Page 94 of Can you take it?

Ten giggled as she stared at her father adoringly. “I’m right here, Daddy!”

“I could have sworn you brought her to the lab.” He placed his hands on his hips and looked around. “Shame, I was about to whip our horrid excuse for an army into shape with some training exercises, and I was going to see if the little commander wanted to help me.”

“I’m here, Daddy! It’s me!” Ten shouted at Mendax as she grinned ear to ear.

“What is this?” Mendax scooped up Ten and flipped her glittering body upside down as he held her up by her little ankles. “This oversized star sounds like my daughter! It is my daughter!” he said with a serious tone.

“Daddy, I want to go wif you!” she said through upside down giggles.

Mendax leaned over with mischievous eyes and kissed me. “You heard the commander; we are off to boss some men around. See you tonight for dinner?”

I nodded. “See you both tonight. We have to go to the Elven realm for dinner though.”

Mendax flipped Ten around and brushed the wavy hair out of her face. “To battle!” he shouted with the arm not carrying her raised into the air as he walked toward the door.

“To battle!” Ten copied as they walked out of the room.

I giggled to myself as I cleaned up my area and prepared to pull out the more dangerous experiments now that Ten was out of the room. My heart was so full it was hard to believe it bore scars from a time when it was cut in half.

Chapter 19

ELI

TIER TEN: PRIDE

As soon as we stepped through the doorway, we fell into the abyss. My stomach seemed to crawl into my throat with the uncomfortable feeling of falling. The air felt cool and crisp in the darkness. I wanted to reach out and hold Anna’s hand as we fell but thought better of it. Even in this moment, it didn’t seem like a good idea to prolong something that couldn’t last—something that had no hope, that had to end.

The thin air quickly turned heavy, and I felt my body begin to slow down until the air felt so thick, it was as if I were floating instead of falling. Eventually, I landed on my feet, somehow managing to stay standing. I looked around and found Anna only a few feet away from me. Before I could ask if she was okay, she nodded dismissively. We both knew what came with this tier, and neither of us was looking forward to it.

Mixed with the thought that I would be leaving and couldn’t stay with her was the knowledge of her growing desperate for the powers in the pendant. Would she lash out in a last-ditch effort to try to do something to make me hand it over? I wasn’t sure. I wouldn’t have blamed her. As a matter of fact, had it been me, I would have already been planning something.

I looked around the space to see brick walls surrounding us, all painted with a glossy white sheen, looking crisp and tidy. A glance at my feet showed a shiny finished wood floor, stained almost black. It felt uncomfortably modern and immediately made my skin itch. The room was mostly dark, save for a few small flickering lights on the walls. Upon further inspection, each light seemed to be shining down on a painting. We were in a museum of sorts. I remembered Cal taking me to one in the human realm that felt oddly familiar to this.

We walked to the end of the space to find another corridor and another large room lined with paintings, and a few stone podiums in front with statues, also well lit. Relief settled in my bones when my eyes caught sight of the others. Bexley smiled as soon as he saw me, and we all greeted each other, genuinely happy to have made it here together.

“I told you,” Walter said. “I told Eletha. She didn’t think he’d make it out of Lust.” He smirked.

Eletha raised her eyebrow and put her hands up in surrender with a smile. “I don’t know how you made it out of there. I’ve seen the way you’re staring at my sister.”

I smiled, even though I didn’t feel like it.

“So what is this?” I asked, looking around with the others. “This is Pride,” said Anna, holding her hands out at the tier. Her demeanor was noticeably dampened from what it had been earlier, and I felt guilty knowing that I was the reason for it. Why did this have to be so unfair? We couldn’t stay in the tiers together forever, and truthfully, I didn’t want to. I wanted to do things for myself for once, something I’d have to remind myself of once I was back with my mother in the Elysian Fields. It was time I did things I wanted, not out of duty or pressure, but because I wanted to do them.

“So what are we supposed to do?” I asked.

Bexley raised his hands in a shrug. “We don’t know. We’ve been looking around here for hours. It’s just a bunch of paintings.”

“The paintings have been portals in the previous tiers. Do any of these look like they could be portals?” I asked, and Bexley scowled.

“You think it would be so easy?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve been here before. You tell me.”

His eyes grew serious. “I told you, it changes each time for each person. Apparently, this is a collective experience,” he said, waving his arms at the group. “I’ve never been specifically here before.”

“Cal had her baby,” I said to Walter. “Cal and Mendax had their baby,” I corrected.

His eyes lit up. “What? I didn’t know they were expecting,” he said, his face filled with joy.