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He froze, looking over his shoulder, and caught Ali’s worried eye. Then he nodded. He was confident. “I’ll be all right.”

As soon as he crossed the threshold of the tunnel, the same whoosh of the darts fired from hidden mechanisms inside the stone walls. But he’d expected this. He put one foot in front of the other, maintaining a steady pace as he moved forward.

The darts passed ahead of and behind him, so close that he felt their displaced wind and even the rustling of some of his clothing. He didn’t breathe. Didn’t stop. Didn’t flinch.

He just walked until he reached the other side of the tunnel. Once he was clear of it, his breath expelled from his lungs in an explosive gasp and he whirled around, staring down the long corridor, only half believing that he’d traversed it unscathed.

“Santiago!” Ali called out. He could see her, Mario’s grip tight on her uninjured arm. “Are you all right? How many times were you hit? Are they poisoned?”

“They didn’t get me!” Santiago called back, a little dazed. “That’s the trick! You have to be like Atahualpa in the face of the horse. You cannot flinch!”

“Are you saying you weren’t hit by a single dart?” Torres called to him, peering down the long pass dubiously.

Santiago patted at his arms and torso.

“Yes!” he cried, giddy with relief. “You just have to keep a steady, even pace. Don’t stop, don’t try to rush, and don’t go back. If you walk slowly, the mechanism will avoid you. You just have to have courage.”

“Go on,” Torres said, motioning toward someone on the other side of the wall.

“Shouldn’t we send the girl first?” Mario’s voice asked.

“And leave the two of them on the other side alone?” Torres replied. “I think not.”

“Boss, are you sure that—” Mario whined, but Torres waved a hand and he fell silent.

Leo approached the tunnel.

“Walk evenly,” Santiago warned the man. “Don’t try to run it.”

His words of caution were delivered more out of instinct than concern, but he saw Leo nod.

The man stepped forward, and the darts took flight again. Watching was no less horrifying than having lived it. It appeared as though the projectiles struck Leo one hundred times over. The man swore, loudly and colorfully, but kept a steady pace forward. After both a moment and an eternity, he made it to the other side. Leo’s face was ashen and his hands shook, but he resumed his businesslike manner almost immediately.

“All clear, boss,” he called out. “He was telling the truth—I’m not hit.”

“Alliyma, if you please,” was Torres’s only response.

Ali stepped toward the tunnel entrance. Even from where he stood, Santiago could see that she was shaking. His first instinct was to go back and walk the path with her, but he feared that would violate the riddle somehow.

They each needed to brave the tunnel alone.

Thankfully, Ali was the bravest human Santiago had ever known.

“Slow and steady,” he called out. “You’ve got this, Ali.”

At her best, she would have strode in without a moment’s hesitation, crossing the divide like a leisurely stroll in the park.

But she was injured and ill, and Santiago was horribly afraid that she would stumble or sway and be immediately impaled by dozens of killer darts. His breath hitched, and the instinct to run to her was so strong that he had to grip the walls of the tunnel to keep himself back. He could only hope her legs were steadier than his trembling ones.

Gritting her teeth, Ali stepped forward.

Darts flew through the air, surrounding her like a swarm of angry bees, but she walked forward without pause. She locked on to Santiago’s gaze the entire time, and he pulled her into his arms the moment she cleared the danger.

He couldn’t tell who was shaking harder. Ali buried her face into his shoulder, and Santi ran his hands up and down her back, over her uninjured arm, through her hair. To check for any stray darts, but mostly to convince himself that she was real. That she was safe.

For now.

Mario followed soon after, then Garcia. The other Rodriguez quivered worse than Ali, but he made it across, too.