Page 102 of Elven Throne

“Fine,” she said. “Then let’s hurry this up and get it over with.”

Rowan glowered at her, holding the Pu’uzáh against his chest. “Getting a little pushy all of a sudden, aren’t we?”

“That’s what happens when you don’t share a single detail of what we’re doing and can’t seem to figure the rest out with any certainty,” she quipped.

“Well stop it. I know what I’m doing.” Turning his nose up at her, he fixed her with that same disgruntled glare until he’d passed her and could no longer look her in the eye. Then he headed toward the far end of the chamber, where a massive metal door was nestled in the bedrock.

It looked sturdy enough, but the stone wall around it had clearly spent a long time bearing down on that door with increasing pressure over the years. Or decades. If the thick metal door buckled and gave out, Rebecca didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

But the Blackmoon Elf approached as if he’d been here countless times before. He stopped in front of the door, looked it over from top to bottom, then nodded. “All right. Now we just knock and wait to be let in.”

Cradling the Pu’uzáh against his chest in one hand, he raised his other fist for what would have been a loud, heavy, dramatic knock.

Before he had the chance, Maleine slipped in front of him at the last second and rapped her knuckles on the thick metal instead.

The tinny echo of that knock reverberated all around them like a warning siren.

Rowan glared at his sister, eyes wide and face reddening by the second, looking like he wanted to fucking murder her.

At first, nothing happened. Everyone waited for a response, silently gazing around the chamber in case some other clue that had nothing to do with the door showed itself.

Then, with an ear-splitting creak, the metal door finally shuddered on its hinges built into the stone wall. The wall shivered. Dust rained down everywhere, billowing toward the four visitors in the chamber.

When the door finally swung outward, scraping heavily across the stone floor as it opened into the next room beyond, even more dust tumbled from the ceiling to billow into the next room like an ancient herald.

An even thicker silence returned when it was over.

Maleine chuckled. “I never thought I’d say this, but now that I’m here, I’ve actually missed your little games.”

As she gazed through the door and stepped forward, the woman reached out to vigorous muss her brother’s hair beneath her hand.

Rowan slapped her hand away with a snarl and glared after her.

Maleine’s endless laughter echoed behind her as she strode confidently through the open door, her long shadow growing shorter as she approached the soft, not-quite-inviting glow emanating from the other side of the long hallway beyond.

After a moment of scrambling to straighten his hair, Rowan glanced and Rebecca and Maxwell and hissed, “You can’t stand out here forever.”

Then he marched through the door.

They stared after him, equally shocked by and wary of the sibling-rivalry display merging dangerously into warfare territory.

Rebecca couldn’t see much of anything past the threshold, beyond the gentle glow somewhere at the far end.

Maxwell cleared his throat, opened his mouth to say something, then sighed. “I never thought I would say this, but she’s worse than he is.”

She shot the shifter a sideways glance and cocked her head. “Where do you thinkhegot it from?”

“Almost makes you envy the final misfortune that befell our friends back there,” he murmured, nodding back toward the skeletons against the wall.

Stifling a laugh, Rebecca took another step toward the open door, hoping that might improve visibility. It didn’t. “Another joke. You’re really getting the hang of that.”

“A new skill that unfortunately will be of no use to us in there.”

“You never know. At this rate, you might make one of them die with laughter.”

A dark rumble vibrated through his chest. “Orbothof them.”

“Baby steps, Hannigan.”

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