"I don't know!" Wick shouted to be heard over the rumbling of the tower.

In the hallways, everything was chaos. All of the horrible creatures that worked for Valefor were trying to make their escape, but most of them ended up crushed under falling debris. Lux tried to give Wick and Lily directions on how to get out, but blood was streaming into his eye and he couldn't see very well.

As they were running, the floor gave out in front of them. A sonneillon had been racing past them, and he barely grabbed onto the jagged edge of the floor. Lily peered over the edge, and a mile below them, hot lava bubbled up. The sonneillon's grip slipped, and he fell back, screaming as he tumbled to his death.

They turned around to go the other way, but the ceiling crashed down, blocking their path. Through the new hole overhead, they could see sky above them. It had turned a dark red, and it was filled with black smoke.

"What do we do?" Lily asked.

"We climb."

Wick started up the huge chunks of rock that blocked their way, but she slipped almost right away. The constant quaking made it impossible to get a grip. She tried again and slid back down to the ground.

With tears in her eyes, Wick shook her head. "There's no way out."

Lily sat down on the ground next to Lux. He sat up the best he could and wrapped both of his arms around her, so he could shield her from anything else that came.

"Take my hand!" a familiar voice said, and Lily looked up to see Aeterna floating above them.

His wings were completely healed, as was the rest of him. In fact, he didn't show any signs of his earlier wounds. He'd flown in through the hole in the tower, and he held out his hand for Lily to take.

Lily was too stunned to react, so Wick took his hand first. Then Lily got up and grabbed onto him, wrapping her arms around Aeterna's neck. With his other hand, he picked up Lux.

"Hang on tight," Aeterna said, and then he was flying out of the tower, his wings beating hard and fast.

Soon they were soaring high above the Earth, the crumbling tower below them. Lily clung onto him, afraid of falling, and she saw Lux doing the same.

"What's going on?" Lily asked, her face pressed into Aeterna's chest.

"There's someone you need to meet," Aeterna said, and then flew up higher, past the clouds into a blinding white light.

24.

Lily didn't remember how she got there. One minute she was in Aeterna's arms in the clouds, the next her feet were touching the gra.s.s gently. A brilliant white palace sat before her in the center of a green island. Crystal-clear water sparkled around it, and the sun shone down warmly on her.

The gra.s.s felt amazing on her bare feet, much softer than gra.s.s had felt before. In fact, she felt better than she had before. All the aches of her body were gone, and when she looked down, she saw that any evidence of her wounds were gone. Even her tattered dress had been replaced by a new, beautiful, white gown.

"Lux." Lily remembered in panic that she hadn't been alone and looked around frantically.

Both Lux and Wick were standing behind her, their confused, dazed expressions matching her own. Wick looked at her arms with amazement. Like Lily, they were free of any marks from her earlier fights. Her own worn dress was replaced with a clean one, and her hair had been pulled back in beautiful curls. She looked lovelier than she ever had before.

"Lily," Lux said.

He had been healed and cleaned up, and he looked so stunningly handsome, it was hard to believe he was real. Lily ran into his arms, and they felt strong and cool around her. She stared up at him, touching the smooth skin of his face to see if he was real.

"How is this possible?" Lily asked, running her hand through his blond hair.

"I don't know." Lux looked on with the same awed expression as she had.

"Are we in heaven?"

"I don't think I can get into heaven." He furrowed his brow.

"This isn't heaven," Aeterna said. He stood on the steps of the palace, and he waved them on. "Come on. He's waiting to see you."

"Who?" Lily asked.

"Daniel."

Lily and Lux exchanged a look, neither of them really understanding what this meant or what had happened. He took her hand, and they started walking toward the palace. Wick didn't follow, so Lily turned back to her.

"Wick, come on." Lily held out her hand, and Wick came over and took it. She squeezed it and smiled before they all walked to the palace.

There was no door to Daniel's palace. The steps merely went up to a wide entrance. It almost appeared as if a wall had been left out. The palace opened into a white marble hall. Music played softly throughout, though Lily couldn't see the source of it.

"How did we get here?" Lily asked Aeterna as they followed him.

"I brought you here, of course," Aeterna smiled back at her over his shoulder. "People often don't remember the journey, at least not the first time. It's too much for senses to bear."

"What is?" Wick asked. "What have you done with us?"

"Don't look so worried," Aeterna laughed. "You were simply healed along the way. It can be too much."

"Along the way to where exactly?" Lux asked. "I know its Daniel's palace, but where is that?"

"It's not located on the Earth, not in the sense you know it," Aeterna replied. "But don't worry about it. You're here now, and you're safe."

As they reached the end of the hall, they came to a rotunda. Lily could see the back of an irin, his silver wings spread out wide. Light streamed in from an open ceiling, letting the sun shine right down on him. Flowers filled the room, mostly lilies, and the irin appeared to be attending to a plant.

Aeterna stopped and motioned for Lily, Lux, and Wick to continue on without him. Before she went in, Lily turned to face Aeterna. She reached out and touched his wing, the one she had tried to mend when it had been broken.

"How are you healed?" Lily asked, running her fingers over the silkiness of his feathers. "Last I saw you, you could barely even walk, let alone fly."

"Addonexus took me far enough from Valefor's that I could summon help," Aeterna explained. "Valefor's dark magic cloaked his tower in a haze, so I couldn't reach out to my fellow irin. Once I was out of range, Daniel sent several irins to help me. They healed me, and I came back for you as soon as I was able."

