"Can you all see the child too?" Lily asked, pointing ahead.

  I leaned over her shoulder. Cynthia and Lenora were leaning over mine and we all squinted into the darkness ahead. There indeed was a boy of about five or six years old, dressed in a tunic and breeches with leather boots. He had dirty blonde hair forming a halo around his head in a bowl cut.

  "Yes, we can," we all said in unison.

  "Phew, I thought I was going crazy." Lily wiped an imaginary drop of sweat off her forehead.

  "No, this might just mean we have all gone crazy together," Lenora said.

  "I think a more concerning question is what's a child even doing all the way below ground like this." Cynthia frowned.

  "He didn't come here from above," Smokewell said, hopping off Lily's shoulder. She slowly tread up the stone pathway and looked straight ahead at the child. "He has always been here," she said to us before turning back to the kid. "Haven't you?"

  The boy smiled. The expression sent a cold finger trailing down my spine. There didn’t seem to be anything normal with that smile. It was like seeing a cadaver in a casket twist his lips upwards.

  I swallowed hard. "Have you encountered his kind before?" I asked Smokewell.

  The cat looked at the boy thoughtfully. "He is a wraith," she said.

  "Is he...guarding the castle?" Lily asked uncertainly.

  "No, his job is to stand around waiting for any wanderers that pass by," the cat said.

  "And?" Lenora said with a slight tremble in her voice. "What does he do with them?"

  "Lead them to the castle, I believe," the cat said.

  Before any of us could say anything, the boy began to giggle. The sound didn't echo across the curving walls of the stone tunnel. His voice just seemed to reach our ears from all the way where he stood and worm its way in our heads. I shivered, feeling thoroughly creeped.

  "You are a smart little kitty, aren't you?" the wraith said.

  "You can say that," Smokewell said.

  "If I had any treats, I would've given you some." The boy folded his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth on his heels, still smiling.

  "You can do something else for us instead," Smokewell said.

  "Take you to the castle? That's exactly what I was going to do." The boy giggled again and without any sign or warning took off the ground like a balloon floating away from its owner. He swiftly glided down the tunnel and waved for us to follow him.

  "I'm glad to see the Butcher King's castle becoming more and more popular by day," he said as we followed him down the tunnel on our direwolf.

  "Did you lead a man to the castle a few days ago?" I asked.

  "The one who wasn't scared of advancing even after seeing me? Yes," he said.

  The boy wasn't lying to us at least.

  "What's your name?" Lily asked.

  "Jed," he said. "I'm a watcher."

  Smokewell hopped off the ground and landed on my shoulder. "Be careful now, kids," she whispered to us. "Make sure to not say anything that might offend him or ask any question that isn't supposed to be asked."

  Lenora leaned close and whispered, "How are we supposed to know what to not ask?"

  "I can hear you, you know?" Jed said as he floated above us, hands shoved in his pockets. As we got closer to him I realized that I could see the ceiling through his torso, as if his body was made of translucent gauze "And it has nothing to do with me being within earshot or anything. The moment you entered the tunnel, you entered my territory."

  "We come in peace," Lenora said quickly.

  "Trust me, you have no choice." Jed smirked.

  "Look, we don't want anything from your castle, we are just here to take my brother--I mean, the man that you led to the castle a few days ago," Cynthia said in the most earnest tone she had used until now.

  "Well, that man is inside the castle now," Jed said. "If you want to see him you'll have to go in and bring him yourself."

  "If you don't mind, I have a question for you," I said.

  "I'm listening," the boy said.

  "Why do you lead people to the castle?" I asked.

  "Because that's my job." Jed rolled his eyes.

  "And what do you get in return?" Lily asked.

  "I get to keep my master's word." Jed shrugged.

  “I'm curious,” I paused as I picked my next question quite carefully. “Why is he called the Butcher King?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Jed gave his cadaverous smile again. “Make a guess,” he said.

  Everyone went silent. Except for Pearl, who gave a quiet, low growl. Lily gently patted the wolf to calm her down.

  “Let's just say, my king Godfrey received that title for winning every single war he fought,” Jed said as he kept floating lazily in the air. “And he didn't take any prisoners. Not even one.”

  “When was this exactly?” I asked with a frown because I couldn't find anything in old Elsa's memories about this part of Ravenwind history.

  Jed's smile grew bigger. “It was far before this country even got its name,” he said. “Back when there was little difference between the kings and gods.”

  “So…is the Butcher King your god?” I asked.

  Jed nodded eagerly. “Absolutely.”

  “So, does he still…reside in the castle?” I asked.

  The boy's face sobered up, his smile was gone and his lips almost seemed to disappear in his pale face. “Where the God resides isn't for a believer to answer. I'm but a mere watcher,” he said. “All I do is lead the wanderers to Him.”

  “That's enough,” Smokewell whispered to us. “Enough with your questions now. The boy doesn't seem as merry as before.”

  We went quiet and kept following. Then Jed landed back on the ground, his back was turned to us, his head was raised as he gazed upon the tall structure cut out of rock. Its edges were rough and jagged and its surface had an oppressive gleam to it.

