Page 27 of The Chosen Fae

She got to her feet in fighting mode. Rune was ready for her. A couple of the other females moved forward, and so did Vesper.

Rune pulled out her sword. If they weren’t going to fight fair, she would have to use whatever means she had available. Stone had already moved in her direction, as if to save her from the others, but she didn’t need saving. She had to prove to everyone, not to win a contest, that no one would cow her.

Suddenly, the Game Master arrived, giving Pari a stern look. “In this challenge, you will have an hour to figure out a way to leave this building. Use your senses and any clues you discover to find your way out. A warning. If you don’t find a way out within that time, the building will fill with water, so make your time count. You can work individually or in teams, however you want to do it. The time starts now.”

8

In the giant escape room, most of the competitors moved back to the floor and were looking for ways out along the walls.

Silas pressed against the head of a hawk, trying to move the block.

Stone had seen Silas grovel to Vesper, but still trying to outdo him in the challenges anyway.

Elon tried to get his fingers into the gap between the wall blocks, where a scorpion's tail curled upward as he tried to move the block.

Caspian was up on a rock near another wall, this one painted with a waterfall, peering closely for a way out. Xena looked like a madwoman, going from one wall to another, trying to sniff a way out.

Iris was still observing the dragon fae painting. Elon moved down from the scorpion painting and was standing near her, studying another section of the huge fresco. Caspian was looking around the base of the walls again. Then Xena followed Caspian all around the whole room as if she didn't believe that Caspian was looking hard enough.

Caspian often puffed out his chest and bared his teeth at the other wolves in his pack, but the moment Xena's amber eyes cut across the clearing toward him, his tail dropped instinctively between his legs.

Lolita and Vesper were both climbing around on the rocks and concrete blocks.

Everyone made small, searching sounds—the scrape of a boot, a single knock against concrete blocks making up the wall, silence after—and none of it added up to progress.

Stone's own landing on each rock or concrete block was louder than he’d liked, the impact carrying in the large room, echoing, like all the other sounds they made.

The rock beneath his feet was smooth where it shouldn't have been, its surface worn to a polish that suggested it had been worn down by fae over the ages, trying to escape this room in the past.

He reached out and pressed his hand against the nearest wall; the concrete gave back nothing—no hollow sound, no give, just cold resistance.

The edge of the rock dug into the arch of his foot through his boot, a small, nagging pressure that made it harder to think. Then he shifted into his wolf and leaped down from the rock and began to look for another rock to climb that would be higher than the last. He figured that though the others were down below searching for a way out, an exit would probably be higher up, making it more of a challenge.

He kept searching across the forest-painted wall, but couldn't detect any air coming through that would indicate an opening to the outside.

He thought that he might find an opening up here. He glanced down at Rune. She was behind the rocks, looking at the wall down below. He didn’t think she was finding anything. Or else she would signal to him, he thought. But maybe on this challenge, she would leave him behind.

Then he leaped to another rock and surveyed the wall from that direction. The other fae were scattering about on top of the rocks, looking for clues. He didn’t see anything. He looked up at the ceiling, about fifteen feet high. Vents were situated all around the building at about seven feet higher than where he stood now. Without being able to fae travel, he couldn’t reach them.

He leaped to another rock. Rune was out of sight. He wondered if she had found a way out without telling him. He glanced at the others. They were still trying to figure out if there was anything on the walls, poking at them to see if any of the concrete blocks would move.

He started to leap down to see if he could find Rune, but saw Lolita crawling through a small hole in the concrete wall featuring a river. He smiled. So being small wasn’t a deterrent for her. He was glad she had found a way out.

Then he saw Rune, who was staring where Lolita had disappeared. She laughed. “She made it out. First one too.” Then she began looking for a way out for bigger-sized fae.

“Finding anything?” he asked, searching the wall near where Lolita disappeared.

“No, but we have a huge building to search. We need to separate and see if we can find a way out. We don’t have much time left. Maybe twenty minutes?”

“What if we search around all the walls of the building as fast as we can in opposite directions and see if we can find anything? We’ll meet back here if we have time.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

He nearly ran into her as he rushed off, and she turned and dashed the other way.

Then they both had to carefully check the walls around the rusty metal pipes, rocks, and other debris. It wasn’t easy to search the walls there, but he figured finding an exit wasn’t going to be easy.

Then the other fae climbed down the stones and watched them. He noticed they were heading for the walls to search them like he and Rune were doing. Didn’t anyone have a unique thought in their brain?