I blinked snowflakes from my lashes, shivering as Envy placed his hand to the gate as Wrath had done. He spoke in an unfamiliar language, and green-colored magic lit up his hand and sank into the gates. He kept his hand there, waiting for that click to sound.
And nothing happened.
Envy swore roundly and tried again. With the same results. He turned away from the gates, shoving his hands through his hair as he paced, muttering to himself. He yanked his House dagger from inside his hunter green suit jacket and pricked his finger. Like Wrath, his wound healed instantly, but he managed to smear blood on the gates. They didn’t open.
Any hope I’d been feeling was slowly receding back to fear and uncertainty. Even though I was fairly positive he was all right, I needed to get to Wrath. “Will my blood open them?”
Envy stopped pacing in a circle, narrowing his eyes. “You can try, but I suspect the magic binding the gates was placed here to prevent your kind from returning as much as mine.”
He hadn’t said “your kind” with any venom, and yet I still flinched. To someone outside this realm, I was akin to a demon. That was going to take some time to get used to. I stepped closer to the elk antlers that acted as the handles.
“Wrath locked them. Why would he bind me or any other prince from leaving?”
“The magic isn’t demonic.” Envy sighed, his breath fogging in front of him. “The Star Witches have been up to their old tricks again.”
Star Witches like Nonna. She’d told me they were the guardians between realms. They acted as the wardens to the prison of damnation. Which I assumed was their name for the Seven Circles. She’d also claimed I was one of the guardians, but I now knew that for the lie it was.
Imagining my grandmother traveling here to lock me in was one more dagger to the heart. She’d promised to come find me after she told me to run and hide from the princes of Hell; she swore we’d reunite. I hadn’t told her I’d decided to come to the Seven Circles, and part of me wanted to believe that if she knew, she wouldn’t have locked me here.
“I’ll try anyway,” I said, still hopeful, though I had doubts.
I pressed my blade to my fingertip, wincing as the blood beaded up, and smeared the antler as Envy had done. I pictured the gates creaking open. Or even blasting open. I hoped that if I believed hard enough, the desired result would manifest. Nothing happened.
I studied the magic, a troubling thought entering my mind. Wrath was trapped outside this realm. Which meant either my sister transported him to the Shifting Isles before the Star Witches worked their hex or they somehow had worked in conjunction with each other.
If that was the case, then Nonna must know I was here.
Fire erupted in the air around us, vines crept up the gates, crushing and burning and yanking as if I could incinerate any barrier they tried putting between me and my husband. Blast after blast hit the gates, my fury growing with each failed attempt.
Envy cursed and stepped back, the flames rising higher and higher as if damning the heavens. Whatever spell the witches used, it didn’t so much as crack. I let my magic go, my shoulders slumping in defeat. My grandmother had really locked me in Hell.
“Nonna can’t be the villain.”
“Well, that’s the curious thing about perspective,” Envy said. “In her version of this tale, you’re evil. The prophesied dark one she must protect the mortal world from.”
“But I would never hurt anyone. Regardless of a prophecy.”
Even as I said it, I knew it was a lie. If someone hurt Wrath or anyone else I loved, I wouldn’t hesitate to bring them pain in return. To strike back brutally and viciously.
Envy pressed his lips together, likely already knowing what I’d just realized, and kept his commentary to himself.
There were so many layers to peel back. The curse. The prophecy. I’d barely remembered there was one at all, though the details of it had always been murky. Something I’d been told was a result of the curse, how it twisted with each retelling of the tale.
My friend Claudia had been the one to tell me the hazy memories were a result of the curse, that it was what stopped all of us from remembering. Until then, I hadn’t even known there was a curse or a prophecy, only a blood debt owed to the devil. Or so Nonna claimed. My grandmother finally told me about the prophecy the night we said our good-byes. She hadn’t given many details, only hinted that Vittoria and I somehow signaled the end of the devil’s curse.
“It’s like you said the night I met you,” I said, smiling sadly at Envy. “It is a tangled web.”