I welcome the sensation of being pushed through time and space, knowing I'm leaving Hell and Lucifer far behind me. Another small part is happy to know we have Raven with us. He didn't pander about with his decision the way that I did. He only listened to my story and then trusted me full heartedly and went with us. I suppose the snap decision is pretty easy though when you're Lucifer's son. After what I'd seen, I knew without a doubt I'd have left too.

The moment my body steadies I'm caught in the glare of Tonyedda's yellow eyes.

"We need to move." Opall whispers, pulling the whole group aside.

I look around us and for one tiny second I almost think that Tonyedda's talisman must have broken too because I don't recognize anything around me, but as we cross in the shadows beneath the awning of a large shiny marble building and my feet slide over shiny golden bricks on the ground, I know where we are.

Utopia.

The place I was born.

The place my parents were and my...brother.

I shake my head to block out the memories. I know I've been here before, but it isn't the place itself that I remember, but the people and I learned a long time ago, pretty much the first day in the Ring that holding onto memories from my life before was useless. And Tawny had been the one to help me make my own new memories. Even if those were just of us sitting in the Wallows drawing pictures into the soft mud with our fingers.

Thinking of Tawny only makes this harder.

It's my fault, all of it. If I'd not gone, we'd still both be together in The Ring, starving but alive. What if I'm already too late? All I know is that she was brought here, that doesn't mean there is anything left of her for me to find.

"Here should be fine." Opall whispers and we all form a huddle, or I should say, they form a huddle around me.

Tonyedda crosses her long slender arms over her chest and shakes he head from side to side as she looks down at me. "Now would be a good time to start talking," She says, her voice clearly frustrated. "We can't stay here for long."

I gulp, then take the biggest breath I have before giving the main piece of information.

"Oliver took me home to see my friends-." I start and then have to let all the air rush back out of me and Maxum cuts in.

"How the hell did Oliver take you?" He asks, and I am annoyed to have already been cut off but then I notice the puffiness underneath his eyes and I hold in my eye roll and comment about letting me speak.

"He found a talisman." I almost whisper, knowing this isn't going to go over well.

Tonyedda's stance grows more rigid. "He found it?" She clearly doesn't think it's even a remote possibility, and to be honest, I'm not so sure anymore either. "How did he learn to even use it? It takes training, there is no way he just figured it out."

"I-He, well he said that's what happened." I stutter. "He told me he found it and then watched you to learn how to use it and that he'd been visiting other realms for a while."

"And you believed him?" Quessa, one of the girls in my group I haven't really gotten a chance to get to know asks, tilting her head like I'm an idiot. Maybe I am. Probably I am.

Thankfully though Brynlynn comes to my defense. "She's just a Newb, Q, she hasn't even finished the second week of training. She had no way to know-."

"Any one should know that this was illegal, and now she wants us to participate in some crazed mission that we don't even know what it is other than that it's here?"

"Maybe if you gave her a chance to talk she could tell us wha-."

"Stop it." Tonyedda's voice is firm and final and both girls fall into line. The wind blows and the air is tainted by the scent of something sickly sweet, so different from the smells just across a pit of mud and death. "Quessa and Tomin, go stand guard." She dismisses the two, leaving me circled by her, Brynlynn, Opall, Maxum, Darian, Wren, and Raven in the stop where Oliver should be. My chest clenches at the memory of his apologies just before he shoved me toward certain death. "Go on, Malikah."

I wrap my arms around myself, and sigh. "It was stupid, I know it was, and I promise I regret it whole heartedly. But I was so curious about the other realms and I missed home even though I was so happy with you all at The Hub, and when Oliver offered me the chance to see it all...I was weak and stupid and-."

"You thought with your heart." Raven says softly and everyone turns to him. He looks back without fear or nerves like I would have in a group of strangers. "She truly does regret it." He adds.

I nod, giving him a half smile even if he is brain or emotion bugging me right now. "I really am sorry." I say, then dive head first into the hard part. "I came home, found out my friends and are in trouble because of us, and then when I tried to help, Oliver took me to hell instead." Everyone becomes noticeably uneasy, shifting their weight or turning their gazes elsewhere. "Not long after we got there he..." I trail off on the words. I know exactly what he did, but it makes it so much harder to tell the truth about it. I can't make my brain sort out all of the memories I have with him with being the same guy who shoved me. "He tried to kill me, but Raven saved me."

The group erupts with 'he did what' and 'what the hell' and even 'there's no way'. For no reason at all my cheeks feel warm. It wasn't my fault that he tried to kill me, but I feel like I'm the one on trial here, and essentially I am. I'm the victim, and yet I'm the one who feels ashamed. I'm ashamed I fell for his obvious lies, and I'm ashamed that I trusted him, and I'm even ashamed of standing in front of these people who mean so much to me and admitting the truth. That I'd been played and tricked and almost died for it.

Tonyedda is the only one who remains calm throughout the uproars of the others. She reaches out across the short distance between us and places her hand on my shoulder. I straighten under her touch and she stares at me, and before she speaks I already know what she's going to ask me. The question I don't want.

"Why would he want to kill you, Malikah? I only ever saw the two of you being friendly." She says what I'm sure most of them are thinking. "Did you two have a fight?"

"No." I shake my head, reliving the moment in my mind pretty clearly. "He just said he was sorry just before he attempted to shove me into a pond of lava." I can't look any of them in the eye. "The intent was pretty clear by that point."

"I just don't understand." She sighs, her voice cracking. I hadn't thought how hard the news would be to the others. They've all known him way longer and worked closer together with him than with me. It's very possible, I realize, that they could chose to believe him instead of me. I almost wouldn't blame them. I pump myself up for it, but it doesn't come.

