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“Not it,” I said first, pressing my finger to my nose.

Caspian chuckled and quickly followed suit. Murtagh sighed like we were the most ridiculous people in the world.

“One at a time,” Murtagh said. “That way, if something happens, it’s only one of us in danger.”

Murtagh went first, carefully stepping from one tile to the next, his focus unwavering. Caspian followed, and then it was my turn. My heart raced as I moved cautiously, afraid I was going to take a wrong step at any given moment.

When I reached the other side, a massive sense of relief washed over me.

“We make a good team,” I said, smiling at them both.

Caspian came behind me, hopping from one tile to the next, until he suddenly lost balance and stepped onto the wrong tile.

A sudden spike shot out of the wall. He moved fast, but it still grazed his side before he hopped away from it, onto another tile and then to us.

He looked down at his suit, which had no blood stain on it, but he swore and pulled his shirt tight against his skin. “Damn it. It’s across the grain.” He sighed, inspecting the shirt. “There’s no fixing this.”

I laughed and patted his chest. “We’ll give it a funeral when we get back.”

He looked at me and smiled toothily, then laughed. “Keep going, smart ass,” he teased, swatting me. “Let’s keep moving.”

“I can feel it, we’re getting closer,” I offered.

Caspian and Murtagh exchanged a look, a mix of skepticism and trust in their eyes. “You can feel it?” Caspian asked, his tone curious.

I nodded, unable to fully explain the sensation. I’d tried to explain it to my brother and to Ryan on a multitude of occasions, and it always fell short. To me, where these things were seemed stupidly intuitive, like how one finds plates in the kitchen. I dismissively waved my hand in a forward motion. “It’s like a pull, a tug in my gut. Ever since we entered these ruins, I’ve felt it. It’s getting stronger the deeper we go.”

Taking the lead, I began walking through the winding passages of the ancient structure. The air grew heavier, the silence around us more eerie. Then, we passed through a narrow hallway before it opened up into another vast chamber, and I gasped at the sight waiting for me.

The room was filled with treasures beyond imagination. Gold and jewels glittered in the dim light, casting breathtaking kaleidoscopic patterns on the walls. There were piles of coins from civilizations long forgotten, ornate jewelry that must have been worn by ancient royalty, and artifacts whose significance was lost to time but whose beauty remained undeniable.

There were gems everywhere.

My eyes were drawn to a corner where a life-sized golden statue stood covered in beautiful stones. Next to it, a chest overflowed with pearls and diamonds, their luster still beautifully vibrant.

I felt an overwhelming urge to touch everything, to feel the weight of the gold and the smoothness of the gems. It was as if the treasure called to me. I reached out, my fingers hovering over a delicate golden bracelet with glittering sapphires and diamonds.

Then, I grabbed it.

And everything went to shit.

CHAPTER 20

Zazie

As soon as I grabbed that bracelet, the precipice that held it shattered like it was made of sand. A great rumble in the floor let out underneath us, and not a gentle one. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought we were going to get run over by a train.

Murtagh and Caspian turned and looked back at me just as the bracelet was in my hands, and their expression was incredulous. I half expected them to ignore the fact that the chamber was collapsing in on itself and scream, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

They didn’t. Caspian tucked me against his chest and tried to run me the opposite way out of the chamber. Murtagh transformed and continued forth, trying to reach the top of the steps where a very large, uncut diamond sat on a huge bust of ballast.

“Fuck!” I heard Caspian overhead as he leaned over me—he had been hit by a particularly large piece of the ceiling.

I could barely breathe; the amount of dust in the air was overwhelming. I had to pull my shirt up over my nose and mouth, there was still a bunch of shit in my eyes, and the ceiling seemed to be coming down faster than ever.

When I looked to my right and left, it seemed like the floor itself was shifting and moving, burying the treasures with sand and dirt and rubble.

“Move!” Caspian yelled in my ear, trying to drag me out of the room, but I was blind, I had no idea where I was going, and the moving ground was making it impossible to walk.

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