Page 46 of Katya and the Young God

Feketer considers that for a second, then shrugs.

“So what can the trap be?” She pivots the conversation, tired of having to show her credentials. “It is a trap, right?”

“I think,” he says, leaning forward. “There’s something set, something will shift the rocks above us if a certain condition is met,” he says, academic. “I don’t know what, but...” he trails off tilting his headlamp up to the ceiling, where the crystals glitter. “Unless Pixies all of a sudden have telekinesis, I don’t know how that knowledge can help us prevent something.”

Feketer gives him a narrow-eyed glare. “Shouldn’t you be able to?”

It says something about the strange circumstances, where Feketer feels comfortable challenging Pieter, where he was too afraid to speak to him only the day before.

“Not tons of stone,” Pieter answers easily. “Not when they’re moving suddenly, without control, without preparation.” He casts a glance up to the crystals. “If someone could do that, they could stop a bullet, and I know of no one who could easily do that.”

Feketer sits back, eyebrows raised.

Instead of listening to their squabbling, Katya turns her eyes to the floor, because if there’s anything this cave needs, it’s a rough and tumble Indiana Jones style trap.

And if the stones are set to crash, then something has to trigger them, and the people who set the trap—probably—needed a way out again.

There’s always a way around traps.

“Could you roll a large boulder through the middle of the floor?” She interrupts. “Set off any triggers that could be there?”

Rory joins them, subtle as a brick, and the room is cleanly divided again.

“If it’s the magic that’s been going on, I doubt weight would do anything,” they said, sitting and stretching out their legs. Unlike everyone else, they don’t eat the compact meal bars, and instead just sip from a thankfully opaque container. “I doubt rolling a non-living thing would trigger whatever it is.”

Feketer gives them a deeply offended look, like the Vampire betrayed his confidence by admitting they can sense whatever the heck it is.

“So is it mostly in the center?” Katya asks, looking up to the ceiling, looking for a seam in the crystals, anything to show a break. “This seems like a one-time trap, only good for one bit of destruction.”

“You try climbing over a pile of crystals that sharp,” Feketer snaps. “I doubt we could with our food supplies.”

“And we don’t want to leave the cave with the seal broken,” Pieter says, voice rough, “I doubt it’ll like that.”

“You say that like the cave is living,” Katya says, soft, as Feketer and Rory fall into a familiar sort of bickering, the type that comes from friends who long ago stopped agreeing on things.

He inclines his head, not answering, not directly, but giving her that.

“So what, we walk someone out there, someone who can roll away fast enough? Since you’re not teleporting —” He gives her a sharp warning look at that. “And hope for the best?”

“Or,” he starts, slow, and his eyes unfocus, concentrating outside of him, and even though she’s seen Iakov expend power many times this amount, she’s never been granted this intimate of a view into the process, “or we try to combat it on a different level. How good are your protective runes?” He speaks up for that last bit, eyes focusing finally, and Feketer and Rory both look over. “Any good at disguising ones?”

Rory looks up, looks to where the Magician sits, waves him over. “Camouflaging runes, you got any?” The Vampire asks, bringing him into the conversation, making the line between them and the two remaining humans starker. “Anything to make us appear like we’re not there?”

The small man doesn’t look at them, not directly, but Katya can’t really say she’s seen him make anything resembling eye contact this entire trip. “If its old and decayed, yes.” He digs in his pack, pulling out a collection of sharpie pens, which seem to be the basic weapon of Magicians of all types.

Flipping to an empty page in a small notebook, he sketches out a few options, with Pieter looking on with interest.

“That one,” Pieter says, pointing, almost before the Magician stops sketching it out. “Might get us across, especially if we walk light.”

Taking the sharpie out of the Magician’s hand, Pieter sketches out the rune on his forearm, flexing his skin.

Without even skipping a beat, the Magician pulls out another set of sharpies, writing an identical one on the back of his hand.

“I’ll try it out,” Pieter says, and Katya raises an eyebrow at the self-sacrifice—or self-confidence.

But instead of responding to her look, he pushes himself up, without his bag, and strides across the room, not looking back.

A hush falls, as he steps out under the crystals, and the ground below them is so fine, his boots leave pristine footprints.

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