“There it is,” March whispered from behind me. “Over here!” He stepped around me and ahead, closer to the hole.
The others came running.
“Time’s Temper, it’s the same doorway,” Levana said, andif I’d had any doubts that I was seeing things, they all faded away. I couldn’t bring myself to move yet, but the others had no trouble going closer.
Something about that darkness.
Just like when we saw it the first time, every fiber of my being was screaming at me to get back, get away, run and do whatever I needed tostayaway. Whatever was in there was not onlynot good—it was disastrous. Horrifying. It was going to suck me dry worse than the wraiths.
“How did it get down here?” Seth asked.
“I knew it, I knew it—we were supposed to go through it first!” said Erith.
“What if we blew it? What if we did the whole thing wrong?” asked Russ. “What if we’re supposed to get back up there all over again?!”
The idea sent ice-cold chills down my spine. Not enough air in this place for my lungs.
Get it together!I screamed at myself in my head when I began to get lightheaded, too.
This was where I was now. It didn’t matter what I felt—I’d survived this once, and apparently, I was going to have no other choice but to survive it again. None of us would.
The others were still arguing when I forced myself to get closer. We stood in a half circle around the doorway, and it sometimes looked only like a dark hole, and sometimes like a tunnel when a little light pulsated in the middle of it. No idea where it was coming from, though.
“There’s no other way,” Seth was saying. “We either go through there, or we don’t make it out.”
A silence deep enough to drown me followed his words. We all knew he was right. We all knew there was no other way. If there was, the doors would have opened to let us out by now, wherever they were.
“Fuck it,” Levana said. “I’m ready to get out of this place. Let’s do it. I’ll go first.”
Taking in a deep breath, she wiped the tears that slid down her cheeks, stiffened up her quivering chin, and she went into the doorway.
Run, run, hide!my mind screamed at me, but I stayed put. I watched all the others get themselves together, some faster, some slower, and follow Levana into that darkness that promised me all the nightmares in the world, until only March stood there at the edge, watching me. Always waiting.
I don’t want to go,I said in my head, but my tongue was stuck between my teeth. I was too shocked to cry, but my eyes blinked less and less. Like they were terrified of what I might miss if I blinked normally.
“I’ll be right behind you,” March answered anyway, as if he could read my mind in my unblinking eyes.
That was it. That was all I had—knowing that he would be behind me.
Maybe that was all I needed.
Taking in a deep breath, I moved. I stepped right into the darkness, certain that I was never going to make it out again.
The tower.
There were so many things I expected to find on the other side of that tunnel. Monsters, clockbeasts, wraiths, all kinds of different challenges. Instead, I found myself inside the tower. I recognized it because the walls were that same gray color, and there were no windows anywhere that we could see, but some stone blocks were chipped at the edges, and sunlight peeked through a little. There were no stairshere, though, and no cages hanging by thick chains, only four doorways all around us, each as dark as the one we came through.
Four symbols were carved over each, painted in black—club, heart, diamond, spade. No note, no tip, no nothing—just that.
“They want us separated,” Anika whispered, and her voice echoed in the tall ceiling. It was so tall, in fact, that we couldn’t see it. All we saw was darkness.
Was the cage up there still?
Maybe, even though these doorways hadn’t been here when we first entered the tower.
“The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we walk out.” Mimi stepped forward, hands fisted to her sides so they didn’t shake. “I can’t stay here a moment longer.” And she walked ahead toward the doorway marked with the club symbol.
Seth followed without a word, only a deep, loud breath.
