Page 210 of Mud

Together, we kept on going, until?—

“Rose,run.”

Taland was looking behind us—at the other players. Five other players at the top of that hill.

The moment they saw us, they began to run, too.

We had barely fifty feet on them, but we ran with the last of our strength together with our familiars. I didn’t let myself think—about finding the Rainbow mountain or making it there first ornotmaking it to the colors at all. I just ran, and the eagle and the vulcera showed us the way to the other side of it, to the very edge.

The moment they stopped, the ground groaned and shifted, almost knocking us on our asses.

That’s because it was starting to change.

The map we saw on the ice cube of the statue was right—the playground changed, even though the mountain didn’t move an inch, at first. Everything else around it did.

The vulcera raised her head to the sky and howled like a wolf, and Taland’s eagle cried out so hard I had to cover my ears for fear I’d go deaf.

Then the mountain moved, too.

It opened right in front of us. The dark brown soil moved like it was being pushed to the sides from within, and a set of stone stairs appeared right there in the dirt.

About fifty stairs that ended with a square piece of rock with five holes in it.

For the five keys.

“Sweetness, now’s the time,” said Taland, turning to the side to look for the other players who were coming. We couldn’t see them yet, but we heard them approaching because their footfalls echoed like we were in an enclosed space.

“But I don’t have five keys,” I whispered, and the vulcera pushed me forward with her muzzle on my thigh.

“Look in your pocket. Mine appeared there when my eagle healed,” Taland said. “And I’m going to have to borrow a couple of your knives.” He reached inside my jacket without waiting for a confirmation and grabbed the last of my knives from their sheaths.

“Taland, I don’t have the?—”

I undid the zipper of the inside pocket of my jacket when he stepped away.

A brand-new cylinder had appeared with a single rock at the top that looked exactly like ice—the same ice that theroc statue was made of. It was right there in my pocket together with all the other keys I’d won.

Fucking hell, I really had all five keys of the Iris Roe.

Something came over me, a wave of heat from within.

“Move!” Taland shouted, and the vulcera pushed me forward—the other players were already there.

I ran like my tail was on fire, taking those stone stairs two at a time until I was in front of the panel. It was so much more detailed than I’d realized from farther away. Every inch of the smooth gray surface was engraved with runes and spells and flowers, and each one of the holes fit one of the keys perfectly.

I made it.

I finished the Iris Roe.

It sounded like a damn joke to me, but here we were.

I turned around to look at Taland, at the other players who were cursing and slamming their fists to the ground, mad that they hadn’t gotten here first—but they hadn’t attacked Taland or anything. He hadn’t raised the knives against them, either—he just stood there, watching them with the eagle on his shoulder, and my vulcera sitting quietly at the bottom of the stairs.

She was watching them, too.

Just get it over with!

My hands were shaking so badly while I placed the keys in their respective places, exactly as I’d gotten them—Red, then Green, Black, and Blue, and White.

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