Barnaby obliged. His ears did a synchronized flutter that made all three kobolds squeal with delight.
“Perfect! Oh, this is perfect!” The leader was typing furiously. “My engagement is going to be through the roof. I might finally hit ten thousand followers!”
“Of course!” the smaller kobold said. “A final shot of the Easter Bunny before his imminent failure. This is CrystalGram gold. The last hurrah of a legend, you know? Super tragic. Very aesthetic.”
The confidence drained from Barnaby’s posture like air from a punctured tire. His ears drooped. His shoulders hunched. The polished, professional version of the Easter Bunny vanished, replaced by the anxious rabbit I’d been training for weeks.
“I… yes. I suppose it would be.”
“Get out.”
Grix emerged from the main passage we’d been heading toward. The young kobolds took one look at him and yelped. The leader opened his mouth to protest, saw Grix’s expression, and wisely chose to flee instead. All three of them scattered, disappearing back into the side passage.
Grix turned his amber gaze on us. Today, his suit looked even more severe than what he favored during our meetings. One would have thought that he’d be a little more casual at home, but apparently not. “Brok. You have thirty seconds to explain why you’re trespassing in my mine before I have you removed.”
“I need your help.”
“You had my help. You rejected it when you turned down the Asterion contract.” He glared at me, not bothering to hide his displeasure. “I don’t work for free, and I especially don’t work for clients who cost me money.”
I nudged Barnaby, who fumbled with his pouch and pulled out the protein bite. Grix went very still. His eyes fixed on the sweet with the intensity of a predator spotting prey. “One of your infamous cookies, Brok?”
“Not cookies. Tribute.”
Grix stared at the protein bite, then at Barnaby’s anxious face, then at me. Then he reached out and took the sweet with surprising gentleness, turning it over in his clawed hands. “The tribute is accepted.” The formality inhis voice surprised me, particularly after how dismissive he’d first been of Hazel’s sweets. But I’d been right. Grix could not say no.
Grix gestured toward the main passage. “Follow me. You want to know about the Challenge of Competency, I assume?”
“Everything you can tell us.”
“Then you’ll need to mine for it yourselves.” He started walking without checking if we followed. “The information you seek is rare. Buried deep. Finding it is part of the price.”
Buried? Of course it would be something ridiculous like that. Kobolds never did things easily or logically.
We descended deeper into the earth, following Grix through a maze of passages that all looked identical to me. The air grew colder and drier. The crystal light became sparser, forcing us to walk closer together to stay in the dim pools of illumination. Barnaby stayed close to my heels, his breathing quick and shallow. The rabbit really wasn’t built for underground work.
Finally, we emerged into a massive chamber that took my breath away. The ceiling stretched up into darkness, easily a hundred feet overhead. The walls glittered with thousands of embedded crystals in every size and color—deep purple, brilliant blue, blood red, pale green. They pulsed with soft light in irregular patterns.
“This is the source.” Pride colored Grix’s voice. “Every piece of supernatural knowledge, every secret, every truth that’s ever been spoken or written eventually crystallizes somewhere in these walls. The older the information, the deeper it’s buried.” He gestured to a pile of tools near the chamber entrance—pickaxes, chisels, hammers. “You’ll need to extract what you’re looking for. I’ll examine what you find.”
Barnaby stared at the glittering walls. “How are we supposed to find anything specific in all of this?”
“That’s your problem.” Grix settled himself on a flat boulder near the entrance, pulling a stack of papers from his suit jacket. “You have until I finish these reports. After that, I’m charging by the hour.”
I looked at the pickaxes, then at all the ore surrounding me. If Grix thought he could intimidate me like this, he had another thing coming.
“Don’t worry, Barnaby,” I told him. “We have this in the bag.”
He didn’t look very convinced, but I paid him no heed. After all, it was only mining. How hardcould it be?
In hindsight, I should have known Grix had agreed to help us a little too quickly. Mining was a nightmare, the likes of which even my chieftain couldn’t have designed.
The pickaxe was absurdly small in my hands. I’d adjusted my grip three times already, finally settling on a one-handed hold that let me use my shoulder for leverage instead of my wrists. It wasn’t ideal. My back was going to hate me tomorrow.
It was infuriating. But I couldn’t give up, because it worked. Sort of.
I swung the tiny pickaxe into the crystal-studded wall, and a chunk of stone broke free with a satisfying crack. Three small crystals tumbled out, clattering to the chamber floor in a shower of rock dust. I dropped to my knees to examine them. All three were cloudy gray, their light dim and flickering.
“Anything?” Barnaby called from twenty feet away.
