-Oliver-

I couldn't move for a while. I just stared at the staircase in front of me, struggling to let Rayleigh's words sink in.

His friend... was my father?

"Ollie?" Jaden muttered my name quietly, placing his hand on my back. "I'm so sorry..."

"No... At least I know now..." I breathed out and tried to get a hold of myself before turning to look at Rayleigh. "Are you sure, that... Kevin was my..." I trailed off since I wasn't ready to say that word out loud.

"I knew the second I saw you," he said gently. "You look exactly like Kevin when he was your age."

"So... Attwood," Tilly spoke, and I turned to look at her. She was looking at Arch with a smile on her face.

Arch gave me a smirk, and bowed his head at me. "The deck is complete."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Abner," Arch said, pointing at Jaden, before he turned to look at Tilly. "Ackley."

"Archer," Tilly pointed at him.

"Attwood," Jaden smiled down at me, holding me close with one arm.

"Four Aces," Arch said, holding up four fingers.

"Oh God... Now there's four of them... The pack will be thrilled..." Rayleigh muttered, but when I looked at him, he had a sad gleam in his eyes when he looked back at me. "I'm sorry, Oliver. It breaks my heart knowing that you were supposed to live with us this entire time. If I had known Kevin had a son, I would have given you a home. Thankfully, the Moon Goddess saw the error in the picture and brought you back to us."

I was on the verge of tears when he stopped talking. "I wasn't your responsibility," I said, telling him the same thing I told Jaden, but Rayleigh shook his head.

"You were. You are. Kevin was my best friend, I considered him my brother," he said, placing his big hand on my shoulder. "You are one of us, a guardian of the Blue Moon. The guardian of the Blue Moon to be precise."

"What?" everyone asked at the same time.

Rayleigh let his gaze slide over us all, before he turned to look at the staircase. "I am Rayleigh Abner. I have brought to you the new generation of guardians. Will you accept them?"

For a short moment, I had no idea who he was talking to, but then I could feel the spirits around us getting curious. I could feel some of them coming closer. They were particularly interested in Tilly and Arch. I guess Jaden and I got an automatic pass since we were the... keys? But the spirits were lingering around the other two.

"I feel weird," Tilly muttered.

"Same," Arch nodded.

"The spirits are looking into your hearts to see if you are worthy," Rayleigh explained quietly.

"What if we're not?" Tilly asked, shivering now and then when the spirits touched her.

"Then they won't allow you to continue," Rayleigh said.

"But how can spirits stop them? They are spirits," Jaden spoke.

"No, they won't stop you," Rayleigh said, and turned to look at him. "I will."

The way he said it made chills run down my spine.

At that moment, the spirits seemed to come to a conclusion, since they left us alone, and returned to the trees. I turned to look at Rayleigh, wondering how would he know what the spirits wanted, when all of a sudden, the staircase was lit up with beautiful golden light.

"Good," Rayleigh nodded. "I knew they would accept you," he added to Arch and Tilly, before gesturing all of us to follow him to the staircase.

We were all silent as we walked down the long staircase. The walls, the roof and the stairs were all made of white marble that had tiny golden strips here and there, looking like tiny lightning bolts. I had the feeling it was not man-made, since I couldn't see a single seam, not even where the walls met with the roof or the stairs. It was like everything was carved out of one single massive block of stone.

The end of the staircase was way below us, but finally, we reached the bottom. We had arrived into another hall, but this one wasn't as big as the one made of trees. The roof was probably ten feet above our heads, and the walls maybe twice as wide.

And I had no doubt what the place was.

"Catacombs," Arch muttered as we all studied the small plates on the walls.

"Spirit Walkers," Rayleigh spoke with a respectful voice. "This is only the beginning of their catacombs. The people in this room are great leaders, and the rest are divided by families."

"Why is this place so important to Shadow Walkers?" Jaden asked, as we started following Rayleigh to the other end of the hall, where I saw a small archway leading to a hallway.

"This is where two worlds collide," Rayleigh said ominously. "Ours and theirs."

"You are speaking riddles," Jaden noted.

"And you are being impatient," his father replied.

