“Hello, Gemma,” she said at last, a delicate smile rising on her face. “It’s good to see you again.”
Gemma smiled. “What do you need me to do?”
The doctor gave a small, approving hum and glanced toward one of the other specialists. “You’ll want to speak with Doctor Liebher. He’s overseeing this . . . excavation. He’ll be able to direct you.”
Gemma nodded, every muscle in her body tensing.Stars, this is really happening.
As Gemma approached Doctor Liebher, she couldn’t help but assess him. He had a shock of wiry, white hair, and his coat was several sizes too large. Pouches hung from his belt in organized chaos, and some type of scanner dangled from one hand, swinging as he rubbed his chin in contemplation. The moment he spotted Gemma walking toward him, he flapped his arms and marched toward her. His boots scuffed against the stone, and she froze in place.
“It’s about time,” he said. “Well, don’t just stand there. Come on, come on. I need you to tell me where the orb was.”
Gemma blinked. “Excuse me?”
“The orb,” he snapped, gesturing vaguely at the maze behind him. “Glowing, spherical, the ancient artifact that rewrote your DNA. Ring any bells?”
Her hands clenched into fists, but Doctor Liebher either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He hurried toward a corridor, continuing to speak.
“You’d said you touched a glowing orb, but it must’ve stopped glowing shortly thereafter. And we can’t find the blasted imprint.” He stopped at a junction where several carved paths converged beneath a domed ceiling of orange light. “You touched it. Your memory might still hold the spatial location. So”—he turned on his heel, flinging his arms wide—“where?”
The chamber suddenly felt hotter, closer. The carved walls around her loomed with silent expectation.
“I—I don’t know,” she mumbled.
“You do know. You’re just refusing to dig for it. All elements give off a trace of energy. We simply can’t isolate it. But that same energy is in you, kid. So, I’ll ask again. Where?”
Gemma clenched her jaw. This man was insufferable.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll try.”
“You better do more than try, or we’ll be here for weeks.”
Her nostrils flared as she stepped past Doctor Liebher, her boots quiet against the stone. The soft light from above shimmered across the curved walls like liquid starlight, pooling in corners and catching on carvings.
The maze unfolded around her as she traipsed through the gentle, winding turns. Gemma trailed her fingers across glyphs on the crimson stone pillars—a story in fragments. A warning, maybe. A tale of a forgotten race and the large eyes that seemed to follow them everywhere.
When she reached a dead end, she turned in a slow circle, her gaze scanning the stone for something—anything—that might trigger a memory.
But there was nothing. Everything looked too similar to tell apart.
“We weren’t far from the tunnel when I touched it,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. “I think . . .”
Doctor Liebher made an impatient sound behind her. “Think is useless. You need to remember. The site’s too large to scan centimeter by centimeter.”
“I said I’m trying,” Gemma snapped.
She kept walking, her cheeks hot with embarrassment and anger. What did he expect her to do? Slam her head against one of the pillars to knock a memory loose?
She rounded a corner into a small inlet—and stopped.
A chill ran down her spine. Several chalice-shaped pillars stood near multiple doorless gateways filled with glittery, purple light.Thiswas where she’d awoken. She was sure of it.
Gemma shuffled forward, her eyes never leaving the pillar in the middle. The air shifted around her, almost like the stone was listening. When she was mere feet away, she reached out a hand toward it—
Her breath caught as a shock raced down her spine, cold as ice and sharp as a blade. She winced at the pain, her vision blurring.
“It was here,” she said. “This was it.”
Doctor Liebher was beside her in seconds, already scanning the stone sphere. “No heat trace. No radiation spike. But . . .” His eyebrows pinched. “The molecular compressionisa bit different.”
