“You guys just became friends, so don’t start pulling the Elle card now,” Lexington whisper-yells at her.
“Plus, she’s an Anderson,” Percy replies quietly as we delve deeper into the cave. “Whatever monsters live down here are probably her familiars.”
I flip him off. “Stop believing everything your parents tell you.”
“Well, you kind of terrify me, so I’m just assuming you might actually be cursed.”
Lexington sighs, shoving him forward as Sabrina keeps dragging us along. The air in the tunnel is ice-cold and thick, the ground uneven and the walls narrow. Water drips distantly, and I wonder if that’s from old piping or an extension of Lake Lerna.
Reaching into my coat pocket, I take out my phone, but the screen won’t swipe because of how cold my fingers are. Sniffling, I let Sabrina guide me until we hear somber music filtering through the tunnels from somewhere.
The four of us freeze for a second.
Lexington’s swallow is audible.
“You know the Apollodorus used to be a church?” Sabrina asks as we continue. “Early on, not long after the wholeplagueincident shook Fury Hill, some residents took over the building. Dedicated it to their god.”
“Their god,” I say, my shoulders tightening. “NotGod?”
“Nope. Fury Hill’s founders didn’t subscribe to that monotheistic belief. They found god in their existences, the makeup of the world, and the cycles they observed within. Their god wasn’t omnipotent or all-knowing but an inevitability. It was inescapable, and it was all around them.”
“Death,” I finish, my voice barely a whisper.
The music grows louder, rattling the cave walls.
“Exactly.” Sabrina nods, squeezing my hand.
“So when you say church, you mean crypt. The Apollodorus was a crypt.” I squint in the dark at the walls around us. It’s hard to make out the shape of the texture, but something tells me they’re notjustrock and sediment.
“Avernia was a triage center when tuberculosis ravaged the townspeople. They couldn’t keep up with the dead, so they dedicated buildings to their mass burials. Some of them never made it aboveground again though.”
I pause, turning to face her. “Some of them. You mean the people who died in the Tenarus cave? The founding patriarchs, right?”
“All of them except Cronus Anderson. Legend has it that when he decided to make the Apollodorus into a library, he had the matriarchs bring the bodies of the townspeople through this very tunnel.”
A chill slithers down my spine. “So these are the catacombs.”
“Where some say…” Sabrina trails off, covers her flashlight, and dives into the shadows. I brace myself, and seconds later, she pops up behind Percy, grabbing his shoulders as she shouts “—his ghost appears!”
Percy’s scream echoes down the tunnel, and Lexington barks out a laugh despite everything. Sabrina cackles, doubling over as her hyena noises assault my ears.
“I fucking hate you, and now Ireallydon’t want to be here,” Percy says.
“Ugh, you’re such a baby,” Sabrina tells him, poking his stomach. I’ve never seen her act playful with anyone before, and I find it unnerving. The way he careens his body out of reach makes me think he feels the same.
Or maybe he just doesn’t want to interact with her at the moment, considering Lexington said she broke his heart earlier.
“Look, Lex, I don’t know about you, but I’m going back up.” Percy holds a hand out, beckoning his best friend. “You coming?”
“We can’t just leave them down here by themselves.”
“I think Elle and I are more than capable of walking through some tunnels alone,” Sabrina says.
“Yeah? Who’s gonna keep you from getting bludgeoned if you run into a Death’s Teeth member down here?” Percy snaps, grabbing her wrist.
He tries to drag her in the opposite direction, but she digs her heels into the ground, slowing him. “They don’t bludgeon people,” she insists, clawing at his fingers.
“Do you have firsthand knowledge of that?”
