“Yes, we have to. It’s about two hundred miles to base camp,” Vesta said. “And we’ll have to keep the tunnel straight. Which means we’ll be going through the ocean level, too.”
“So, water tunnel,” Taeral replied.
Nevis joined them. “I’ll help.”
As if summoned by their lord, a dozen Dhaxanians came forward as well, while Varga and Elonora stayed close to our grandparents. Elonora didn’t seem all that comfortable to be separated from Nevis, but she didn’t flinch. It was obvious that she loved the guy. I only hoped they’d both survive this so they could be together—much like I hoped I’d see Douma again.
“We’ll all help,” one of the Dhaxanians said.
Two hundred miles’ worth of tunneling. A fae shuttle headed for the winter-summer cluster. No sign of our Perfect and Faulty allies. This had to be the sweet-and-sour side of our Stravian experience, though, frankly, I would’ve preferred it significantly less extreme.
“Listen, we have a great advantage now, with the bilocation spell,” Derek said.
The woods thundered in the distance as the Perfects from nearby islands finally reached the colosseum. I would’ve loved to have eyes on them, to see the extent of the damage we’d caused. We’d made it so far, though, and we had to keep going, no matter how much we wanted to look back.
“Let’s take this whole crew to the base camp, first,” Derek added. “If we move fast, we’ll be there in a few hours. Then, a bunch of us will teleport to the winter-summer cluster and secure the fae’s positions by midnight tomorrow. That way, when the Hermessi are ready, all they’ll have to do will be to activate themselves using the fae as their conduits.”
“What about the mass memory wiper? We’ll need that to disable the Perfects,” Xavier replied.
Derek sighed. “I’m afraid we won’t know anything about it until we hear from Amane or Amal. In the meantime, we must bring the Hermessi back to their full strength. They’re raw forces of nature. The Perfects won’t survive them, and that’s our most violent option right now, in the absence of a mass memory wiper.”
My heart was thudding, wrestling against the confines of my ribcage. Every second that passed without hearing from Douma added to my aggravation, to the point where I could no longer hold it in.
“Douma. Are you there?” I asked through the earpiece again. “Douma!”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Elonora’s eyes glimmered gold as she used her True Sight to check on the colosseum. Before she could open her mouth to say something, a blue pulse flashed through us and continued to extend outward, like a solitary ripple across time and space.
It felt weird. As if magnets had just tried to pull my organs inside out for a moment.
“Crap,” Elonora croaked. “That came from the colosseum. The Perfects surrounded it first, and now they’re going in.”
“What type of pulse was that?” Cameron asked. “It was weird.”
“It kicked my intestines around,” Lucas grumbled.
“Yeah, it was strange, but… I don’t know what it was,” Elonora replied. “I only know it came from the colosseum.”
Derek scratched the back of his head. “Maybe something flammable blew up?”
“It wasn’t an explosion,” Elonora said. “It was something else.”
I pressed the main button on my earpiece again. The pulse must’ve hit Douma, too, wherever she was. “Douma, are you there?”
This time, however, the silence was different. It was blank. Zero static.
“Oh, no,” Kailani murmured, pressing the buttons on her earpiece. “Harper? Come in, Harper? Anyone? Can anyone hear me on the main channel? You should all be hearing me now,” she asked, looking around at all of us.
Like a hammer in the gut, the realization came. Brutal and soul-crushing, as we connected the dots to this blue pulse. Sofia covered her mouth, hit by the shock of it all.
“The comms are down again,” Derek concluded, his brow furrowed.
“That must’ve been the disabling pulse,” Elonora said. “I remember Raphael specifically saying that, once rebuilt, the blocking towers could be activated remotely. Maybe this is what he meant.”
Hunter grunted and muttered a string of curses. “We destroyed the damn colosseum. How the hell was that pulse even possible?!”
“We knew from the very beginning that the explosions might not take everything down,” Lumi reminded him. “Maybe it was Ta’Zan or Cassiel or whichever of his lieutenants managed to get to wherever they were keeping this magi-tech. Clearly, said magi-tech survived the explosions and jammed our comms channels again.”
Bijarki lit up like a bulb, fueled by intense emotions of anger. I’d seen him shimmer with joy and love whenever he was close to Vita, but I’d never seen this end of his emotional spectrum. I had to admit that, as pretty as that silvery skin of his was, it gave me the creeps when it manifested his rage.
“So, we’re cut off from Calliope again,” he snapped.
“And Nathaniel. And Douma. And Amane. Herakles. Everyone we gave an earpiece to.” Rose sighed, shaking her head slowly.
Trees broke in troves, not far from our location. Something was happening out there, and it couldn’t possibly be good for us. Rose groaned, then looked at the fae and her brother.
“It’s time. We have to go. Now!” she said.
I didn’t like the idea of leaving. Not now, not when I didn’t know whether Douma had made it or not. Maybe she was still locked up. Maybe she’d been crushed in the colosseum’s collapse and was now vulnerable to capture. So many unpleasant maybes.
With an iron will and an unshakeable resolve, Ben, Taeral, Lucas, Vesta, Kailyn, and all the other fae in our group put their hands out, their palms facing the ground. An earthquake shook us all, before a circular hole opened up beneath them.
They all dropped inside, swallowed by momentary darkness.
By the time we reached the edge, the tunnel was already forming beneath. Ben and Vesta led the way, since they had the directions to the base camp. One by one, we slipped down the steep edge and entered the tunnel.
I stayed close to Elonora, Jovi, and the others, while Nevis and his Dhaxanians led the way with Vesta and Ben. Their frost abilities would be required to hold up an entire tunnel through the water, once we reached the ocean.
Above us, there was spine-tingling silence. In the distance, however, sonic booms cut through the sky, while more Perfects went to the central colosseum.
