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“Right? I don’t—Oh! I know what you mean.” I thought for a moment. We’d barely exited the room when this aftershock hit. I flailed around in the darkness, and found the wall. Following it, a few crawls forward gave me the opening to the room on my right. Okay, then, I had to turn around so the entrance was on my left. Then I’d be aiming on target. I positioned myself as best as I could, with the wall to my left shoulder, and then waited.
“Camille? Follow my voice. I’m pointing in the right direction. If you can find me, we can try to crawl out of here. Once the shaking stops, get the fuck up on your feet and we hurry as far as we can till the next one.”
“Continue talking so I can follow your voice.”
I didn’t know what to say, so instead I began singing “Godzilla,” by Blue Oyster Cult.
“Oh Kitten, can’t you pick something else?” But there was an edge of a smile in her voice and the next moment, she was beside me. I got her positioned in back, just as the shaking stopped.
“Fuck, how long did that go on?” Camille’s voice rose, and I realized she was standing up.
I followed suit. “Come on, keep your left hand against the wall at all times. We need to make certain we’re not headed in the wrong direction.” Without further chitchat, I started out.
“Delilah, be careful—if you go too fast, you might run into debris and hurt yourself—”
She had no sooner spoken when I hit my foot against a piece of what felt like marble that had lifted up from the floor.
“Fuck, oh fuck! Geez, I may have just broken my big toe!” I wanted to hop up and down as the pain raced through my foot, but I also realized that a broken toe was nothing compared to being buried under tons of rubble, so I sucked it up. “Be careful, there’s a big block of marble right in front of you—well, as soon as I skirt it. It’s. . . .” I paced it out until I was able to stand flush against the wall again. “It’s five paces long. Six of yours, probably.”
“One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . .” Camille counted them off and then grunted. “Yeah, that’s about right. You okay? How’s your toe?”>Trenyth pushed aside the elf trying to help the woman and knelt beside her. “Have you called for the healers?”
“Yes, Lord Trenyth. They are on the way.”
“What happened?” He managed to flip her over so the froth didn’t choke her. As her body spasmed, he laid his hands on her and I had the feeling he was working some sort of magic.
The elf he’d pushed aside answered. “We were discussing what the . . .” He paused, glancing our way, and his gaze flickered back to Trenyth, who seemed to understand what he was about to say.
“It’s all right. They’re here to help.”
“Thank you, my Lord. We were talking about the energy looming over the city when Elthea slipped into a trance. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she said, in a loud male voice, ‘It’s too late . . . we are here.’ And then, she went into seizure.”
At that moment, the healers burst through the room and took over. Trenyth moved back to give them space. I tapped Camille and Menolly on the shoulder, and we moved off to the side. Shade followed.
“What the hell is going on?” I told them what Greta had said to me, figuring we’d better have everything out in the open.
Camille pressed her lips together and glanced over her shoulder at Elthea, who now seemed to be out of the convulsions, but was still unconscious. “The question is, who spoke through her?”
Trenyth joined us. “Come with me. This requires a visit. I normally would never allow you where we’re going, but after what you felt, Camille, and what Greta said to you, Delilah, you must come with me. I’m afraid Shade cannot join us. We don’t allow dragons in the restricted area. Nor Menolly, I’m afraid.”
Menolly held up her hand when I started to protest. “It’s all right. Shade and I’ll join Trillian to help watch after Chase and Sharah. We’ll be right here when you get back.”
Without waiting for our answer, Trenyth hurried Camille and me through the room and out the back. He said nothing, hushing me before I could ask where we were going. We followed silently, rushing to keep up with him. His feet were flying, and while we could keep to a pace, it wasn’t easy. Elves were lighter on their feet than the Fae.
The corridors went by in a haze of marble and magical light, and I lost track of the twists and turns as we wound our way through the palace. Camille gave me a strained look but remained silent. As we passed, no sound followed except for the hollow stroke of her heels against the marble, and the soft fall of my boots. We were a blur of motion, a whirlwind racing through the empty corridors. I had no sense of what time it was, though I knew it couldn’t be later than eight o’clock ES time.
And then, we were there. Wherever there was. A solid gray door, carved in granite, stood before us. There was no knocker, and no handle. Trenyth motioned for us to stand back and began to incant a spell. The elvish he was speaking was older than time, older than I could recognize, and when I looked to Camille, she shook her head.
The ancient, sonorous rhythm of Trenyth’s voice lulled me. He sang the words, on and on, weaving the magic through them. He was a charmer with a snake, a whisperer of horses, a tamer of all beasts and wild things, and his voice could cajole blood from the body, stones from the earth.
A minute passed, then another. On the third, the door shifted, slowly swinging inward. Trenyth let his words drift back into silence and nodded for us to follow him through. As we entered the room, I was surprised to see it was quite plain, not elaborate at all. There was a table in the center, and on that table, in a stand large enough to safely hold it, a glowing crystal orb. It was bigger than my head, bigger than a bowling ball, and it was emanating a brilliant blue light from its core.
The room was nearly empty, except for the dais and the orb. There were chairs around the table, tall enough to lean over to gaze at the crystal. The room was lit by eye catchers, softly glowing near the ceiling. Trenyth motioned for us to take a seat. Camille slid into the chair next to him, and I sat on the other side.
I wanted to ask what we were looking for, but a crackle sounded from the orb and the light began to spin. Camille leaned closer. I wanted to say “back away” . . . I wanted to shout “get out of there” . . . but there was no time.
The spinning blue light swirled into a vortex that rose over our heads. It spread out, clouds filling the room, flickering silver with sparkles of blue mixed throughout.
“Pretty . . .” Camille sounded entranced. She stood and reached up, as if to touch the mist. As Trenyth realized what was going on, he dove for her, as I tried to make my way across the table.
