I'm fine. Just thinking through a problem.
I studied the mural again.
The creature's spine wound sat lower than I'd thought. The artistic perspective had fooled me. Fifth vertebra, not fourth.
This time when I pressed the three, the sternum cracked open like a predator's jaw. The key hummed with magic, well within reach. But I wasn't foolish enough to grab it with my bare hand. Not after the warning.
I called air and shaped it into a spiral, threading it between the ribs like a careful hand. The skeleton remained still as I lifted the key free, and I funneled it out, dropping into my hand.
Cold. Not the right key.
All that effort for another piece of metal. I wanted to throw it against the wall.
Pivoting, I dropped the key and returned to the corridor.
The next room on the right stank, maybe from the puke-yellow slime coating the ceiling in thick veins. An ornate silver key sat in a pool of thick, wet jelly on the plinth.
I eased forward. As soon as I got close to the pillar’s base, the slime shifted. A long tendril whipped out, into the air.
I ducked to avoid impact, then called water from the air and froze it in an arc. Gouging outward, I poked the ooze in the center with my icy knife. It split apart, the bulk of it writhing for a moment before it went still. Grunting, I snatched the key up, but it was equally cold.
I moved on.
Still no sign of the right one. Still too many rooms left evenwithin the dungeon. Reyla was searching above while I was down here playing with Prager’s traps and chasing ghosts.
Time was running out, and somewhere above me, my wildfire was facing dangers I couldn't protect her from.
A guttural cry echoed through the dungeon, terrified, and distinctly female.
Chapter 26
Reyla
Iclimbed the stairs to the second floor with Farris trotting at my side, eyeing everyone we passed and those crowding around behind me. With so many looking, the odds of us finding the right key were slim, but I wasn’t giving up yet. With luck, we’d find it and hand it over to Queen Naveer. Then we could meet with Dorion and see if there was a way to steal the pendant from Laphira.
On the second floor, I strode along the hall, finding no doors marked with a red mark. Perhaps guest suites were only located on the upper levels.
“Out of the way,” a woman in a teal gown with a high white collar and enough jewelry to drown her if she fell into a lake shoved past me. She opened the first door on the left and stomped inside. Lord Tyrrius followed her, sending me a look that suggested he’d walk over me if I got in his way.
Other competitors rushed to different doors and hurried inside.
I opted to take the hall to the end, turn left, and continuedown three more hallways, leaving everyone else behind. I’d happily fight for the key if it was in my hand and someone challenged me for it, but it could be anywhere.
At the end of the third hall, I opened an unmarked door, determined to make my way backward until I came across the others. I’d still search in the rooms they had just in case they missed the key, but there was no need to scramble along with them.
The room I entered appeared to be a little-used sitting room.
The silence felt heavy, expectant, as if the room held its breath. Square-shaped, the sitting room had high-backed chairs arranged in a half-moon near a fireplace of pale stone. No fire burned there, but blue embers pulsed in the grate, someone’s magic still lingering. The walls had been papered in a faded pattern of silver swirls and green leaves, and tall arched windows had been shuttered on the other side, though slivers of light cut through the cracks. A tea set rested on a low table, the cups untouched, the pot lid ajar.
Farris trotted in ahead of me, his nose to the ground and his fluffy tail high.
I shut the door, blocking out the sounds of people rushing along the carpeted hall, shouting this or that to each other. With my hand on one of my blades, I walked around the perimeter of the room, peering underneath furniture and lifting cushions on the chairs. I found one key that was as cold as a crypt, but not much of anything else outside of dust clumps.
I stopped in front of the mantel, eyeing the crystal figurines lined up across the top in a neat row. Birds, I thought at first, until I saw they were winged women with sharp teeth and clawed feet. Harpies? Each one had been carved in a different pose, from arms splayed wide, head tilted back to take in the sun or moonlight, to one curled in a ball, lying on her side. A tiny key had been placednear each one, and I touched them one by one, not finding any with heat.
Farris padded beside me around the room, stopping when I did to search or touch a random key. Someone had been busy, hiding them here and there. When I was passing a tall-backed chair and a table, I paused. A gilded-framed portrait hung crooked on the wall behind the chair.
Crooked pictures could mean trouble, but this one…
