“She’s coming!” Sarafine called to Abraham, and I realized they were both staring at Mrs. English’s body. I tried to get up, but the weight was still bearing down on my chest. Whatever was happening, I couldn’t stop it.
It was already too late.
Mrs. English’s neck lifted first, her body slowly following, rising from the floor as if an invisible string was pulling it. It was horrible—the way her lifeless body moved like a puppet’s. When her body straightened, her eyelids snapped open.
But her eyes were gone. In their place were only dark shadows.
The shaking stopped, and the whole room was still.
“Who calls me?” Mrs. English was speaking, but the voice wasn’t hers. It was inhuman. There was no variation in tone, no inflection—it was haunting and ominous.
Abraham smiled. He was proud of whatever he had done. “I do. The Order is broken, and I call you to bring forth the soulless, those who wander the abyss of the Underground, to join us here.”
Mrs. English’s empty eyes stared past him, but the voice answered. “It cannot be done.”
Sarafine looked at Abraham, panicked. “What is she—”
He silenced Sarafine with a look, and turned back to the creature inhabiting the shell of Mrs. English. “I was not clear. We have bodies for them. Bring forth the soulless and offer them the bodies of the Light Casters. This will be the new Order. You will Bind it.”
There was a rumbling sound within Mrs. English’s body, almost as if the creature was laughing in some sick way. “I am the Lilum. Time. Truth. Destiny. The Endless River. The Wheel of Fate. You do not command me.”
Lilum. Lilian English. It was like a sick cosmic joke. Except for the part that wasn’t a joke, the part I couldn’t stop repeating in my mind.
The Wheel of Fate crushes us all.
Abraham looked stricken, and Sarafine staggered backward. Whatever this Lilum thing was, the two of them had clearly believed they could control it.
Abraham tightened his grip on The Book of Moons and changed tactics. “Then I appeal to you as the Demon Queen. Help us forge a new Order. One where the Light will finally be eclipsed by Darkness forever.”
I froze. It was all coming together. The Shadowing Song was right. Even if I hadn’t heard a word about this Lilum thing, the song had warned me about the Demon Queen and the Wheel of Fate more than once.
I tried not to panic.
The Lilum answered, her voice unnervingly even. “Light and Dark hold no meaning for me. There is only power, born from the Dark Fire, where all power was created.”
What was she talking about? She was the Demon Queen. Didn’t that make her Dark?
“No.” Sarafine’s voice was a whisper. “It’s not possible. The Demon Queen is true Darkness.”
“My truth is the Dark Fire, the origin of power both Light and Dark.”
Sarafine looked confused, something I had never seen in her outside of the visions.
That’s when I realized she and Abraham didn’t understand the Lilum at all. I couldn’t pretend that I did, but I knew she wasn’t Dark in the way they believed. She was something all her own. Maybe the Lilum was gray, a new shade in the spectrum. Or maybe it was the opposite, and the Lilum possessed neither Dark nor Light—she was the absence of both.
Either way, she wasn’t one of them.
“But you can forge a New Order,” Sarafine said.
Mrs. English’s head jerked toward the sound of Sarafine’s voice. “I can. But a price must be paid.”
“What’s the price?” I called out without thinking.
The head jerked toward me. “A Crucible.”
The Demon Queen, the Wheel of Fate—whoever she was, she wasn’t talking about my English homework. “I don’t understand.”
“Shut up, boy!” Abraham snapped.
But the Lilum was still staring blankly in my direction. “This Mortal has the words I require.” The Lilum paused. She was talking about Mrs. English. “Crucible. A pot for melting metals. A Mortal allegory.” Was she searching Mrs. English’s mind for the right words? “A severe test.” She stopped. “Yes. A test. On the Eighteenth Moon.”
“What’s the test?”
“On the Eighteenth Moon,” she repeated. “For One who will bring the Order back anew.”
It was the message from my Shadowing Song—most of it, anyway.
The One Who Is Two.
“Who?” Abraham demanded. “Tell me now! Who will bring back the Order?”
Mrs. English’s neck jerked unnaturally toward Abraham, the black-shadowed eye sockets facing him. A thunderous sound ripped through the house. “You do not command me.”
Before he could respond, a blinding light streaked from the dark sockets where Mrs. English’s eyes should have been—directly at Abraham and Sarafine. Abraham didn’t even have time to rip. The light hit them and exploded around them, filling the room. Sarafine’s invisible grip disappeared, and I threw my arm over my eyes to shield them from the light. But I could still sense it, as if I was looking into the sun.
Within seconds, the impossible brightness dimmed and I pulled my arm away from my face. I looked at the place where Abraham and Sarafine had been standing. Black splotches clouded my vision.