Page 78 of Can you take it?

I was going to steal Anna.

That was it. I could take her to the Elysian Fields and—and maybe I could barter with the Fates like a ransom. They could only take her to Moirai if we could stay together, because I wasn’t letting her out of my sight.

“So who was the rabbit creature we saw?” I asked the group. I was certain it was going to be some judge of Envy or something mysterious.

Walter stopped. “I have no clue what that was.”

“Me either,” said Eletha. “But when it was near me, I got the weirdest feeling like I knew it.”

“Me too,” said Anna.

I looked at Bexley. “I was too busy running from it to feel anything,” he said with a small hiccup. He frowned when he reached into his pocket and found that all of his bottles had been smashed with his fall into the painting.

“You ever think about going to the human realm and helping them? You know, see if you could keep them from going to hell with your dad?” I asked him.

He scowled at me. “Why would I?” He looked at the ground thoughtfully though, as though no one had ever asked him that before.

The little tremble in my chest pulsed—the same one that I felt before I knew I was going to try and save someone.

“How do we know this is tier six and not just a landscape painting?” Anna asked.

“What is six? Acedia?” I asked.

“Six is Fraud, seven is Acedia,” she returned. “Fraud,” I repeated. “This has to be it; it’s a painting.”

The others looked around before looking to one another conspiratorially.

“Looks an awful lot like the landscape painting that was hanging on the wall of the ballroom,” said Anna.

She wasn’t wrong—there was nothing out here but landscape. Boring, wide-open, no-tree landscape. As a fae, I was partial to trees.

“Wait a second; maybe he’s right,” said Walter. “It all looks like a landscape painting, but I bet that’s the trick of it.” He and I exchanged looks. “The portal door to the next tier has to be hidden, made to look like it’s something else.”

“Fraud,” Eletha said with slow nod of agreement.

“Well then, what are we doing? Let’s split up and look for it,” Anna said with a clap of her hands.

That was that, so we all split up in a different direction of the field to look for a hidden door. As soon as I was alone, I reached out to the only person that could help me right now.

‘Tell me that I am mistaken and you are not bothering me,’ Mendax hissed.

My eyes were supposed to be scouring the field, but they held on to Anna instead. She had settled on the ground and was trying to brush the pink-and-gold moths that had swarmed her out of her face. I looked at her smiling as the fluttering wings tickled her face and wondered how anybody could think she would be fit to rule the realm of the dead. She was meant to be a goddess. I looked away for a second, and when my eyes returned, Anna had all of the large moths working together, helping her lift leaves and tufts of dried grass into the air so she could look under them.

Huh.

It was possible she’d make a better ruler than I’d thought.

‘I need help kidnapping a woman I might be in love with.’ I refused to take my eyes off her. Even when she saw me staring and made a face at me.

‘Finally, you have come to your senses,’ he said with a wave of relief.

‘About Anna?’ I asked with a laugh.

‘About kidnapping women. You’re far too ugly to get them the standard way,’ he replied.

I rolled my eyes, finally removing my gaze from Anna and starting to look for the hidden door.

‘I’m tied to her and I’m not leaving her here. I’m going to take her with me to the Elysian Fields and try to negotiate a deal with the Fates for her,’ I said.