"Tonyedda," Brynlynn says meekly. "Do you remember..?"

"I was just thinking of her." Tonyedda replies. "I just don't want to believe it."

I turn to face them both, raising one warry eyebrow. "What?"

They both stall for a minute before Tonyedda finally speaks. "He was friends with a girl a year ago who ran away." She says simply and the others in the group all look upset like she does. "She was a very sweet girl, but just after she was officially sworn in, she vanished. It happens from time to time, the temptation too much and they just desert their stones and mingle into the realm, getting lost in the billions of people on our realm. We always assumed she was one of them, but now..."

I wasn't the first.

The fear I'd had before circling back to me. I hadn't been the first girl he'd pulled this whole act on, because that's what it all was. An act. A pretend game of his to get close to someone only to kill them in the end. Oliver is a monster. A monster I invited in like a fool. He was-.

"Calm." Raven is at my side all of a sudden, his hand on my other shoulder. The second he spoke, my thoughts cleared and my anger resided, hiding back beneath the ugly places deep in my created by that betrayal.

"Thanks." I sigh and he steps back away, ignoring the stares from the others. "Now," I turn back to Tonyedda. "I know this is a lot to ask, especially after everything I've done, but we've got to help my friends."

Brynlynn's beautiful face frowns, her shiny pink lips puckered. "But Mali, we can't interfere here. It's not our place, and even if we could it would be impossible."

"What happened anyway?" Opall asks and I turn the full force of my begging onto her. I spill the story knowing that out of all of them, she would be the most understanding. She lived in the Ring just like me, she gets things that the others just never will.

Even knowing everything, she is unmoved, just like the others. "I understand why you want to help, trust me, I do, but Mal..."

"We can't just run in fists blazing in a realm and steal people who don't belong to us." Maxum tells me. "I want to help, but we can't."

Raven's demon voodoo can't hold down my annoyance any longer. "You all preach on us being one or being nothing, and us being a family, but you want me to just turn my back?" I spear them all with a glare, my fists tight at my sides. Tawny could be in major danger right this second and we're standing around doing nothing. It wasn't right or fair.

"Mali, you have to understand, we-." Tonyedda tries but I throw my hands up, needing to back away from the group.

"No, I don't have to understand why turning my back on the person who is the reason I'm still alive is the right thing to do." I almost shout. "I don't want to be a part of something that doesn't believe every life matters. So she and Mags don't have a necklace or stone like us, that just means we decide not to care? Are they so much less important than us? Because they aren't to me." I lean back my head to clear my running thoughts. "Tawny is the definition of a good person. She has saved so many lives, not just mine, and she loves every one. She'd never think twice about helping someone. And Mags, she's so fragile and innocent and kind. She never let me go without at least a scrap from her stand. Some of you might not know what it's like to be starving, but we do. She did her best and her husband counts on her. Without her he will die. That will be three lives on my hands because I decided to leave and join you."

"We don't know where they are, or if they're even here." Tonyedda tries to reason, but my mind was made up forever ago.

"I can't," I look her right in the eyes, "and won't leave until I find out for sure. I won't abandon them again. I told Oliver, I will tell you all the same. I'm not coming back to The Hub, and I will not finish training or join unless I help them first."

My ultimatum hangs in the overly sweet air and the others shift and steal glances.

Brynlynn is the first one to step forward. "We are one or we are nothing." She says, turning to the others. "I will stand with Mali."

Raven steps to me next. "I don't know what to think of much of this, but I have just seen this girl almost die in hell and still be hellbent on rescuing her friends. I don't know if my count really matters, but I won't leave her friends here either."

"I'll stay too." Opall says after a minute.

I look to Maxum, but he looks down. "I'm sorry," He whispers. "I just don't see how we can do it. We don't know where they are and we could all get into major shit staying and messing in another realm like this. The Gods will be pissed."

"I can find them." Opall tells him. "I lived here too, I know where they'd hold them if they are still being held. I can get us in."

Tonyedda and I both latch onto her words. "You mean it?" I ask.

"You are sure about this?" Tonyedda follows.

Opall nods firmly. "I'm sure. We can do it, and Malikah is right, if someone in any of our old lives were in danger, wouldn't we want to save them? And another thing, I know if the roles were reversed, Malikah wouldn't hesitate either. We can do this guys."

Tonyedda looks to the others, calling over our two guards. "I won't force any of you to stay. I will take back whoever wants me to, and I'm sorry, Malikah. I just can't involve myself, but I am willing to leave anyone who wants to for one hour max. After that I am coming back and if you aren't here, or chose to stay, that will be each of your decisions. But for you all who have taken the oath, the rules will apply. If you don't make it back in time, you will remain in this realm and your memories will be swiped. Make an informed decision."

With Raven, Brynlynn, and Opall at my side, I know we can make it work and I will take any consequence that may come. Tawny and Mags are worth it.

Maxum sighs deeply as the other few huddle back up. He walks over to me, looking me dead in the eyes. "You better be worth this." He says with a half-smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

I nod quickly. "I will be, I swear."

Tonyedda gives us one last glance. "One hour." She says softly. "It's all I can do."

"I can make that work, I just need five minutes to plan, ten to get there, twenty to get them out, and ten more to get back. It can be done." Opall assures her enthusiastically.

Tonyedda glances to me. "I do hope you find your friends, Mali." She tells me. "Be safe, all of you."

"We will." I promise, then they are gone and our mission is underway.