I raised my head and watched as Eli stirred on the floor. He groaned and rolled over. “What happened?”
“They’re gone, and we’re trapped,” Selene deadpanned.
Eli scooted and twisted his body until he was able to get into a sitting position, leaning against me for support. “No, we’re not. I’ve got a way out.”
I exhaled and shook my head. “Titus took your wand.” I paused, then I decided he would be happy to know that his inability to work magic was because he’d been given a defective wand and not because of something lacking in himself. Any happiness, no matter how small, would be welcome right now.
When I finished explaining Eli surprised me with a matter-of-fact nod. “I’d suspected something wasn’t right about it for a while now. When I cast that first spell in Miss Norton’s class it was so easy. But everything with my wand was like trying to swim through mud. That’s why I took Miss Norton’s talking stick.”
My mouth fell open. “You did?”
“Yes.”
Well, I decided, there wasn’t much point in being angry now.
“I saw it and had to,” Eli went on, getting to his feet. “If we ended up here at the festival, I didn’t want to be powerless. And boy, was that the right decision. Now someone come here and take off this bracelet.”
Selene stepped forward, and I watched, a welcome surge of adrenaline starting to pump through my system.
“Is that what I think it is?” I said as Selene slid the bracelet off Eli’s wrist.
Eli stretched out his fingers, taking the bracelet from Selene. “Yes, it is.” Then with an awkward gesture, he managed to disengage the glamour concealing Miss Norton’s talking stick. I’d never been so happy to see it.
Eli pointed it as best he could at Selene and said, “Ou-agra.”
At once the silver rope binding her vanished. Joy boosted me to my feet as Selene returned the favor for Eli. Then she cast the spell at Paul while Eli freed me. He picked me up in a fierce hug. It hurt a lot, and Eli was unsteady on his feet from the blow to his head, but I welcomed the pain and shakiness, any reminder that we were still alive.
But as he set me on my feet, a loud grumble went through the building, and the floor and walls began to shake.
“It’s started.” Eli let go of me. “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”
Selene was one step ahead of us. She charged to the door and blasted it open with a spell. Then she turned to help Paul, who was struggling to remain upright.
I rushed over to help, too, but then Eli said, “I’ll do it. I’m stronger, and you two are better at magic.”
I frowned. “What about your head?”
“I’m fine. The dizziness is already passing. Now go.”
I hesitated, but only for a moment. I squeezed Paul’s hand, then stepped away, making room for Eli, who swung Paul’s arm over his shoulder, supporting him.
I led the way out with Selene right behind me. The narrow passageway beyond the door was even darker than the chamber we’d left, and Selene and I both conjured fire in our hands. There was only one way to go, and I headed down it, keeping the flames low. I was afraid I would catch myself on fire as the tremors continued, making it difficult to walk without stumbling. Every few seconds, bits of stone rained down around us from the ceiling.
After walking a little while, the passageway dead-ended.
“That can’t be,” I said, staring at the stone wall in front of me. My instincts insisted there should be a door or staircase here instead of a wall. I reached out with my free hand and touched the wall, confirming its solidity.
Selene stepped up beside me. “Maybe the way through is hidden.” She began to hum a familiar tune, the magical notes of her siren detection spell. Within seconds, the golden outline of a door appeared.
Selene looked at me, and I nodded, the message clear—aim for the center and blast it open.
“One, two, three!” We both hit it with spells at the same time, and the stones exploded outward revealing another passageway beyond as well as a steep staircase leading up. I stepped through and charged up the stairs, but Selene soon called for me to slow down. Eli and Paul were having a rough time. Paul was so exhausted and the stairwell so narrow, Eli could barely help him at all.
Still, we managed it, climbing several stories upward until we reached a passageway on the ground floor leading off to the right. Faint but natural light leaked in through the high windows overhead. The sun must be close to setting.
I extinguished the fire in my hands and headed down the passageway. The first door I came to, I stopped and forced it open, but it only led into an empty room. I moved on, stopping at the next couple of doors only to find more rooms, some empty, some furnished, but none of them providing the escape we needed.
Finally, the last door opened into another narrow passage. I followed it, eventually arriving in a place I recognized—the grand entryway of Senate Hall. Another tremor hit the building, this one stronger than the ones before. One of the pillars on the side of the entryway split at the top and came crashing down, flooding the room with dust.
I coughed and squinted, trying to see a way through. Selene appeared beside me, and she worked some kind of spell that helped to clear the air. It was enough we could see a small side door leading outside. We raced to it, Eli and Paul managing to keep up as the danger of being crushed by the falling debris spurred them on.
Although the entryway had been deserted, the outside lawn of Senate Hall was a mass of people in various states of panic. Most of them seemed to be trying to flee the giant fissure that had split across the lawn in the place where the first pyres had been in Eli’s dream. Fire, pieces of earth, and even water were bursting out from it all at once. I gulped, wondering how many people had been standing there when the ground split. As it was, there were far too many people lying unmoving in the grass, either unconscious or dead.
Guilt pressed down on me as I wondered if we could’ve prevented this if we’d turned in the cell phone. But right away I understood that if we’d tried, Titus would’ve stopped us sooner. We’d been trapped from the very beginning. And the scale of his plan was so large and Titus so determined, it seemed impossible that anything could’ve stood in his way. Even still, the understanding brought no relief.
The stone pavilion, so beautiful inside Eli’s dream, had been reduced to rubble, and the four of us had to climb our way through. As I reached the top of a large boulder, I froze, stunned by the sight of a body lying on the other side of it. The man was clearly dead, although I couldn’t tell how. There was no blood or sign of trauma. But I knew who he was—Consul Vanholt. It seemed this part of Titus’s plan had worked successfully.
Gritting my teeth, I moved on, ignoring the shocked comments from the others. There would be time to process the consul’s death later. For now we had to do what we could to stop the rest of Titus’s plan from coming to fruition.
Selene turned right when we reached the lawn, heading in the direction most of the people seemed to be running. I moved to follow her, but Eli shouted from behind me.
“That’s the wrong way!”
I turned around. “How do you know?”
“The Terra Tribe’s practice. They lit the pyres clockwise. There’ll be more fissures that way already.” As if his words had been a portent of doom, the ground trembled again followed by the distant sound of an explosion and then the groan of a foundation shifting.
That was all it took to get us moving in the opposite direction. Eli continued to help Paul along, but Paul seemed to be doing better now that we were out in the open. We reached the twelfth pyre moments later after two more explosions. There was panic and chaos here, too, but it was more contained. We could see two of the pyres and both of them were still burning. A group of people surrounded each one, working some kind of collective spell—one intended to stop the Telluric Rods from ripping the final holes through the island, I hoped.