“A lovely thought.” Attie wiped the dust from her fingers. “But why have they overgrown into the passages?”
“Maybe when Dacre slept, wild things took over?”
Thoughts teeming, the girls continued onward.
“Do you think there are rats here?” Attie asked as Iris set another crumb down.
“I hope not.” If rats came along and ate her trail of scones, then they would never find their way back to the café door. But so far they had only passed thick curtains of gossamer and spiders with eyes that winked like rubies in the lantern light.
Soon, they came to an intersection, and Iris was surprised to see the firelight that burned in iron sconces on the walls. She hid her lantern behind a cluster of malachite and studied the different routes they could take.
“Wait,” Attie said when Iris began to step forward. “Do you hear that?”
Iris froze, straining her ears. Two breaths later, she heard what Attie did. It sounded like boots marching on the stone, drawing closer.
“Quick,” Iris said, moving back the way they had come. “Hide.”
The girls ducked behind an outcropping of rock and mineral. Iris held her breath as the footsteps drew closer. She dared to peer around their hiding place to see a stream of Dacre’s soldiers, marching through the intersection. Rifles were propped on their shoulders, packs fastened to their backs.
It was as Iris suspected. Dacre would wait until he had pummeled the south side and then call back the eithrals. His soldiers would then emerge through select doors to round up anyone who had survived.
It was Avalon Bluff, repeated on a larger scale.
Which meant Iris and Attie were running out of time; they couldn’t afford to have an interruption like this. Just when Iris was thinking they might need to double back and return above to find another doorway to pass through, the end of the soldiers’ line came in sight.
The girls waited a few beats before they rose and hurried to the intersection. Iris chose the passage with the steeper angle again, even though it was darker than the others.
She could hear her breath, feel her heart pound in her ears by the time they reached a door. It looked similar to the one Enva had shown her, with runes carved into the lintel. Like in the dream, it was locked.
“Is this it?” Attie whispered.
“Yes,” Iris replied, although she didn’t know for certain. But she brought out the key and watched as it fit, unlocking the door.
This time, the passage they walked was overgrown with vines and thorns. Iris had to break her way through, feeling the briars catch in her hair, drag like talons across her face. She might have stopped in discouragement had she not seen the light in the distance. A hazy yellow beacon, woven with the sharp scent of sulfur.
“We’re almost there,” she panted to Attie, hope warming her blood.
Twenty-one thorn-infested steps later, the girls arrived at the boiling heart of the under realm. Iris gazed into the steam, amazed by how vast this place felt. She noticed that the vines ran along the treacherous floor but soon faded, as if they were only there to mark where this passage was located. She turned and looked behind, to see the lintel was thick with thorns, and also noticed the malachite that had grown along it, nearly hidden.
We need to find the doorway marked by thorns and malachite when we return, she told herself before easing forward.
Iris and Attie walked around the pools, stepping over skeletons and iron chains. The sight made Iris shudder, but she continued to break up pieces of scone and leave a trail, her skin shining with perspiration.
All too soon, the melodic notes of a flute hung in the air. One second, they sounded distant, the next, close enough to touch. Iris tried to follow them, and it was impossible until she saw a pillar of light in the distance. That should be their marker, she realized, and she began to lead them toward it, using the last of her scone crumbs. That was where Dacre would be, playing the flute to command the eithrals as they flew above.
It felt like they had walked for an hour, chasing those notes and that beam of sun, although it was most likely only ten minutes, when Iris heard someone screaming in the distance. She froze, Attie halting close at her back.
“Do you think that’s real?” Iris asked, her voice thick. “Or is it just an illusion?”
“I don’t know,” Attie said.
They didn’t have time to investigate and help. Iris moved forward, ignoring the nagging guilt in her stomach. The sour taste in her mouth. The way her heart lurched when the screaming finally fell silent.
They drew closer to the light, the place where the world above touched the realm below. She finally saw Dacre, standing in the sun as he blew notes on the flute, his face and hair gilded as if he were a myth from an old tome. He was beautiful, mesmerizing. The sight made Iris both furious and sad, to see such divinity and what it could be, and to know it was nothing more than ruthless ambition.