  The door at the entrance was tall enough to let in an elephant without making him crouch. And the windows were big enough to fly helicopters through. More pale figures, similar to Jed hovered around the building, watching from the guard towers and buttresses up high. And quite a few others hovering around.

  My heart skipped several beats as I took in the sight, instantly feeling the urge to turn tail and run.

  “There's no way to go back now,” Jed said, as if reading my thoughts. “The men that came in that weird contraption tried going back after seeing me. You want to see where they are now?”

  I frowned and he pointed behind us. We turned to look back at more pale figures that sat hunched over in a corner. They wore dark coveralls of construction workers and bowler hats and their faces were upturned somberly. Rowland’s excavation team.

  "What happened to them?" Lenora asked with a gulp of nervousness.

  Jed giggled. "They saw me and tried to run away."

  "Are they dead now?" Lenora asked.

  "Only a little," the boy said.

  No one asked him to elaborate further because we were all equally perplexed and terrified.

  "What about the man leading them?" Cynthia asked.

  "He was the only one who didn't run. He walked inside the castle as if he owned it," the boy said with a scoff. "Quite the spine on that one. If only I knew what actually goes on in the castle."

  Lily leaned in and whispered to us. "It seems like we can't avoid going into the castle."

  "Didn't you hear him, if we try to run we'll end up like the rest of them," Smokewell said.

  My gaze was drawn back to the tall stone doors of the castle that loomed ominously in front of me like a mountain that couldn't be scaled. But the worst part was that there was no way around it either.

  "Who else is in there?" I asked.

  "Other than the man from that contraption, there's a woman who showed up yesterday," Jed said with a look of intrigue. "Her appearance made me curious too. She sauntered in as if she was aware of this castle all along and just waiting for her calendar to clear up so she could pay a visit."

  Cynthia frowned and asked a question that had popped in my mind as well. "What did she look like?"

  "She was dressed in leathers but I could tell she had big shoulders under her garments. Honestly, she had a body that would've put the Butcher King's finest sparring gladiators to shame," Jed said.

  My eagerness kept getting more intense at finding out all these answers. I sighed and said, "If we can't go back anyway, then let's just head inside and see for ourselves if Rowland is still in there."

  "Is there any way for us to go back home once we enter the castle?" Lily asked as the rest of us started to mount the large stone steps up to the tall door.

  Jed blessed us with his cadaverous smile once again and said, "Maybe you will. Maybe you won't."

  As we arrived at the door, there was a sound of rumbling stone, groaning gears and clicking turnstiles. The path ahead of us opened up, darkness beckoned us in from the other side. We walked in with palpitating hearts and hesitant footsteps. The doors closed behind us and the darkness seemed to disappear immediately or maybe our visions just adapted super fast to the lack of light around us.

  Everything came into view. We stood at the entrance of a large hall. Its ceiling was so high above it almost seemed to disappear overhead. A massive, rusty chandelier hung suspended with its candles blown out. The stone floor of the hall was covered in a tattered carpet that led up to a wall on the opposite end with twin stairways on either side. And on the wall were carved the following words: THOSE THAT YEARN IMMORTALITY, WALK ALONE.

  Smokewell hopped off my shoulder and walked up to the center of the large hall. "Now that we are away from the watcher, let me clear up a few questions you might be having," she said.

  "Like where is my brother?" Cynthia said.

  "Or where's the exit?" Lenora said.

  "Or is it time for tea yet?" Lily said excitedly.

  Smokewell shot us all a deadpan look. "This place isn't a castle," she said, her voice echoing across the stone walls. "It's a shrine of sacrifice," she said.

  "That doesn't sound very good," Lenora said.

  "There's no good or evil here," the cat said. "There's only ambition. That writing on the wall belongs to the sorcerer who came up with the concept of a shrine of sacrifice. It's a ritual that allows you to ascend to a higher plane of existence, in this case, immortality," Smokewell said.

  "So, the Butcher King may have used this ritual to sacrifice his wealth and riches in order to ascend to immortality but, why is there a watcher to lead wanderers into his tomb? And why are the people that try to run away trapped in a state of undeath?" Lily asked.

  "It might depend on what conditions the Butcher King laid down before carrying out the ritual to ascend," I said. "The conditions are probably arbitrary from person to person."

  Smokewell smirked at me. "Good observation," she said. "It's basically what Elsa said. The condition is determined by the one who is trying to ascend. Even though the method of the ritual itself is fixed."

  "Um, I'm really glad that you all have found something really interesting about magic, but can we find a way out of here now?" Lenora asked anxiously.

  "Also, find my brother, which is why we came here in the first place," Cynthia added.

  I would be lying if I said I hadn't almost forgotten about that part.

  In order to accomplish either of those objectives, we had to move and explore the place further, so we made our way up the stairs. We found ourselves at the mouth of a long hallway flanked by tall windows on the left. There was a silhouette standing by one of these windows. An orange ember was glowing in its mouth. A cigarette. From where we stood, we couldn't make out any other details.

  "Don't worry, I'll take the lead here, folks," Lily said and stepped forward and strolled up to the silhouette by the window. She paused once she was close enough to see the person's face. Then she turned to us. "Come on over, everyone. It's Josie. The guard from the Malcolms' mansion."

  Malcolms? Why did the angels send one of their subordinates here?