More, there’s no sky above us. No clouds, no sun, no long expanse of blue or gray. The area above us and beyond the grass is just…empty. A black, endless void.
There’s obviously light where we are or I wouldn’t be able to see anything, but it doesn’t go beyond the boundaries of the grassy field we’re in. And it doesn’t seem to be coming from any light source that I can find—no lamps, no sun, no outdoor lights tucked into the ground. It’s just there, like the rest of this place.
“Where are we?” Sullivan asks. He sounds as bewildered as I feel. It feels almost as if the moment we walked through that ancient teal door, we entered someplace that exists only in this one moment in time.
Weird.
“Does it matter?” Rhea asks as she fluffs her hair and brushes imaginary blades of grass from her blazer. “We passed that ridiculous test.”
“Wepassed the test?” Fifi murmurs as she rolls her eyes at me, making me laugh.
Because of course Rhea is acting like she was part of the solution instead of the problem. I’m beginning to think acting superior is in her DNA.
“Do you think that means we can go home now?” Sullivan asks, eyeing the chest, which is still closed.
“I’m pretty sure it will let us know if it’s ready for us to leave,” I answer, pushing to my feet.
Fifi stands up too. “So what do we do now?”
“Maybe figure out what it is we’re supposed to accomplish here?” Arjun suggests, joining us. His normally perfectly brushed black hair is standing straight up, like he spent the entire time he was angry yanking on it. It’s a surprisingly good look for him.
“Who says we need to accomplish anything?” Rhea picks at her light blue nail polish while she stays right where she’s at, sitting cross-legged on the ground.
“Dr. Minthe,” Arjun answers. “He said that’s how we would get the key.”
“He actually said we’d get it when we learned what we needed to about the myth,” I correct him.
“Same thing, isn’t it?” Sullivan asks.
“I feel like I learned a lot with that whole fog thing,” Paris adds. “What about the rest of you?”
“I learned not to make Fifi mad,” Arjun says with a grin. “She’s got a mean tackle.”
“I do what I can.” Fifi does a little curtsy.
Rhea glares at Arjun. “Yeah, well, it’s hard to take anything you say seriously when you look like a hedgehog.”
Arjun stops smiling, runs a self-conscious hand over his hair.
“I think hedgehogs are adorable,” I tell him.
Fifi nods. “Supercute. And your hair looks great that way.”
The smile he gives us is only half as bright as it used to be, but at least he stops smoothing his hair down.
I’mreallybeginning not to like Rhea.
Which is a problem, because Paris seems to like her a whole lot. He’s moved to sit next to her on the ground, and now they’re whispering together about who knows what.
“Hey, Sullivan!” Fifi calls, and I turn around to see Sullivan halfway across the clearing. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for whatever it is we have to do!” he shouts back. “I’m hungry and have no intention of missing lunch because of a key with an attitude problem.”
“Not sure the key is the one with the attitude problem,” Fifi mutters as she steps around Paris and Rhea.
I make a face. “True story.”
Because I’d rather be doing anything other than standing around here doing nothing, I head across the field toward Sullivan as Fifi and Arjun follow behind. Considering he’s now trying to climb a tree, I’m pretty certain he’s not doing anything that will actually help us. But maybe there really is something over there. It would be a mistake not to check.
