Chapter 5

The first thing I learn about the Underworld is that even the sky is a lie. There is no sky above my window. Just a ceiling of black, pulsing like a bruise, with something that might be lightning crawling silently under its surface. No stars. No moon. Just that endless, suffocating dark pressing down. My room is obscene. It’s bigger than my entire apartment building back home. Black marble floors veined with silver, a bed that looks like a sacrificial altar draped in midnight silk, mirrors...