Hands and a coil of snake wrapped around me, jerking me to a stop as my foot met the first plank of the bridge.

“Drakaina, you cannot! Your soul will be forced to move on if you cross the bridge,” Strike said.

I cried out, reaching for my mom, wanting to know she was okay. That she was truly happy. She ran toward me, the stalks of long, weaving grass and flowers bending as she passed. “Alena!”

Her voice had never sounded so sweet, and I held my hand out to her. She stopped on her side of the bridge, stretching her hand out to me. “Alena, what happened?”

“Mom,” I whimpered, unable to draw back, straining against both Remo and Strike.

She lowered her hand and slowly nodded. “I see you, my girl. Don’t fret, I’m fine.”

“You were killed; it’s my fault.”

Her smiled slipped, and a tear fell with it. “No, it wasn’t your fault. The Hydra would have sought me out. I saw the writ when I arrived here. My death would have been at her hands in a thousand variations of that day. Even if you had never become a Drakaina, I would have died at her hands. Do you understand? This was not your fault.”

I couldn’t help the sobs that echoed in my chest. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too. Tell your father, and Tad, that the three of you were my world. Everything I did was to keep you safe. To try and help you find happiness.” She blew me a kiss and stepped back. “Go on, now. You have a job ahead of you. Do not grieve me, Alena. You have a lifetime ahead of you, and it shouldn’t be spent in tears.”

I wiped at my face as she backed away from the edge of the bridge. “Wait!”

“There is nothing more to say, my girl, except this: Be strong. Be brave. Be honest. Love and do not fear your heart.”

I grabbed the flower from my jacket and held it out to her. “Take it, and you can go home. We can be a family again. Please.”

Her smile was sad, and in it I felt my heart break. “Alena, there is no going back. Your grandmother . . . she is wrong.”

The flower slipped from my fingers. “Why, why would she tell me it was possible, then?”

My mother’s eyes never left mine. “Because she wants to believe that this isn’t the end. She’s always been afraid of death, Alena. Always. But this isn’t the end.” She smiled and blew me a kiss. “Trust me, this isn’t the end.”

The peony floated down onto the bridge, and the wooden planks trembled, cracked, and fell into the water. I was pulled back as the vision tumbled in on itself, as my mother faded from sight and in her place was nothing but a patch of broken, dead trees, their limbs twisted with blight.

“Your mother is a smart lady,” Remo said. He tucked me against his side. “Very smart.”

He guided me away, following Strike farther into the underworld, because I was a blubbering mess. Everything in me wanted to turn around and run back to search for the bridge. To cross it and have the peace my mother held in her eyes. What was the point of seeing my mom if I couldn’t even hug her? If I couldn’t truly say good-bye?

“What you saw there is as much a threat to your success as the monsters, Drakaina. Your love for her almost did you in.” Strike didn’t look at me as he spoke. “Hades is no fool, he knows you are coming, and he will continue to try and stop you. It is obvious you are less afraid of the monsters than most, so he will use other things against you.”

As if his words had summoned the next challenge, a slumped figure sat on a log ahead of us.

“Do not touch her,” Strike said. “No matter what.”

The figure looked up, but I didn’t recognize her. Remo sucked in a sharp breath. “Elizabeth.”

She raised her eyes, clear gray eyes that sparkled with unshed tears. “You said you loved me.”

Remo’s whole body jerked as if she’d stabbed him. I grabbed him around the waist as he lurched toward her. “It’s not really her, Remo.” Her. The girl he’d loved before me. The one Santos had turned into a vampire.

She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked, a low keen on her lips. “You did this to me. You trapped me here.”

Remo shook his head. “No, I never wanted this for you.”

“But you did it. Your love was a lie.”

He slipped out of my hands, and I leapt forward, grabbing him around the ankles and tackling him to the ground. I crawled on top of him. “Remo, this is not true, this is not her. If she loved you, she would never say these things to you.”

He breathed hard underneath me, puffs of dirt blowing up around us from his breath. Elizabeth stared at him. “You love her more than you ever loved me.”

He didn’t deny it, and I couldn’t help the curl of warmth wrapping around my heart.

Her gray eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward. “You’re going to be the death of her too. That is the way you are with the women you love. Your mother. Your sister. Me. Her.”

Remo pressed his face into the ground. “I cannot leave her. Not again.”

I glanced up at Strike. “Help me.”

We lifted Remo and physically dragged him away from Elizabeth. She cried after us, begging for him to save her. Begging for him to hold her one last time.

When we no longer could hear her, we finally stopped. I sat on the ground beside Remo. “You okay?”

He grunted, his face coated in dirt and mud, scratches bleeding from the branches that had cut at him. “Yeah.”