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I lay my hand over his on the book. "We are the right people. You and me together."
"What are we supposed to do? I don't even know where the Brain is, much less how to tap into it. We've searched this entire castle, including the dungeon, and there's nothing."
"But the journal hid pages until we held it in our hands. The Brain might've hidden itself too."
Gabriel slaps the journal shut and jumps up. A muscle in his jaw ticks while he grits his teeth hard. "I'm damn sick of all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit. We're here. We did what we were supposed to do, and still the damn Brain won't show itself."
I scramble to get up and rest my hands on his chest. "Calm down, Gabriel. We're making progress. And we will find the Brain, I know it."
He scrubs a hand over his mouth, and his shoulders sag. "Sorry. I'm getting frustrated. Who knows how many years have gone by while we've been browsing a book."
"Let's go back to the throne room. That seems like the kind of room where Sefton would have hidden his treasure—the Brain."
Gabriel marches toward the doorway, walking so fast that I need to run to catch up to him. When I grasp his hand, he doesn'ttake hold of mine. Not at first. But I keep my hand wrapped around his while we hustle down the corridor, until he finally gives up and laces his fingers with mine. We hurry into the throne room and halt a few feet from the throne itself.
"Now what?" I ask.
He shrugs.
The floor begins to vibrate, emitting a low rumble.
I grip his hand even more tightly and try not to fall down as the vibrations ramp up more and more. The rumbling becomes a deafening roar, and we both slap our hands over our ears to dull the racket. It makes my ears hurt, so I'm sure Gabriel is experiencing the same thing.
The entire dais sinks beneath the floor.
As the dais and throne vanish from sight, something else rises in its place—a gigantic wall of stone that has its own stone floor attached to it. The new dais consists of one large piece and has symbols carved into its wall. But that's not what has me gaping at the newly revealed dais. The center of the rear wall houses a metal contraption. It has an outer ring with multiple spokes inside it, as well as metal cuffs that seem to have been made to hold a human being in one of two positions—arms spread and slightly raised with legs spread, or arms raised straight out to the sides with legs together.
I've seen this before. Today. A little while ago.
This is the Vitruvian Man.
Gabriel takes a step toward the dais, but I seize his arm to stop him. He rotates his head to look at me, brows raised.
"Don't go any closer," I say. "Please. I have a bad feeling about this."
"But this must be the Brain."
"Maybe. Even if it is, we need to know more before we approach that contraption. Who knows what it might do to us?"
He stares at the machine like he longs to walk up to it and let the thing take him. Maybe it wouldn't hurt him. But who knows? The Brain sent an Echo beast to kidnap us, and it created super destructive lightning, not to mention fireballs. We need to know more before we even think about approaching the machine. The Heart and the Lifeblood were not mechanical, after all. They were Erin and Grant, two humans who took control of those elements of the Echo. Why would the Brain be technological?
A mechanical pulsating noise emanates from the machine.
No, I don't like this at all.
Chapter Nineteen
Gabriel
Every time the machine pulsates, I freeze and stare at it. Sarah keeps tugging on my hand to drag me away from the thing, but I only manage to shuffle a few feet before it pulsates again and I fall into another semi-trance. That can't be good. Sarah was the one who seemed possessed when she touched the journal's pages. But now I've become entranced by the machine. What the hell is going on? We're supposed to take control of the Brain, not the other way around.
Sarah tugs on my arm again. "Come on, Gabriel. We need to get out of this room."
I can't move or speak.
She kicks my shin.
The burst of pain snaps me out of the trance, but I feel the machine's energy licking at my skin, enticing me to walk right up to it and let the device take me. Sarah doesn't seem to feel it. If we're both halves of the Brain, why does it only want me? Or is Sarah just stronger and better able to resist the seductive energies? If the magics push through her resistance…
