“You could have killed us all!”
“You should have brought the seeds first—then we would have all gone back for Silas!”
“You almost cost us our lives, Ora!”
“Such a damn fool!”
True, all of it.
In fact, now that I thought about it,thatwould have been the smart thing to do—only I wasn’t really thinking straight then. I saw Silas hanging there on that tree and the wraithswere far too close to him, and my body reacted on instinct. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d tried.
“Stop it, all of you,” March spat. “The game isn’t over yet. We still have to make it out.Move.”
It was a damn order, and I was sure someone was going to try to argue, but they didn’t. All I heard was the footsteps as they slowly started to walk ahead.
“Whereare we, anyway?” said Mimi. “I can’t even see anything. Anybody?”
Light.
It sprang into existence out of nowhere, right over the palm of Anika’s hand. It was small but we could see each other’s faces if we were close, at least. We could see the walls made of those same stone blocks in whatever corridor that hole had led us to, vines crawling on their surface, hiding between their edges.
We were definitely inside the tower.
“There. Let’s keep moving,” Anika said, pointing toward where the walls curved a little to the side.
She and Russ went first.
Reggie still held Silas by the arm to help him walk as they went behind them. The others followed.
March took my hand in his, and I could barely see his silhouette now that Anika was farther away. “You okay?”
“Fine. Let’s go.” I couldn’t wait to get this over with already.
It wasn’t long before we came upon a round hall, the walls of it also made out of the same stone blocks. We’d reached the very top, apparently, because the ceiling was perfectly visible from here, high, round, with two square windows on either side that let in just a tiny bit of silver light. The moon must have been shining outside.
On the wall across, there were four archways, eachdrenched in darkness. Four symbols were engraved on the stone over them—a spade, a club, a heart, and a diamond.
A bad feeling settled in my gut. This place wasn’t done with us yet, it seemed.
“They want to separate us,” Reggie said. “Tick that. We go through together. Just pick one and we’ll go there.”
“No,” Silas said, his arm still around Reggie’s shoulders. He made an attempt to stand on his own, and to our surprise, he managed to keep his balance just fine. His cheeks didn’t look as pale anymore, either—or maybe it was just the lack of light. “If we don’t follow the rules of the game, they’ll never let us out. It’s the Turning Trials. We either do what they want, or we don’t get out of here at all.”
Silence for a tick. I knew Silas was right, but Time’s Teeth, I did not want to let go of March’s hand. I did not want to go into that darkness at all!
Yet I knew there was no other way. We all knew by now that this game meant business. It was not a joke. It was notfunlike we’d all thought in the beginning. Likeeverybodyin the realm believed—including Jinx.
It’s just games—fun and exciting games!No.
This was real and it was dangerous. And we really ought to get out of here as fast as we possibly could.
Reluctantly, we began to spread out. March squeezed my hand before he let go, looked at me in a way that said so much, but I couldn’t decipher the words just yet. I didn’t have the headspace. I didn’t have the courage. So I only nodded at him, and together with Cook and Silas, stopped in front of the archway marked with a spade.
“I guess we’ll see you on the other side,” Erith said with a wave of her hand. Her voice broke.
“Yes. I’ll see you on the other side. Each and every one of you,” Reggie said, looking at us in turn before his eyes stopped on Silas. “Don’t be late.”
I wanted to say something, too, or to at least smile at March who looked at me like he was seconds away from bursting into flames.
