The shadow mark felt like warm mud on my skin as it crawled all over it, and my clothes, evenly. All I had to do was leave my flask above me until the last drop. The liquid found its way to every spot without me needing to do anything; it even crawled up my raised hand, the one holding the flask.
Once the last drop landed on the tip of my nose, I felt as if I was being yanked forward forcefully, even though I didn’t move. I shut my eyes as I felt a sudden sense of nausea before the yanking feeling disappeared and my nausea retreated, leaving me breathless.
Feeling disoriented, it took me a moment to comprehend that I was no longer at the clearing in the middle of the forest of the Montrevere werewolf pack near LA. Because what I was seeing before me was far too unbelievable.
It seemed the Underearth wasn’t called an Underearth for nothing. This place, the city that sprawled down the hill the Betas, Lucien, and I were currently standing on, was literally built under the ground.
The ceiling was far too high for me to actually see, but I could see the walls were made of the very earth this place was named after. The city itself, while I couldn’t see the end, only the few blocks ahead, looked like an ominous version of Venice, with canals between blocks and houses, bridges to get from one place to another, and boats parked near the houses as a means of transportation.
The city was mostly dark but for the lanterns hung on the walls, dimly lighting up the roads. The smell was that of mud and ocean water, and the freshly cut grass we stood on as it covered the hill.
“What do you think?” Lucien murmured now, looking at me with piercing eyes, after he appeared out of thin air just like the others and me.
I returned my gaze to the city. “It’s beautiful,” I said quietly, “but eerie.”
He nodded in agreement, it seemed, before he looked at Blaise, who stared at the city ahead. “Lead the way.”
Blaise nodded and began climbing down the hill. The other two Betas, Lucien, and I followed, and as we did, an uneasy feeling crawled into my gut, as if my instincts were trying to tell me something.
But since I had no idea what they were trying to tell me, I ignored them for now.
We walked among the bridges, passing by people who seemed human, but each had a certain feature that differentiated them from any normal human I’d ever seen.
For instance, we passed by a family of four, with one of the mothers having long pointy ears, like an elf, and the other sporting shiny dark scales over her bare arms. Their son and daughter seemed like a mishmash of the two mothers, with both scales and pointy ears, though the son also had something akin to a tattoo framing his face, which had to be some sort of a birthmark, since the boy was merely four or five years old.
Most people we passed, though, had pointy ears in different lengths. When I asked Lucien about it in a low voice, he replied, “The Underearth is considered the most Fae-centric city in the Otherborne world.”
Meaning each and every person with pointy ears had to be Fae, or of Fae heritage.
I tried not to stare at the people we passed by, so as to not seem too out of place, like a human in a zoo, but it was hard—especially when some of the passersby had horns, or sported tails and animal ears, or were covered in fur in their human form.
The deeper we went into the city, the more bustling it became. Booths, shops, and individual traders were hanging around the streets, and people engaged with them, purchasing and selling their things. It felt like a scene out of a fantasy movie, one of those Willow loved so much. The only jarring difference was that the people here were dressed in modern fashion like the average human and were using phones and electronic devices to swipe credit cards.
At the end of what seemed like the main road, Blaise, who led our group, came to a stop before a shop that seemed like an apothecary fromoutside. He then turned to us and said, “This is the meeting point. My contact should be here soon.”
Lucien nodded and leaned against the shop’s vitrine, folding his arms, face relaxed but his eyes on full alert.
I stood next to him, fiddling with my shirt nervously and continually readjusting my glasses as I watched the crowd of people milling about, the families talking in a mix of American English and some sort of foreign tongue I didn’t recognize.
Another thing I noticed was the Spellscripts. There were many of them everywhere—carved on the building walls, the bridges’ bricks, statues, even on trash bins. Some of those Spellscripts seemed similar to those I had recorded in my notebook, but most were foreign to me.
A man suddenly approached our group, wearing torn jeans and a shirt that hung off his shoulder, with long blond hair split by his pointy ears and eyes the color of pure violet. He was a beautiful man, but unlike Lucien, whose beauty might be heavenly but was still human in a sense, this man seemed as perfect as a marble statue. With his flawless, hairless porcelain skin, symmetrical face, and those violet eyes, he would’ve seemed entirely alien to human eyes had it not been for his surprising hipster fashion sense.
Blaise came over to the man, and, shockingly, the two gave each other a manly half-hug, half-pat-on-the-back kind of greeting. “It’s good to see you face-to-face, for once,” Blaise said afterward, and the man, the obviously Fae man, nodded, his face starkly empty, which made his resemblance to a statue even more acute.
Turning to us, Blaise introduced him. “This is Zairos,” he said and motioned toward Lucien. “Zairos—this is Lucien Delterre, the Alpha of the Montrévère pack.”
Zairos—what an odd name—walked toward Lucien and offered his hand. Wordlessly, Lucien shook it, his gaze scanning the Fae man, assessing him.
When the formalities were over, Zairos stepped back and spoke in the lowest voice I’d ever heard, which contrasted with his elegantstatue-like looks so much, it felt as if he was being dubbed. “The HQ is a few blocks away. They are expecting you. Follow me.”
There was an odd lilt to his words, an accent I couldn’t pinpoint, but I ignored it and, along with Lucien and the Betas, followed the Fae man down the block and over the bridge toward our destination.
The walk was silent. Before, the Betas made small talk with one another, but now everyone kept their mouth shut, seemingly on high alert. Oz especially seemed jumpy, glancing around with a scowl on his face, as if something would attack us at any moment.
After a few minutes, Zairos stopped in front of a huge castle. A true, honest-to-Godcastle, with turrets, a moat created by the surrounding canals, and a flag blowing at the top of the highest spire.
While it was large, I realized why we hadn’t been able to see it until now: The castle was surrounded by equally tall buildings, as if it was meant to be both conspicuous yet somehow concealed.
