12

Shane

for a second, neither of them breathed. Shane stared at her partner’s wide eyes, waiting in horror for the sound of screeching mechanisms or a nasty squish. But it never came. Fi’s shoulders slumped, and her head sagged back against the wall.

“It’s okay,” she rasped. “I think there’s something in here—feels like a lever.”

Well, that was luckier than Fi had any right to be. Shane balled up her coat, tossing it angrily aside.

“I’m thinking of revoking your position as the brains of this partnership.” She couldn’t believe Fi had pulled another fast one and stuck her hand in there—or that Shane couldn’t yank her back out without lopping Fi’s arm off. “Your list of offenses is mounting,” she said, fixing her partner with a hard look.

“Put it on my tab,” Fi suggested drily. She turned sideways, sliding her hand farther inside until the blades were flush against her upper arm. “I think I can just reach it . . .”

The telltale groan of mechanisms sounded inside the walls, and for a second, Shane thought she saw a shiver of movement around the golden figures. Then it died out.

“Shoot,” Fi said under her breath. “This is the kind of lever that won’t stay down without constant pressure. As soon as I push this, I’m going to have to keep holding it. I’ll be stuck here.” Both their gazes dropped to the sand that was already over Fi’s boots and still falling fast. Shane had dug herself out, but her partner wouldn’t be able to anymore.

“No time to waste, then,” Shane said. “Just do it.”

Fi nodded. “All right. Three, two, one!” She twisted her arm, and the mechanisms sprang to life.

Shane threw a hand over her mouth as a thick cloud of dust dislodged from the shaking walls. Something rustled and shivered in the cracks between the stones. Tiny platforms no wider than Shane’s hand were sliding out of the wall, spiraling upward like an impossibly narrow staircase. About halfway up, the platforms stuttered out, giving way to four thin steel beams on rusty chains that had dropped from the ceiling, clanking above her. Shane couldn’t tell what those were for yet, but she wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

“Guess I’m going up.” Shane made quick work of strapping her ax over her shoulders and then picked up her jacket, which was half-buried already. She shook it off and threw it at her partner. Fi caught it with her free hand.

“Hang tight,” she told Fi. “Cover your head with that if you, you know . . .”

“Start to get buried alive?” Fi guessed. She crooked an eyebrow. “Hey, at least this time you don’t have to worry about me going anywhere, right?”

“I didn’t miss that terrible sense of humor,” Shane grumbled, but she couldn’t help trading a smile with Fi before turning for the wall. The first of the little platforms was waist high, and they were set about a leg span apart—maybe a little farther than Shane’s legs, honestly. If she took it at a run and didn’t miss any jumps, she should be able to make it up using the platforms like steps.

Tiny, treacherous little steps.

“Here goes nothing,” Shane muttered, and raced for the wall.

Her boot hit the first platform too hard, her shoulder banging the wall and almost throwing her right back into the sand. She lurched forward instead, landing on the next step and the next. The rickety wooden platforms groaned under her boots. Some were worn down to nubs, like scrawny mushroom caps she could barely get a toe on. Shane swore, digging her fingertips desperately into the gold engravings of a woman’s plumy crown as one of the platforms crumbled under her boot. The groove was so tiny she felt like her fingernails were going to rip out of the nail beds.

“Shane!” Fi shouted.

Her toe caught the next platform, and Shane threw herself forward, every muscle in her gut clenching. Her fingertips were raw and throbbing when she finally let go of the wall.

Somewhere beneath her, she heard Fi gasp in relief, but she couldn’t spare her more than a glance. It was still enough to tell that the sand was already to Fi’s thighs.

Shane wiped her sleeve across her sweaty forehead. The platform behind her was kindling, nothing but busted-up sticks poking out of the wall where the step had been. If she fell, she wouldn’t get another shot at this. She was more than halfway up, but the last couple of platforms were farther apart. She was going to have to jump.

There was no point in calculating or overthinking it, or in wondering how many ways screwing this up could kill her. Shane got as much purchase as possible with her boot and then trusted her body and leapt. She almost overshot the mark, bashing her shoulder painfully into the wall to stop her momentum. That whole arm was going to be black and blue tomorrow. Two more jumps brought her face-to-face with the final platform and the first steel beam swinging above it.

Shane’s lungs were on fire. She could feel her pulse thumping under her skin. She pressed her back to the cool stone wall and pushed off hard. Her boot hit the final platform—then suddenly there was a crack, and the rotted wood snapped, plummeting out from under her.

Shane’s heart swooped into her guts. All instinct, she slammed her boot against the shorn rock, kicking off the wall and throwing herself bodily toward the steel beam swinging on its chain.

