Ava drew a deep breath. “Ancestors, Charlie! I wish you could see it.”
“See what?” I questioned. It was obvious in their shocked silence that Avahadfound something beneath the dirt. Even Rishi and Oberi had quieted to take it in.
“It’s Elven runes!” Ava cried in excitement. “The whole floor is covered in them!”
“I wonder how old these paintings are,” Marcus mused.
Gingerly, I made my way over to my friends. I didn’t want to ruin whatever message lay beneath my feet— but then I realized maybe Ishould. If it was another message about Forevermore, I wanted nothing to do with it.
“Can you translate it?” I asked Ava.
“Some of it’s familiar,” she said thoughtfully. She began moving around the room, as if trying to inspect the runes from every angle. “This rune here— that’s the symbol for Forevermore. I’ve seen it a bunch of times. And that one— it’s on the gate in the forest. That’s the rune fordemigods.”
My stomach sank. Fuck, itwasa message about Forevermore. I began to panic, but I quickly forced myself to calm down. Maybe it wasn’t anything more than we already knew.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“I’ve been studying enough Elvish that I can decode some of it, but I’ll need the book Hemlock gave me to translate it all,” Ava said.
A piece of paper rustled in Marcus’ hands. He must’ve conjured it, because he didn’t have it with him earlier. “Here,” he told Ava. “I’ve got something you can start writing the translations on.”
Ava began humming while she translated the runes she recognized. Kallie and Marcus walked around the room to look at the runes.
Kallie snickered. “That one looks like a… well, you know.”
“Idon’tknow,” Marcus said dryly.
Kallie sounded disappointed in him. “A dick. A penis. A cock. Take your pick.”
“It does not,” he argued. “These are awork of art.”
“A dick can be a work of art, too,” Kallie pointed out.
I slumped against the wall, because there was nothing I could do to help— or to stop them. Oberi had stopped playing catch with me and sat over by Ava, happily slapping his tail against the ground.
After what felt like hours, Ava finally announced, “I translated a passage. It’s probably the only one I can do for now. The others are too complicated.”
Marcus and Kallie quieted, and we all turned our attention to Ava.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“It’s not anexacttranslation,” she admitted. “But the gist of it is an overview of demigod powers.”
I perked up a little. So, it wasn’t necessarily about the prophecy. Learning more about our powers was useful in other aspects, too. “Did you learn anything new?”
“Yeah. It says here that demigods are able to overpower supernatural restraints,” she said.
I thought about it a moment. “Supernatural restraints… like noxite?”
“Exactly,” she replied brightly. “It doesn’t specifically mention noxite. I’m not even sure the Elves had a symbol for it. I never saw any mention of noxite anywhere in my book. Butsupernatural restraintsmust mean noxite, right?”
“This could be a game-changer for us!” Kallie cried.
“Yeah, we could actually escape,” Marcus pointed out.
My heart surged for a second before Ava said, “I’m not sure I’d gothatfar.Overpowerisn’t an exact translation. Magic like noxite will still weaken a demigod, but because they’re so powerful, it won’t be as effective as on a regular supernatural.”
“That makes sense,” I said thoughtfully.
