I called over my shoulder, unable to pull my eyes away from the dark corner of the room. “I think so.”
Letting the magic pull me ever onward, I traversed the chamber, making slow work of it as I had to navigate stalagmites, cracks in the floor, and rocks. The last thing I needed was a broken ankle. Once I was closer, my flashlight revealed a stone plinth that looked to have been haphazardly chiseled into a stone outcropping. Once I inched even closer, I saw what sat atop it. It was a large vase that looked like it was made of clay.
Frowning, I stepped up to the pedestal. The power emanating from it was unbelievable. The only way I could describe it was that it felt like the searing heat of an open oven flashing against my face. I was honestly surprised my hair wasn’t billowing back from the power of it. There was no real power to it, but the force was almost physical in its strength.
Nico called out to me, was calling out to me, asking what was going on, but I couldn’t answer. All I could do was stare at the vase, transfixed by what I would discover inside it. My hand moved of its own accord, inching closer to the rim. Part of me was screaming at myself to stop, to think things through before reaching in. The other part was almost salivating at the thought of finally wrapping my fingers around what was in there. The desire was nearly sexual in its pull. I had the feeling that it would almost cause physical pain not to take the last step.
I blinked, barely able to pull my thoughts back. I called out one last time. “I found a vase. It’s here. I found it.”
Nico and the others shouted something else, but the roar of magic filled my ears, blasting at my eardrums. Unblinking, my wide eyes took in every detail as my fingers slid over the lip of the vase. My knuckles vanished, then my palm, and finally, my wrist slipped inside. I gasped when the tips of my fingers brushed across the glass vial. A jolt of power slammed through my body, and for a fleeting moment, I wondered if I’d been struck by lightning. Once my fingers fully encircled the bottle, it was like everything stopped. Something was wrong. I… didn’t feel like I thought I should. I pulled my hand out, and the … the vial sat in my palm. After all this time, it was right there.
87
NICO
“Maddy?” I screamed hoarsely for her.
“What’s going on?” Sebastian asked. “Why won’t she answer us?”
I shook my head, unable to respond. The fear flooding through me made it difficult to do anything but stare off into the darkness. I bounced on my toes and pressed my hands against the magical barrier, willing it to disappear. The only thing I wanted was to rush down the hall to her rescue.
I opened my mouth to call for her again, but her own shout echoed down the halls. It was somewhere between a growl, a scream, and a howl. “Son of a bitch.”
I had the chance to exchange a quick look with the others before the entire cave began to shake. First, it was a slight rumble, barely noticeable, but then it grew until the entire cave seemed to be rocking back and forth. Small stones and dust started to crumble and fall from the ceiling. Earthquake?
“Maddy!” I screamed. “Get out of there. Run. Hurry.”
I slammed my fists against the barrier, trying to break through the magic with the sheer force of will and rage. Before I could break the bones of my hand on the barrier, Felipe andTiago shouted Maddy’s name. Looking up, I saw her running toward us, dodging a softball-sized chunk of rock that had tumbled from the ceiling of the tunnel. Instead of looking scared or nervous about the earthquake, she looked absolutely pissed—face red, lips twisted into a sneer, and anger in her eyes. Maddy ran the last twenty feet and burst through the barrier into my arms as a loud pop like a shotgun blast erupted from the chamber she’d been in a moment before. Even in the dark, we could see the entire chamber collapse. A cloud of dust and rock chips billowed through the opening where we were standing.
I tugged Maddy away, and we retreated to the pool as the rumbling and shaking subsided. Maddy yanked herself from my arms and kicked a small rock into the pool. “Motherfucking asshole!”
Sebastian glanced at me, eyes wide and eyebrows raised in surprise. Maddy was still stomping around the pool, raging at some invisible enemy. I walked over and put my hand on her shoulder. “Maddy? Are you okay? What happened in there?”
She spun and looked at me, anger burning in her eyes. “Oh, nothing. No big deal. Just the fucking vial.” She spat the words like they tasted bad, and she wanted to get them out of her mouth as quickly as possible.
“Is… isn’t that a good thing?” I asked dumbly.
She tossed something for me to catch. I snatched it out of the air and stared at the small item. It was a glass vial, pitted with age, the inside empty save for what looked like a scrap of paper, an ancient cork pressed securely into the top. My eyes shot up to meet Maddy’s. “Did you?—”
Before I could finish my question, the cave rumbled again. Rocks rained down from above. A sound like thunder rolling in the distance reverberated through the smaller chamber we stood in.
Tiago motioned toward the scuba gear. “We need to go. The whole thing’s gonna collapse. Move!”
The five of us ran to the pile of gear as rocks the size of marbles poured down from above. The cracking sounds intensified.
The wetsuits took at least five minutes to put on, and from the cacophony that was building around us, we didn’t have anywhere near that. I shoved the vial into my pocket and waved the group away from the wetsuits. “No time. Just the scuba gear. Hurry.” A massive boulder the size of an office chair slammed into the ground less than six feet from Felipe, who shouted out and jumped in surprise. I helped everyone get their gear on as quickly as we could, saving myself for last. This was the most unsafe thing you could do when diving. None of us took the time to check anything—we were too panicked to care. I prayed no one would run into any trouble. Also, without wetsuits, the water would be frigid.
Sebastian and Maddy were the first to jump into the pool. A handful of basketball-sized chunks of rock slammed into the ground where they’d been standing only a second before. I shoved Felipe and Tiago in and leaped in after them. The last sound before I crashed into the water was the staccato sound of sheets of rock collapsing.
The water enveloped me… and it was fucking freezing. So cold that I had to force myself to take a breath through my regulator. I sank for several seconds until I forced my arms and legs to move. I kicked my flippers hard, pushing away from the opening of the pool as dozens of rocks and stones of various sizes crashed into the water. The whole cave system had collapsed. I forced myself to kick with my flippers. Each second, the cold sank deeper into my bones. This wasn’t arctic water, but it was still cold. Maybe sixty-five degrees at the most. My body wasalready quivering, on the verge of full shivers. We had to get out soon, or we’d all get hypothermia.
Doing my best to look for the others, I swam toward the cave opening. I was shivering when I made it to the vertical shaft we’d come through. As I swam down, I caught sight of a pair of flippers rounding the lower corner and making for the exit. Pushing my arms and legs to keep going, I added some speed and caught up to the group outside the entrance. A quick count of heads showed that everyone was out and shooting for the surface. We hadn’t been deep enough to worry about a slow ascent. I was more worried about hypothermia than I was about the bends.
I broke the surface and stripped my goggles and regulator off. By the time I swam over to the boat, Maddy and Sebastian were already out and stripping off the scuba gear. Once we were all on the boat, the cold really set in. We were all shivering and dragging towels out of the bags we’d brought. The modesty that had ruled the situation earlier fell away in a desperate attempt to get warm. We all stripped our wet clothes off and wrapped up in the thick towels. The towels were a welcome respite from the cold as Sebastian pulled out the second set of clothing everyone had brought. I’d thought we were being overprepared, but with how things turned out, I was beyond grateful.
Five minutes later, mostly dried off and dressed in dry clothes, Maddy’s anger returned. She stood and banged her palm against one of the poles holding the canvas roof above us. “Fuck.” The word was almost a snarl.
“What the hell happened back there? Did you drink the vial?” I asked.