She heard Fi scream her name. Shane swore as one foot kicked into the stream of falling sand. She barely got a hand around the swinging chain before her body torqued with the force, the whole cascade trying to drag her down. Her bruised shoulder screamed in protest, all of her weight hanging from one hand.

Shane dangled there for a moment, scrabbling at the chain crusted with sand. Then she swung her legs up, wrapping them around the beam and pulling herself on top of it.

She wanted to collapse there—maybe for several years. Instead, she rested her forehead against the cool metal for three quick breaths, just enough to stop her head from spinning. Then she sat up and looked around. From this close, the falling sand looked like a giant waterfall, and it was just as loud, the current rushing in her ears. It was harder to see through the dust, but Fi looked at least half-buried now. Maybe more. She had to hurry.

The hanging beams wobbled as Shane walked across them, but she would take a little wobbling over the dilapidated platforms any day. Each beam tilted up toward the next one, making a little walkway around the streaming sand. It would have been pretty straightforward except that the last beam, nearest to the ceiling, was dangling from one chain. The other had clearly snapped at some point, leaving it hanging like a big useless pendulum.

One problem at a time. Shane made her way along the swaying beams, her hands outstretched for balance. She still had to leap between them, and the ancient chains creaked and groaned under her like they were all one bad step from snapping and sending her tumbling down to join Fi in her sandy grave.

Shane inched along the next-to-last beam. She was high enough now to see that the bars over the little door had slid back into the rock, leaving it unlocked. That had to be the way forward. But something seemed off. Shane had no doubt Fi was right about the overdressed folks on the walls, and right about the willingness to sacrifice an arm. But was that what Aurora’s trap was really about—sacrifice?

She squinted down the shaft. Fi was buried up to her chest, desperately holding Shane’s jacket up to shield her face from the spray. Shane could tell she was breathing hard as the sand pressed in on her ribs.

She let her eyes sweep the whole of the well. Through the glittering cascade, she caught a glimpse of something on the opposite wall from the door—a narrow hollow cut into the stone, and inside, a jagged hole exactly like the one Fi had stuck her hand into. With the final beam broken, there was no way Shane could get to both sides. She’d have to jump and use the chain to swing to one side or the other.

It was the easiest choice she had ever made.

Speckles of sand ghosted around her. Shane took three running steps and then launched herself into the air. The drop yawned beneath her. Her hands closed around the chain, her boots clanging against the dangling steel beam.

Shane let out a whoop of exhilaration as the whole contraption swung toward the far wall. At the last possible second, she let go, careening toward the little hollow. A cloud of sand rose up around her as she landed. She couldn’t even see Fi anymore, but none of the mechanisms had retracted, so she was still down there somewhere, holding on.

Shane checked the hole for blades and then shoved her hand inside. She had to stick her arm in all the way to the shoulder, but her fingertips ghosted over something—cold metal, the crank of a lever. Shane yanked it down. The mechanism nearly sprang out of her hands. Apparently, this one didn’t require somebody to hang on to it like Fi’s did. The cascade of sand slowed to a trickle as the fissure in the ceiling rumbled closed.

Shane spun around and gripped the wall of the hollow, peering down. The sand hadn’t just stopped pouring in from above. Some kind of grate had opened in the floor, and right before her eyes, the sand was pouring away, hissing down into the bowels of the ruin. A second later, Fi appeared, coughing and spluttering, throwing Shane’s coat and a mound of sand away from herself.

Shane’s shoulders slumped in relief. She eyed the swinging beams for a second before jumping onto the lowest one, the metal shuddering under her weight. Then she slid carefully over the side, dangling from her fingertips for a second before dropping, using the quickly dwindling pile of sand to cushion her fall.

Her boots slipped out from under her in the slick pile, and she ended up on her backside—but luckily, that was somewhat cushioned, too.

“Shane!” Fi choked out, but it came out more like a garble.

Shane scowled, glaring up at the ceiling. “You know, for a supposedly peaceful Order of Magic, these Rose Witches sure spend a lot of time coming up with inventive ways to kill people.” She bent to dig Fi’s leg out of the sand, though she regretted that a second later as Fi pulled her boot free and almost kneed Shane in the chin.

Fi was still blinking at her, sand-crusted and bewildered. “What about the door? Why didn’t you just take the chance and go?”

Shane snorted. “First of all, I’m insulted. Second, you misunderstood this trap in a big way.” She shook out her jacket and slipped it back on, resettling the ax on her shoulders. “That’s not the right door up there—probably just a one-way ticket back to the mountains. And the way I read it, that story about Aurora isn’t just about sacrifice. It’s about trust. Nobody who would ditch their partner in a sand avalanche is going to make it through Aurora’s tomb.”