Jaden kept his mouth shut for the rest of the walk. I think neither of us felt like talking in the middle of the resting Spirit Walkers. I could feel the energy of my long-lost relatives. The hallway seemed to continue to the end of the world, and it was lined with big rooms that were filled with name plates. Graves. Each room had their own archway leading into them, and the name of the families were written on top of them. I kept reading every name, until I saw one of them.

"Bundt..." I whispered, and stopped next to the archway, peering into the room.

"Ever since the war, no one has visited this place," Rayleigh said quietly. "I feel sorry for them. This place is sacred to them all, but they gave it up in order to protect our world."

There were ten plates on the walls, and I wanted to go take a better look, but I didn't want to waste Rayleigh's time any more than I already had, so I ripped my eyes off the room and walked to the rest of them.

Soon later, Rayleigh slowed down and then stopped next to another archway. I looked up and saw the name, Attwood, written on the top. I suddenly had something big clogging up my throat, when I looked inside.

My family.

Rayleigh gestured me to step in, and after a short moment of hesitation, I did. Sadness overtook me, when I read the names on more than a dozen plates. None of them rang any bells. And there, at the back I saw his name again.

"Kevin Attwood," I whispered, when I walked to the plate. "He was... only twenty years old..."

I think that was the worst part of it. He was only four years older than I was now when he died. I placed my hand carefully on the plate, and the coldness made me shiver.

"This is your son, Kevin," Rayleigh spoke quietly. "I'm assuming you didn't know about him... You would've told us if you did..."

I started crying at that moment. Was it true? Did he not know about me...?

"Did he... you knew my father... so... did you...?" I tried to speak, but the words weren't coming out. "Did you know my mom?"

He placed his hand on my shoulder, and when I looked at him, he looked sad.

"Kevin was..." he spoke, but sighed, looking up at the plate again. "You son of a bitch..."

"What?" I whispered.

"He was... popular... among the ladies..." Rayleigh said, bowing his head down. "Even I didn't always know with whom he spent his nights..."

"So... what you're saying is that I... was an accident?" I muttered. "Did he even know her...?"

I was having hard time breathing at that moment. I turned away from my father's grave, but Jaden was standing there, right behind me. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and I hid my wet face against his chest.

"I don't know..." Rayleigh muttered with a heavy voice. "But what I do know is that if he had known about you, he would've wanted to be a father to you. A good father. He was just young and stupid and... But he wasn't a bad man. To him, you would never have been an accident. I swear this is true."

I nodded but didn't say anything. This was all getting way too much. It was already past way too much at that point.

"I think we should continue," Jaden said calmly.

There was a short moment of silence in the room. I was fighting with myself to stay calm, but my emotions were all over the place.

"I'm sorry, Oliver," Rayleigh then said. "I wish I could've told you a better story, but... He would've loved you with all his heart, I swear...."

"Let's get going," Jaden said, when I didn't reply. Rayleigh let out a long, devastated sigh, before I heard him leave. I couldn't move just yet, but Jaden didn't hurry me. "I've heard stories about your father," he said eventually. "He sounds like a good man."

"Does it matter? He died before I was even born..." I muttered against his chest.

"I suppose not," he breathed out. "Are you ready to continue?"

I nodded slowly, and stepped back, drying my face with my sleeve. Jaden took my hand in his, and I followed him out of my family's resting place. But after walking through the archway, I turned to look back at my father's name.

"Are you sure he would've wanted me?" I asked.

"Of course," Rayleigh said without hesitation. "I have no doubt in my mind."

I took a deep breath, and nodded, before I continued walking again.

"How much further are we going?" Jaden asked.

"Not far," Rayleigh replied. "We're almost at the end of this place."

It sounded odd somehow. I thought the hallway would keep on continuing, but it was surprisingly short. Then I remembered what I was told – that there were only a handful of Spirit Walkers left in the world, and the number of graves made more sense.

And just like Rayleigh said, we reached the end of the hallway. There was a bigger archway, leading into a room that was the same size as the first one at the other end of the catacombs. But this one had no name plates in it. There was only a small pillar in the middle, reaching roughly up to my waist.

There was a small orb, around the size of my fist, resting on top of it, sitting perfectly on a setting that looked like four leaves were holding it. Everything else was white marble, except the orb. It looked like it was made of a see-through glass that had been dyed with blue and gold, and it reminded me of the spirits.

