“Relax,” Ava said. “I’ve got Fire to light the way.”
A few beats passed. I heard Ava snap her fingers several times before she cried, “What the fuck? It’s not working!”
“My illusion magic isn’t, either!” Kallie’s voice wavered. She smacked her hands together, but apparently, nothing happened.
Marcus gasped. “I can’t create light orbs! Our magic is useless.”
Kallie groaned. “The Elves must’ve put a ward on this place, in order to take away all magic. It’s part of the task. Whatever booby trap we were coming up on, we’ve landed in it. Our powers are going to be useless against whatever lies ahead.”
“What was the next clue, pidge?” I asked quickly. “What are we up against?”
“It’s the… theriddle in the dark!” She fumbled the words, like she’d forgotten for a moment. “None of us can see!”
I felt her panic through our bond at the loss of her sight— like the feeling of being drowned. I was sure Marcus and Kallie felt the same way. Marcus whimpered, and Kallie panted beside him. Their eyes wouldn’t help them onward. Each of them were helpless in the pitch blackness of the cave.
But I wasn’t. This was everyday life for me, being unable to see where I was going. I had this part handled.
“Then it’s easy,” I assured Ava. “It’s no different for me. I’ll lead you guys through it.”
“You’re… you’re right.” Ava took my hand and took in a deep breath. “We’ve got this.”
Rishi meowed beside me— as a cat, he wasn’t worried. There were a couple of large rocks in our way, and I rolled them aside with my Earth magic.
“Hey, why is your magic working, and ours isn’t?” Kallie complained.
“Maybe that’s part of the puzzle—a riddle in the dark,” I theorized. “Perhaps you have to surrender to the dark to break the enchantment blocking your magic. And since the darkness doesn’t matter to me, I can access it when you can’t. I’m just gonna roll with it.”
We started forward, but as soon as we did, the sound of rock sliding over rock met our ears.
Kallie drew a sharp breath. “What’s that?”
“It sounds like…” I reached out toward the cave wall, and my stomach instantly dropped as I felt resistance from the stone wall. I tried to push back against it, but instead of the rock remaining still, I realized it wasmoving. “Shit. The walls are closing in on us!”
Ava’s tone wavered. “Use your magic to stop it.”
I tried. I pushed my Earth magic against the walls, but it didn’t help. It must’ve been some sort of enchantment my magic couldn’t override. “Everyone grab hands. We have to move!”
I dragged Ava forward, and the rest followed close behind. I could sense with my Earth magic that the tunnel was beginning to narrow. It was slow enough that it’d take several minutes to crush us, but fast enough that I questioned whether we’d get out in time. The cave walls began to wind and twist, leading us in all different directions.
My heart hammered as the sound of our footsteps echoed off a wall in front of us. There wasn’t a lot of Air down here in the caves to navigate by, but I could sense the cave walls with my Earth magic. There were two openings ahead, like the end of our tunnel branched off in various directions.
“Hold on.” I came to a stop at the openings of the new tunnels.
Ava ran into me, and Kallie and Marcus stumbled into her. Oberi barked, as if to say we had to get a move-on.
“We have to keep going, or we’ll be crushed!” Ava insisted.
“The tunnel branches. I need a second to figure out which way to go.” I tried to concentrate, and I reached out with my Earth magic to get a sense of the tunnel layout. It was still working somehow, though it couldn’t stop the walls from crushing us. Down the left tunnel, my magic slammed into something solid, but it kept going down the right one.
“This way!” I dragged my friends down the right tunnel, nearly breaking out into a run.
“It’s a labyrinth!” Ava cried, sounding horrified.
My heart twisted as I realized she was right. This place was a maze, purposefully set up to trap and crush whoever got stuck down here.
I couldn’t respond to Ava’s cries, because I was so focused on mapping out the tunnels up ahead. One wrong turn could cost us precious time, and if we took the wrong route, we would get squashed down here.
A few yards ahead, the cave split off into three directions, but two of the lanes connected in a loop. I led my friends down the left tunnel, which continued on. Every tunnel was smaller than the last, inching smaller and smaller by the second. We turned several more times before a noise caught my attention.
