Page 132 of Thief of Hearts

Zain went to the far side and tested the door. “It’s locked. Hand me the torch.”

I gave it to him and he used it to peer at the keyhole. “This can’t be picked,” he said. “We need a key.”

There were metal bars on the door at eye level. I went over to peer through. I saw more rocks on the other side. I wondered if I could yank the beams out and fit through the opening. I grabbed with both hands and pulled as hard as I could, but nothing happened.

He straightened up and looked at the box. “This was all created by an Epirian, correct?”

“An Epirian with magic,” I said.

“Then we have to think like a thief. There’s a locked door, and the only other item in the room is a box, which means the key must be in there.” He went over to the box, running his hands along the edges, testing it. “It’s somehow sealed to the floor, and there’s a lock on it.”

“Does that mean we have to find a key for the box to find a key for the door?”

He held the torch so that he could see into the box’s keyhole. “No. This one I can open.”

Handing the torch back to me, he then reached into one of his pockets and pulled out two thin and small metal bars. He held them up and then hesitated.

“I can’t believe it would be as simple as opening the box and getting the key and leaving. Something else is going to happen.”

“That sounds about right,” I said, taking out my sword.

“Ready?” he asked, and I nodded. “Here we go.”

I heard the sound of metal on metal, and then another sound filled the room. Like a hundred tiny doors all sliding open at the same time and then . . . silence.

Holding the torch aloft, I saw something at the end of the light. I moved forward and realized it was tiny spiders.

Thousands and thousands of tiny spiders.

They weren’t afraid of the light and they rushed toward me and the box. One climbed up my leg and there was a burst of pain. I slapped it while falling back toward Zain to protect him.

“Spiders,” I said. “One just bit me.”

He kept all his focus on the lock. “Are they venomous?”

I held the torch so that I could see my leg. It wasn’t red or swelling. It didn’t hurt now. “I don’t think so, but it hurts when they bite.”

“I can—ow!—see that!”

Spiders had started to crawl up his leg. I brushed them off as best as I could while stomping everything around me.

“I usually do well in high-pressure situations,” he said, “but this is completely different! I’m not—ow! I’m not normally being eaten alive while I’m trying to work!”

My focus continued to be on killing as many of them as I could while keeping them away from the box. I brushed ten of them out of his hair.

“In my mouth! One just got in. My. Mouth!” he yelled.

“Keep your mouth shut and then you won’t be eating spiders!”

They were peppering my body with their tiny bites. I ignored the ones crawling all over me and kept getting them off Zain. How did they keep coming? How were there so many?

None of this made sense.

“Done!” he shouted, throwing the lid of the box back. Doing so caused the four sides of the box to open and fall flat to the floor.

Every tiny spider suddenly disappeared. As if they had never even been there.

“There’s another box,” he announced wearily.