"What is that?" I asked, when Rayleigh stepped two feet away from it.

"This is the Blue Moon," he said.

"Wait, what?" Tilly asked with a frown.

Rayleigh let out a chuckle. "We are the guardians of the Blue Moon. Quite literally."

"What does it do?" Jaden asked, stepping a bit closer to it.

"It opens a portal to the realm of spirits," Rayleigh said. "With it, even those who are not Spirit Walkers can enter the spirit realm."

We all stared at the small orb in silence for a moment. It looked so... harmless. It sounded harmless.

"That's the big bad object from the old world?" Tilly asked with a slightly condescending voice.

"With it, you can control spirits. All spirits," Rayleigh said.

"Why would Shadow Walkers want it? Don't they have enough shadows on their side?" Tilly continued, asking the same questions I had in my mind.

"Well, the Moon Goddess is a spirit..." Arch muttered, and I could feel the dramatic change in the atmosphere. Now they were taking it seriously.

"O-Oh..." Tilly muttered.

"With this, you can control spirits from the old world as well," Rayleigh said. "Imagine all the things those all-powerful beings could tell them..."

"O-Oh..." Tilly breathed out again. "Not good things..."

"What kind of things?" I asked, since I had no idea what they were talking about.

"Locations to the long-forgotten spell books for example," Arch said. "Book of the Dead to raise corpses and command them. Arts of Alchemy – according to the legends, you can find the recipe to immortality in it, among other things. There's one book which lets you control the weather, and another one to speak with animals..."

"Or weapons – indestructible swords and axes and wands..." Tilly spoke. "Or armor that will shield you from nuclear bombs!"

"Not to mention they could control the freaking gods," Jaden muttered almost angrily.

"Shadow Walkers can also turn spirits into shadows," Rayleigh said. "They will torture the pure souls until there's nothing but hate left."

"They can't have it," Jaden said. "There's no way in hell we'll let Jack and his sociopathic friends have it."

"Indeed," Rayleigh said, and turned to look at me. "We were unbelievably lucky that they didn't get their hands on you. If they had known you are a key to this place... Nothing could've stopped them."

"Oh, they'll feel so stupid when they find out about it," Tilly muttered. "They had the key under their nose the entire time..."

"They will never find out about it," Jaden said sternly. "No one will find out about it. This stays between us, you hear me?"

"Of course," Tilly said, and Arch nodded.

"Good," Jaden said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "I will not let anyone lay their hands on you," he told me.

"I know," I said, giving him a smile.

Then I turned to look at the Blue Moon again. My father died protecting it... That had to say something about him, right? He gave his life in order to protect the world. Then a thought occurred to me.

"So... technically... if someone opens that portal, they could just walk into the spirit realm... Would it be possible to find a certain spirit in there?" I asked hesitantly. "Would they be able to answer you if you tried talking with them?"

"I'm not an expert, but I think so," Rayleigh answered with a careful tone in his voice.

"Okay," I nodded, staring at the orb.

"Oliver... I know you want to talk with your father, but... it's dangerous," Rayleigh spoke.

"No, no... I was just curious," I mumbled. "Of course I'm not going to do that."

"Good. No one knows what would happen if the portal were opened. It is possible that you'd free thousands of spirits into this world, where they no longer belong," Rayleigh said. "They spend so much time trying to find their way to the spirit realm... It would be cruel if they were cast out again."

"I get it, I get it," I hurried to say.

Rayleigh nodded again, and turned his attention the Blue Moon.

Jaden wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I looked up at him.

"Didn't Natalie say you can travel to the spirit realm on your own?" he asked – well, more like reminded me.

"Oh, right. She did," I said, and I suddenly felt better.

"That reminds me – I'm supposed to meet her today," Rayleigh said. "And she promised to bring some of your belongings."

"Let's go back to the cabin," Jaden said.

"I could really use some clean clothes," I muttered, and started following the rest of them out of the catacombs. "I think I'm starting to smell..."

"N-No... Not at all..." Jaden said. Lied.

I chuckled at him and rolled my eyes at him, starting to feel much, much better.