Goddess Of The Underworld (Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 116

Chapter 116

Elliot

I wake up to my ceiling doing the thing I told it to do, being a sky instead of a ceiling. Stars drift slow as jellyfish. The comet I programmed takes its lazy lap, tail smudging light like chalk. The room hums the song I made for it ages ago: part music box, part wind chimes, part heartbeat. It never forgets. Something warm is tucked against my side. I turn my head and almost forget how to breathe. Macey. She’s curled up facing me like a paw- sized wolf, one hand fisted in my blanket, the other wrapped around Fergus’s ear so he can’t escape his duties. Her hair is a mess, the good kind. She makes a tiny whistling noise every few breaths and her nose scrunches when the comet passes, like she can feel it through her eyelids. Macey has never been to the Underworld. For a second I think I’ve dreamed her here, the way you dream food after a day with no snacks. But her skin is warm, and when I slide my fingers very carefully to her wrist, her pulse taps my fingertips: hello, hello, I’m real.

“Hi,” I whisper anyway, even though she’s sleeping. Fergus stares at me like a bodyguard.

Rude.

The room listens to me when I think at it. I ask the stars to be a bit softer so they don’t

wake her. They dim around the edges and fluff into bigger, sleepier shapes. The music tucks itself down another notch. The floor. dark and not–quite–water, warms under my

toes when I slide one foot out. How is she here? Levi did the neat lines on my door, the

proper warding, the kind that keeps bad things out and lets good things in if I say so. I wrapped my own pattern through his like vines around a fence: teeth, blankets, stars, me. If something hollow tries to tug at the edges, I feel it like a cold breath in the back of my skull. I reach with that part of me and taste the room. The wards are purring. No frayed places. No cold teeth at the seams. There’s a thread I didn’t put there, though, thin and silvery, tied to Macey’s shoulder like a ribbon trailing off into dream–stuff. It tastes like cinnamon sugar, sunshine, and pizza grease. Not the brittle, thirsty kind we felt at the fence. This one feels like… home finding a person. Not a trap, then. Not a test. Just something that heard “together” and decided to behave. My shoulders drop. I didn’t know

they were up around my ears until they aren’t. I think about last night in a quick flash, Mum’s arms full of Macey, Daddy Noah carrying me, moving like thieves who only steal back what’s theirs. The portal opening like a page turning. The room lifting its head when we came in. I remember them putting us down side by side so Macey wouldn’t wake up

and be scared, and I guess I fell over right after, because here we are and nothing in the

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13.30 Wed, Sep

Chapter 116

world has ever been more correct. Layah is a dark curve at the foot of the bed, eyes half-

lidded, pretending to sleep but watching everything. Her tail thumps once when she

notices I’m awake. I press a finger to my mouth and she huffs like, fine, but if anyone sneezes wrong I will eat them. I lay back down and shuffle closer so Macey doesn’t have

to reach for the blanket edge. She makes a tiny sound and scoots into me like she was just

waiting for permission. Fergus ends up with one eye against my chin. He’s braver up

close.

“Hey, Mace,” I say to the top of her hair, because secrets are lighter when you say them to someone even if they’re asleep. “If you ever want to come here again, I’ll make the door open the right way. I’ll make the scary things small. And I’ll share Fergus if he signs the forms.”

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