"Did the irins do that to Valefor's tower?" Lily asked.

"No, that was you," Daniel said from the rotunda, and Lily looked back at him.

He was more exquisite than any man she had ever seen before, even Lux or Aeterna. His hair was the color of gold, and his skin was tan and smooth. He seemed to radiate light and love. His beauty was almost too much to bear, and Wick actually bowed down before him, unable to stand it any longer.

"Me?" Lily asked in a voice that sounded too small to be her own.

"Well, no." He smiled and gestured to Lux. "It was your friend, Lux."

"What?" Lux asked. He tried to hide it, but Lily could hear in that soft quake in his words that he was as intimidated and awed as Lily. "No, I..." He lowered his eyes, shielding them from Daniel's luminance. "I didn't do anything."

"Oh, but you did." Daniel motioned for them to come forward. "Don't be afraid. Come closer so we can talk."

"How did I do anything?" Lux asked. He took Lily's hand again, and they walked closer to Daniel. Wick waited near the outside, bowed down on the floor by Aeterna.

"You loved her," Daniel said simply, as if that explained it all.

"I don't understand," Lux shook his head.

"She's not yet the castimonia, but she is of irin blood," Daniel said. "She is my great-granddaughter and had she taken her vows, she would've been the third castimonia to walk the Earth."

"I would've been?" Lily asked. "I won't be the castimonia now?"

"There's no need for one," he shook his head. "Lux ended it all."

"I ended it?" Lux asked, still unable to grasp how he'd played such a major role in the final battle between good and evil.

"Yes," Daniel nodded. "Valefor wanted Lily to serve him, to give her allegiance to him. If she did that, he would've won, by turning a virtu to his side. Even if she wasn't yet fully realized as one, because of her irin blood and her pure heart, it would still be the same. He still would've corrupted one of our own, thus making him and his side more powerful.

"But instead of the virtu vowing to serve him, you a peccati, the minion of evil had vowed to serve her." Daniel motioned from Lux to Lily. "When you pledged your heart and soul to her, you gave up evil for the side of good."

"When you told me you loved me." Lily's eyes widened when she looked at Lux. "You saved the world."

"I..." Lux shook his head, still not believing it. "But if you knew all this, if you knew that Valefor would go after her, why didn't you intervene? Why didn't you just stop him?"

"Because that's not how it works," Daniel said. "We can't interact directly with each other. I cannot fight Valefor or set foot on his grounds, and the same holds true with him. You had to solve this one your own."

"But if Lily was so valuable, why didn't you have irins guarding her?" Lux asked. "She never should've been allowed to leave with me."

"We didn't know how important she would become in all of this," Daniel said. "She's not the first virtu child born on Earth, but she was the first to lose her parent before she understood what she was. When the time was right, I planned to meet her to explain what she was, but I was too late."

"Why hadn't Valefor already won?" Lily asked. "When my mother died, wasn't there one less virtu on Earth than peccati? Hadn't evil already outweighed good?"

"No, because you were still there," Daniel said. "You still had the irin blood and the castimonia heart."

"What if I had died?" Lily asked. "When I was a baby? Or if my mother had died before she had me? What then?"

"Then the luxuria would've lost all his powers," Daniel gestured to Lux. "If a virtu dies, then the corresponding peccati loses his powers. Otherwise Valefor would've slaughtered all the virtus a millennia ago and declared himself winner. The evil could only exist if its good counterpart did as well.

"The same goes for the peccati," Daniel went on. "When they died or gave up their powers, Valefor had until the sun set on the next day to find a replacement. If he didn't, then the virtu would lose her abilities. When you killed Ira, for example, Patentia was at risk of losing her abilities."

"And she's not now?" Lux asked.

"You've all lost your abilities now." Daniel spread his arms wide. "The war is over. We've won."

"What does that mean for us?" Lily asked. "What will become of the Earth?"

"Well, I suppose there is only one thing left to do," Daniel said with a grin. "Live happily ever after."

25.

Daniel returned them to Insontia, which seemed brighter than it had ever been before. Aeterna had taken them back, and they'd flown over the Necrosilvam although the Necrosilvam would no longer be a fitting name. The trees were alive, filled with bright green leaves and flower buds. Instead of squawking charuns, there were the brightly colored songbirds that Lily's mother had loved so much.

As soon as she said her thanks to Aeterna, Lily started running for the front door of the palace. Her father had to be worried sick about her, and she couldn't wait to see him and tell him what she'd been through.

"Wait." Lux grabbed her hand and stopped her.

"What?" Lily asked, staring up at him.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her pa.s.sionately. She kissed him back, more deeply than she had before. Her lips were cool and hungry, and she trembled against him. Her hand went to the back of his neck, and he felt her finger twirl around his hair.

About the Author.

Amanda Hocking is a lifelong Minnesotan obsessed with John Hughes and Jim Henson. In between making collages and drinking too much Red Bull, she writes young adult urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

Her USA Today Bestselling Trylle Trilogy Switched, Torn, and Ascend - has recently been optioned for a film. The first book in her critically acclaimed series The Hollows is currently available with the second book Hollowmen arriving Fall 2011. The first four books of her vampire series My Blood Approves are out now with the final book coming late 2011. She has a new four-book series ent.i.tled Watersong being published with St. Martin's Press in 2012.

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