“I hate everything about this,” said Hypnos.
“Me too,” said Enrique. “Shut the door before they wake up.”
“The treasure wouldn’t be in here anyway,” said Séverin, frowning once more at the animals before shutting the door.
At each hallway, Séverin stopped to check the rooms for triggers that would activate any guard mechanisms. With the Fallen House, anything was possible. But none of the doors betrayed them, and none of the floors reacted. The spherical detection devices yielded nothing either. It was as if the Sleeping Palace were truly asleep. At every point, Zofia raised her phosphorous pendants, searching for signs of a Tezcat door in plain sight, but nothing revealed itself. As they walked down the final hall, the northern passage, Enrique pulled his coat tighter, glancing at the carvings where the wall met the ceiling.
“All the iconography shows women,” he said.
Laila hadn’t noticed that before, but he was right. All of the women in the frosted images covering the walls reminded Laila of priestesses. The detail of the ice didn’t seem to have faded over the years, and there was a curious sharpness to their eyes.
“None of their hands are showing,” said Enrique.
Small shivers crept down Laila’s spine, and she quickly averted her eyes. Their posture was too familiar. How many times as achild had she shoved her hands behind her back so her father wouldn’t be reminded of what she could do, or, as he later said, what shewas.
So far, the northern hall was the longest. It grew colder the farther they ventured. At the front, Séverin looked over his shoulder and caught her eye. Laila discreetly made her way to him.
“Usual procedure,” called out Séverin.
“Here, Hypnos, hold the detection device—” said Enrique, as the rest of them busied themselves.
Now it was just her and Séverin.
Séverin didn’t look at her. “Anything?”
Laila took off her gloves. She reached for the icy carved door in front of them, letting her hands skim over the strange indentations at the threshold.
“I can’t read it,” she said. “It’s all Forged.”
“No trapping devices detected,” called Enrique from the back. “Let’s enter. Why’s it so narrow?”
“It’s like a corridor to a room of meditation,” mused Séverin. “Designed to make someone feel as if the path they walk, they walk alone.”
“Well, rather than standing here, let’s get on with it and go inside,” said Hypnos, crossing his arms.
“Can’t,” said Séverin.
“There’s no handle,” said Zofia, her blue eyes quickly scanning the door.
Séverin tried pushing it, but it made no difference. The door wouldn’t budge. Séverin dropped his gaze to the floor indents. “This place was designed like a cathedral. It doesn’twantbrute force. It wants something else… something that’s honoring whatever is sacred inside here.”
Laila watched his face come alive with the puzzle of the room.
“Light,” he said, holding out his hand.
Zofia passed forward one of the pendants from her necklace. Séverin snapped the phosphorescent chip. The sudden glow carved out the shadows of his face, throwing them into sharp relief.
“Move back,” he said.
The four of them crowded into the small space of the hallway. Séverin dropped to his knees, flashing the light across the strange ripples and indentations covering the door.
“Found the opening,” he said.
He held his hand perpendicular to the ice and slid it down where it disappeared as if into a slot. But still the door wouldn’t budge.
“It’s like a keyhole,” said Enrique. “But why would someone put it where it’s only eye level to a child?”
That thought disturbed Laila. No part of the palace made sense, from the menagerie full of ice animals to the empty corridors. Even now, she shuddered thinking of the ice rhino’s slow gaze tracking them across the room. It hadn’t moved. Yet.
