Everyone’s hands glow the color of their godly parent as they follow our direction and place their palms on the door. I glance at Draven, nodding once.
“Do your thing, magician,” I whisper.
Draven squeezes his eyes closed and a soft green glow lights around his hands. It pulses in the shadows of the maze as long minutes pass with nothing happening. My shoulders slump in defeat only a second before a click blasts through the silent maze and gears grind against each other.
The doors swing open slowly and I blink at the bright-gold everywhere. “Well, that’s disorienting.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Adrian warns. “It could come to life and attack us.”
“Good point.” I turn to Kira. “You gonna be okay?”
“This is amazing.” Kira steps forward almost in a trance. “My father’s greatest creations are here.”
“We can’t touch anything, Kira. You did hear Adrian, right?” I grab her hand as she reaches for something.
“But I’m his daughter. Maybe I can touch it without it coming to life?” she asks, still in a daze.
“Dax, Draven, can you guys please keep her from touching anything? I don’t want to take any chances here.” I wave them over.
Each of them grabs a hand and they form a wall around her and anything she might want to touch and make this all a lot harder. The thought of anything stopping us now is unfathomable.
“This place is huge. How are we supposed to find the throne in here?” Raven spins in a circle, her arms out to her sides.
“Maybe we should split up and look for it?” Thad asks.
“I don’t know. That sounds like a recipe for disaster.” I shake my head.
“If we stick together, we could be too late to stop her, B. This place is massive. It could take days to search.”
“We don’t have days, Beth,” Adrian says. “Splitting up is the best way we can stop her for good.”
“Fine, but I don’t like this. It feels like a setup to split us up and destroy us one by one.” I rub my eyes with the heel of my palms. “Kira, can you feel anything? Maybe a direction we should go?”
“Huh?” Kira blinks at me. “No, I’m a little overwhelmed with everything.”
“Okay then. I guess we’re splitting up,” I grumble. “Kira, you, Dax, and Draven go that way but don’t touch anything or we’ll be in some serious trouble.”
“We’ve got her. She won’t touch anything,” Draven says.
“We’ll go this way.” I point to the left down a long wide hall lined with trinkets and pieces of machinery I couldn’t begin to try to name.
“I’m coming with you.” Raven steps up next to me. “No way are you guys doing this on your own.”
“We don’t even know if we’ll find the throne. It will be fine.”
“You took the most likely location.” Raven raises a brow at me. “The left.”
“I literally just looked at the hall and decided it was the most probable place.” I shake my head. “It had nothing to do with which direction to go.”
“But it’s still to the left.”
“You’re ridiculous. Let’s go. Adrian?” I turn to him and Thad.
“I know which way we’ll go.” Adrian waves Thad to a smaller hallway to the right.
“This could all blow up in our faces and end in destruction.”
28
