light faded, and he saw a man, hand outstretched, before him and a cluster of other figures behind him. He didn't have a chance to take them in before one burst forward, and he was engulfed in a mass of red hair and a hug so tight he could barely breathe.

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The faint scent of strawberries caught his nose, and he relaxed, his arms automatically wrapping around Emily and clinging to her just as tightly as she did to him. 'I thought we were never going to find you,' she whispered in his ear.

'I made you a promise, remember. I'll always find a way back,' he said, relinquishing his grip slightly so that he could look at her properly. 'I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up.'

'Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes?' Captain Caldwell said from behind the man who was twisting the orb of sunlight in his hand as he tried not to interfere in their moment. 'I thought for sure you'd be dead before we got here, or we'd die trying to get to you.'

'Captain Caldwell, Edward,' he said in disbelief. 'I thought they had killed you.'

Captain Caldwell shrugged. 'I've got better things to do than die right now. Specifically, get us all out of here and back to the city. I don't suppose that Spiritbound Stone would be able to help with that, would it?'

'I can try, but we need to work out where Tristan is; he's trying to find a way to pass through the veil,' Lewis said. 'When the shadow was trying to possess me, I managed to force my way into its memories and saw its creation. He was in a room with a big archway, and he told the shadow to awaken the lost ones.'

'The Gate of Ilborh,' Thomas said quietly. 'I wondered when Emily, Arthur and Captain Caldwell told me about the archway in the palace, but I didn't think it would actually be possible.'

'What do you mean?' Lewis asked.

'There are legends that say that after each of the gods left this world, they made their home in their own place, kind of like their own world. Not wanting to be entirely cut off from the world they had been the stewards of for so long, they created a way to return here, each in their own image,' he said. 'Think about how you travelled through the leylines; that's the easiest way I can describe it. These gateways have been missing for aeons, if they ever existed in the first place but the thought that someone could create one to another place is not entirely out of the scope of possibility.'

'Tristan wanted to create a new crux for himself from mine. He said if I refused, he would go beyond the veil and take it from the baby, and there would be nothing any of us would be able to do to stop him no matter where we were,' Lewis said. 'Even if we get out of here alive, as long as he has a way past the veil, it doesn't matter. We have to destroy the archway.'

'Arthur and Clara are leading a group of precursors and Cimant warriors to the palace to try and destroy it,' Emily said.

'Destroying something like that isn't that simple,' the man said, speaking for the first time. 'My apologies; I haven't introduced myself, Hager Vandemark, the uncle of Arden Vandemark, whom I hear you're a descendant of. Although it's not hard to tell, you're almost the spitting image of him.'

'They've got some powerful explosives to destroy the archway,' Emily said.

Hager shook his head. 'No, destroying the physical is not enough. If he has begun to create it, then there will be a connection beyond the physical binding it to its place. No amount of explosives would be able to break a connection that exists as an ethereal tether.'

'I don't suppose you would know how to do something like that?' Thomas asked hopefully.

'Not exactly, but if it isn't complete yet, you might be able to disrupt the creation of the tether enough to stop it from working or corrupt it,' he said.

'We shouldn't waste any more time if that's the case,' Lewis said. He focused on the archway, hoping that the Spiritbound Stone would be able to lead them there. A moment later, there was a gentle tug, leading him in the direction he had been heading. 'We can't let him get away from us again. This time, we're better prepared.'

'On our way to find you, we passed a couple of cells that hold people I know; they're very capable,' Hager said. 'If we could stop to free them, they might be able to assist us.'

Lewis considered it for a moment, looking to Thomas for guidance. 'It wouldn't hurt to have a few extra hands, especially if we're going to have to fight our way out of the city at street level,' Thomas said.

'Alright, we'll stop to help them, but it needs to be quick,' Lewis said.

'It will be,' Hager said with a nod, setting off in the direction he had come before anyone else had the chance to speak. Grabbing Emily's hand, Lewis gave it a quick squeeze, which she reciprocated with a smile. After everything that had happened, he had no intention of letting her out of his sight until they were safely back at the castle.