CHAPTER 117

Kisa got out of the fountain and shook herself off before following.

Mike, Death and Yuki now stood by the back gate, the Caretaker holding the padlock in one hand.

"This is it," he told Yuki, "the gate we need to the Underworld!"

"I'm not so sure," she told him, eying the gate with suspicion.

Death put a hand on the gate and leaned against it casually. "I am no fabricator of untruths, Lady Yuki. On the other side of this gate lies the spirit realm."

"So then all we have to do is get this open, right?" Mike shook the padlock, but Kisa was no longer paying attention. Her eyes slid up the length of the gate to the top where there was a small gap between the bars and the archway was. The world went silent, and now she was standing before the gate, Emily at her side.

"Get back in there," Emily commanded, pointing up at the gap. One of her eyes had gone black, and an eerie mist surrounded her body. The last couple of days had been like this, and the others were unable to see it. "I won't tell you again."

"I was attacked," Kisa explained. "Not by the shadows, but something else. You said that they wouldn't notice me!"

"Nobody is supposed to notice you. That's the whole point of using the collar to turn you. If I wasn't paying so much attention, even I would barely notice you." Emily took Kisa by the chin and examined her face. "Hmm. You aren't lying. Tell me, what was it? What attacked you?"

"I never saw it," she replied, then yanked her face away. "I heard it growling and then it chased me. I never found his castle, and I was lucky to make it back here alive."

"Fuck!" Emily put her face in her hand and the mist coalesced around her like a cloak. "I'm running out of time, Kisa, and I need you to get it back!"

"I can't do it, Emily! I was lucky to get away! That thing was huge!" The moment the words left her mouth, the collar had appeared in Emily's hand once more. "No, I'm not letting you put that back on me. I can barely remember my own name anymore. I feel like there's an actual cat growing inside of me, and she's taking over. I thought I owed you for getting the collar off of me in the first place, but now I see that I'm just a tool for you and your weird games. I've heard the rumors from the others, and I would rather leave and take my chances with the rest of the world than stay here and have you turn me any farther!"

Emily tilted her head, appraising Kisa. It was impossible to tell if she was angry or not, but the blonde turned her attention back to the gate and crossed her arms.

"Go to your room and pack," she said, the collar dangling from her hands. "Have Tink help you. I'll come to see you off."

Kisa said nothing, her eyes filling with tears as she turned away.

She was back in the present, viewing the gate through tear-laden eyes.

Yuki was now inspecting the lock and Death was sitting on a nearby rock, enjoying his tea in silence.

"I'll see if we can use a hacksaw on it," Mike announced.

"It won't work." When Kisa spoke, they all turned to look at her as if noticing her for the first time. "A hacksaw on the padlock. Nor will acid, an axe, whatever you have."

"Kisa." Mike crossed his arms and tilted his head in the exact same spot Emily had stood those many years before. "How do you know?"

"The gate, it goes somewhere. It's something I remembered, just now while standing here. You can't break the lock, nothing will. Emily couldn't get it to break, either."

"Did she have a key?"

Kisa took a deep breath and shook her head. "She used to. I never got the full story about it, but I vaguely remember something about getting tricked and the key getting busted."

"Well, damn." He looked at the gate and then back to Kisa. "You seem to know a lot about the gate."

"She wanted me to go through it. I can fit through the gap at the top." She swallowed the lump that had appeared in her throat. "Why do you want to go in there?"

"Death told me it's a gate to the Underworld. I can use it to return to the faerie realm to rescue Cecilia. Why did Emily want you to go in there?"

Her heart was pounding now. "She wanted me to steal something from someone on the other side. Something she gave away and desperately wanted back."

Yuki knelt next to Kisa so that they were eye level. "What did she want?"

"I...don't remember that part yet, it was something...small. In a container." Kisa pressed her hands against the bars and felt a cold rush of air blast her from the other side of the gate. "There's a guy who lives on the other side, a shadow man. I've seen him before, but don't remember where. She wanted me to get something back from him, but she couldn't go herself because of the gate." Hot tears ran down her face and she brushed them away. "She kept making me wear the collar. Every day I wore it, I became more cat and less human, but I also became smaller, harder to notice. She used to have me go out into the neighborhood and practice stealing, because we discovered that people don't notice me, not even if I'm right in front of them. I would sometimes walk into people's homes while they were eating dinner, and rummage through their cabinets. It's part of the magic that changed me."

Yuki put a hand on Kisa's shoulder and squeezed.

"You're...not going to make me go through there, are you?" It was a question she was afraid to ask, but it needed to be said out loud. She needed to know what the answer was, because her future depended on it.

"Hmm?" Mike looked at the gap above the gate and then back at Kisa. "You fit through there? Seriously?"

Kisa nodded. "Barely, but I can."

"Huh." He turned to look at the gate, and then back at her. He thought for a good minute before shrugging. "Unless there's a way for you to open it from the other side or something, I don't see why I would. I'm the one who has to go after Cecilia after all, so sending you in doesn't help me. But," he knelt next to her as well. "Can you tell me what you saw in there?"