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“Dewey!” she shouted. “I thought you were gone! I couldn’t find you after the water ripped us apart.”
“Same,” Dewey said. “I managed to hold on to the flashlight and find my way out of the water. There’s a bank down this way. You can climb out and warm up.”
Paige nodded as she shivered and continued to swim in the direction Dewey signaled with the light. In minutes, she’d squeezed through a small passage into a larger chamber with a bank on one side.
The river disappeared through an opening in the far wall. Paige cut across the river, fighting the current to swim toward the bank and climb out. She wrung out her T-shirt and squeezed water from her hair as Dewey swung the light beam around the cavern wall.
“Here’s an opening!” he shouted, waving Paige farther down the embankment.
She finished squishing water from her clothes and backpack and strode toward Dewey’s location.
A dark chamber yawned beyond an opening hewn in the stone.
“Should we go in?” Dewey asked.
“What choice do we have?” Paige retorted, flinging her arms out. “We can’t go back the way we came. I just hope there’s a way out.”
“If not, all’s not lost,” Dewey said as they ducked through the doorway and into the small chamber. “I could fly up and out and get someone to help you.”
“Good point, but I’d prefer that to be a last-ditch effort. I really don’t want to be stuck down here by myself.”
“At least there are no bones in this part,” Dewey said, sweeping his beam across the floor and up the walls.
“It’s still creepy enough. An underground river, a waterfall, another weird little chamber.”
They picked their way across the rectangular room. Dewey swept the beam upward, noting the arches carved into the ceiling.
“Wow,” he whispered. “This almost looks like–“
“A temple,” Paige finished for him.
“Yes, exactly.”
Paige adjusted her glasses on her face. “Which makes me hopeful that we’ll find an exit.”
As they proceeded under the domed ceiling, the light bounced off the end of the chamber. Another stone structure rose from the top of a raised platform.
Dewey flew toward it, waving the light over it. “This looks like a holder for something.”
He pointed the beam at one of the two stone half circles extending from a stone plinth.
Paige climbed the three stone steps and studied the setup. “Yes, something about two feet wide.”
“The mirror,” Dewey suggested.
“Maybe,” Paige said, slapping her palm against her forehead. “Which means it’s not here.”
Dewey’s shoulders slumped as he landed and stalked across the raised platform. “We were too late.”
“I don’t think so,” Paige said as she squatted down and studied the stone platform underneath the mirror’s supposed resting spot.
“What makes you think that? I don’t see a mirror,” Dewey snapped.
Paige waved him over toward her. “Bring the light over here.”
Dewey obliged, stalking toward her and pointing the light where she indicated. Paige blew dust away from a rough portion of the stone. The letters FC were carved into the stone, followed by the year 1697.
“FC,” Dewey read as Paige stood and scanned the chamber. “What does it mean?”