Shane glanced back to see whether that bit about trust had landed. Fi’s face was certainly pinched into a frown, but Shane couldn’t tell if that was guilt or the excessive amount of sand Fi was shaking out of her hair.

“Guess we’re done with this lever, then.” Still, Fi hesitated before she relaxed her grip, pulling her arm out of the hole fast as the mechanisms groaned again. But it was the good groaning this time—a half-sized door grinding open at the bottom of the wall, still partially covered by a mound of sand. Shane kicked it out of the way while Fi picked up the dark lantern and hooked it on her belt.

“Think it’s safe to say the worst is over?” Shane asked.

Fi rolled her eyes. “Not if experience is anything to go by.”

Shane took the lead this time, crawling on her hands and knees through the opening. It was roomy enough that she wasn’t worried about getting stuck, but she was glad not to be all that broad-shouldered. She could hear Fi behind her, the lantern clanking against the ancient stone walls.

It felt like it took forever, but it was probably just half a minute before Shane felt empty air in front of her and slid out into a vast, open space, the darkness pressing in from all sides. Fi’s boot lodged in her back as she scooted out of the passage right on her heels. The door snapped spitefully closed behind them.

Shane huffed out a laugh. “Just like old times, huh?”

She couldn’t tell in the dark, but she had a feeling Fi was rolling her eyes. The girl knelt down, and Shane heard the scrape of her flint and tinder as the sparks flew once, twice before the lantern finally caught, casting a yellow glow.

Fi’s features leapt out of the dark, her expression of apprehension turning to one of wonder as she stood, holding the lantern aloft.

They were in a wide rectangular room with sheer walls and no windows or doors. The floor was stone, but with patches of sand here and there, probably swept in from the previous room. At first, Shane thought the walls were covered with the same rose carvings as in the first chamber, but when she looked closer, she realized there were no flowers in bloom among these vines—just unopened buds and roses puckered at the tips, forever closed. A shiver crawled up her spine. It was eerie how much the rose-less vines looked like the wicked Forest of Thorns.

“Shane, look at this,” Fi said, pointing. In the very center of the chamber, a great black slab of stone rested in a pool of dark sand. It was definitely in the shape of a coffin, but it looked like something that would be more at home in a haunted crypt than the tomb of a beloved queen.

“You think she’s in there?” Shane asked. She pinched the skin between her thumb and forefinger just in case.

Steelwight had a lot of stories about angry ghosts and souls dragged to the other side for trespassing on the realm of the spirits. Shane had spent countless childhood nights lying awake in terror of those stories—mostly because her grandmother insisted that Shane could offend all the War Kings of Rockrimmon, living or dead, with her stubbornness and liked to finish her ghost stories with a jump scare, grabbing her grandchildren with her bony fingers so they wouldn’t sleep a wink.

“There’s no way to know for sure without checking,” Fi said, not sounding the least bit concerned about stepping on any ghostly toes. “But . . . does this feel like the end of the tomb to you?”

“No,” Shane agreed. “Plus, we’re not currently standing on a pile of skeletons, and I don’t see a place for dozens of treasure hunters with no memories to have escaped back to the forest. Which I guess makes this another—”

“Trap!” they finished together.

The word hadn’t even stopped echoing before the air around them filled with a hissing noise. It sounded like a hundred snakes moving at once. Only there were louder noises, too, grating and grinding.

“The walls!” Shane shouted in warning, practically ripping her ax from its straps. Fi swung the lantern around, the light spinning dizzily as she scrabbled for her rope.

It was like all the walls had come alive, the rose vines writhing across the bare rock like a mass of snakes twisting over and through each other. Shane felt her heart slam into her throat. This was no trick or illusion, no ancient mechanism. This was real magic. Her knuckles curled over the ax as she watched the vines slither down from the walls, crawling toward them through the dark.

Shane had no idea how effective her ax would be against a magic snake, but it would be pretty hard for those things to keep moving once she’d pulverized them. The lantern light flickered, the shadows growing and shrinking as Fi turned in a circle.

For just a second, the flame was hidden behind her partner’s body. Suddenly, the uncurling vine in front of Shane had a second shadow splashed against the wall—one that wasn’t cast by their lantern.

“Watch out!” Fi screamed, yanking Shane backward by her coat.

A wisp of light, ethereal as a ghost, rushed past them like a warm breath. It looked like one of her grandmother’s will-o’-the-wisps, darting into the corners of the room and disappearing in the shadows.

“What is that thing?” Shane demanded.

Fi’s eyes shone as she set the lantern on the ground, unspooling her rope. “I think it’s our next clue,” she said.

Shane felt Fi’s back thump against hers, solid and steady. Then the snakes were on them, and she threw herself into the fight.