The face of a different woman appears in the crystal of each jewelry piece.
From the planes of the ring, Iman blinks at Shay, the silver streaks in her hair a match to the color of her gleaming eyes. From the surface of the necklace, Noor smirks, her lips ruby red against dark skin. Rabia smiles, her face split between the two earrings, green leaves tangling in the thick coils of her hair.
“Well, isn't this a precarious situation?” Noor's buoyant voice startles Shay, almost causing her to lose her footing. “You might even say you've found yourselves ‘out on a ledge.’“
Shay's gaze darts from the necklace back to Iman's countenance in the ring. She wonders why the Lallat haven't used this form of communication sooner. “You can appear in the talismans?”
“Not usually,” Iman clarifies. “Only when the hjabats are all in close proximity to the pillars we're trapped inside.”
“This is amazing.” Yara titters, also looking quickly from the earrings to Shay and Marjan and back down again, her grin growing wider and wider. “Isn't this amazing?”
Marjan, who seemed as amazed as her sister a moment before, now shrugs dispassionately. “It's a neat trick for sure, but we kind of need to get the bracelet before the Naturalists show up, so …”
“About that …” Shay ducks into her shoulders. “The bracelet was tucked away in one of those tunnels at the bottom of the cavern,” she explains, to which Marjan frowns.
“Do we have enough energy to help them out, Sisters?” Rabia asks, her voice melodious and serene. “Since they've gotten this far?”
“I believe so,” Iman confirms. “Put the hjabats on, and we'll see what we can do.”
Glancing at one another, the girls each slip the piece of jewelry in their grasp onto their respective finger, neck, and ears. Instantly, both the jewels and the pillars blaze so bright, Shay clamps her eyes shut and throws her arm across her face, ducking to better shield herself. The blinding glare recedes, and when the glow dims enough for Shay to rub the fractured stars from her eyes, she peeks around.
She and her companions are no longer standing on the ledge. They've been transported to the cave floor, and the brilliant stalagmites now tower over them. All three seem to have the same thought at once, peering down at their hjabat for further guidance, but the faces of the Lallat have vanished.
“Figures,” Marjan grumbles.
“Shhh …” Yara tilts her head, her face intently focused. “Listen.”
Voices. Though the conversation is muffled, Shay thinks she hears one male and one female.
“I thought you said the Naturalists weren't here?” Marjan whispers-shouts.
“I didn't see them,” Shay says. Then she thinks of the strange tracks that ran through the deeper tunnels of her dream vision. “Unless there's another entrance …”
Without further discussion, the girls move together to the outer wall of the cavern. They mold their backs against it and inch their way toward the mysterious murmurs. At a tunnel opening, a distinct blue light glows, coming from further down the narrow passage. The voices seem to have faded.
Yara's gaze travels from the blue glow inside the tunnel to the similar green, red, and silver glow from the other pieces of jewelry. She whispers, “Rasha's hjabat. It has to be.”
Tingles course over Shay's skin in scintillating bursts. She and Marjan both nod. The tightness of the passage allows them to enter the tunnel only in single file. Shay goes first, nauseous excitement frothing in her belly. She's followed by Marjan, then Yara.
The clotted shadows of the tunnel are skewered by blue beams of light. Closer, Shay traces the telltale glow to where the bracelet dangles from a fist-sized protrusion of rock along the side of the wall, just high enough to be out of reach.
She looks back to check on her companions, reassured to see the red glow of Marjan's necklace and the twin green lights of Yara's earrings. Closer still, she makes out the shape of a shallow alcove that shoulders the spot where the last hjabat rests.
But it isn't resting at all, is it? That would imply the bracelet came to be in this most alluring position all on its own rather than being planted here, like cheese wedged on a mousetrap. Shay's excited tingles turn to spikes of alarm, needling across the back of her neck and down her arms.
The cave tunnel is silent but for the soft thread of Shay's breath interweaving with Yara's and Marjan's. Where did the voices go? She runs her palms along the back of the alcove, the light of her ring illuminating the stones in silver splashes. There's a small shelf at the back. Just high enough that if she steps upon it, she'll be able to reach the hjabat.
If it is a mousetrap, she can't find the hidden springs. She glances back at Marjan.
“Go ahead.” Marjan nods. “I'll keep watch ahead, and Yara can look out from behind.”
Shay takes a deep breath and steps upon the jutting rock lip. She stretches her arms upward, lifting on her toes. Rocks rumble and groan. The solid wall behind her shifts, a hidden passage yawning open. Her fingertips have barely grazed the hjabat when she's seized by phantom arms from behind. The cold blade of a knife angles against the bow of her neck.
“No one moves, or she dies.”
The words are a sure threat, but the voice who spoke them calls tears of joy to Shay's eyes. She chokes out, “Khawla?”
Marjan and Yara turn around at the same time. They step forward, one's face lit in red, the other green.
