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On and on it goes, scene after scene, creating a perfect harmony that was clearly intentional. Each moment is perfect. Packed with wonder, awe, and enchantment.

“They’re using the elements,” I murmur, scanning the scenes I’ve already passed. “They’re shaping them. Moving them.”

Branwen comes to stand beside me, brow furrowed and head cocked to the side. “Is this supposed to make sense?”

“You don’t feel it?” I ask, turning to look at her.

“I feel… something,” she admits. “Almost like a resonance.”

Reaching out, I place my hand on her arm and nod enthusiastically. “Exactly. That’s exactly what I feel too.”

Her gaze flits around the chamber, never quite landing on any one area for a significant amount of time. She walks to one of the many shelves and reaches out, delicately picking up a glass jar. Lifting it higher, she angles it toward the light and squints, trying to make out the contents.

When she shakes it, a muted rattling comes from inside.

“What is this place?”

“I don’t know,” she answers, replacing the jar where she found it. She hesitates, hand hovering a few inches from the glass, before picking it back up again.

She does the same with the jar next to it, and the one after that. Once she reaches the end of the first row, her expression twists into confusion.

“There’s no dust,” she murmurs. “You’d think after who knows how long, there would be freaking piles of dust in here. The whole room is made of stone, for Fate’s sake. The air is clean. Where the hell is the dust?”

Fates… she’s right. This room has been perfectly preserved. As though someone simply stepped out a moment ago.

“This place has to be centuries old. There’s certainly no way in or out; it was completely sealed up. And look at this.” I reach out and grab one of the jars. This bottle is clear, and so are its contents. “Fresh seeds. How are there fresh seeds down here?”

Eyes wide, she shakes her head in wonder, then asks, “What the heck else is in all these jars and bottles?”

We exchange a loaded look, and she crosses to another shelf, sits down, and pulls bottles and jars down one by one to inspect them.

I don’t know how long we search, but it must be hours. We’re both aware we have no food and no way out, so we attack our search with equal parts hope and dread.

Hope that we might find something to help us. Dread because the chances of finding a protein bar or bag of chips are only slightly less than our chances of finding something that might lead us out of here.

For a while, the hope feels endless as each new thing we search contains something brand new. What we find is fascinating.

Coal, feathers, ink, marbles, sand, dirt. All sorts of random things you could find basically anywhere, yet still labeled and sealed with the same care and attention as the next.

Under one of the shelves, we found a large brazier. Another contains piles of old parchment and ink, but nothing to write with.

There are blades, daggers, and knives of a thousand types and uses; tiny mirrors in multiple shapes and sizes; and an entire row of stoneware jugs of water labeled with the names of rivers and seas and lakes I’ve never even heard of.

Then we find stranger things—a jar with a gold-veined leaf that seems to be suspended in air. Sand so blue and fine it feels and looks like silk. A large basin covered in runes that hums when we get too close.

“I don’t understand,” I say, setting a round jar the size of my head back on one of the top shelves. It has a perfectly circular bubble inside that actually moves away from my fingers wherever I touch the glass.

“It’s like… an apothecary and a science museum had a baby.”

Branwen laughs, tucking her hair behind her ears and glancing over at the dais. Neither of us has gone too close to it yet, but now she stands and stalks straight for it. When she reaches the edge, she crouches and runs her fingers delicately across the symbols etched into the sides.

“I’ve been trying to See since we walked into the cave from the forest,” she whispers, voice choked like she’s admitting something she didn’t want to. “But the whole time it feels like my gift’s been blocked.”

Alarmed, I cross the room and sit next to her. I lean over and wrap her in a hug.

“Why didn’t you say something? You must have been so terrified this whole time,” I say, squeezing her tight before pulling back. She meets my eyes and gives me a soft smile.

“I was going to tell you, but then this happened and—” She trails off, bright eyes scanning the room with a look of… gratitude, maybe? “In here, it feels like I could See the entire world if I wanted to.”