We gathered back in the middle of the room, keeping close to one another. We waited to see which traps would be set off, carefully listening to the increasing plethora of metallic moans and glassy shrieks that emerged from the walls. There had been a hidden logic to this crazy gambit, I realized—pressing all the levers at once could also overload the entire system that the Soul Crusher had put together.

“Lumi, you are one of the smartest witches I have ever come across,” I declared.

She sighed. “You give me too much credit.”

“Is it just me, or did we overload the Soul Crusher’s precious puzzle machine?” Amelia asked, looking around. None of the traps seemed to have been triggered. Wheels kept spinning, cogs kept turning… but nothing happened.

A monstrous groan erupted above. The ceiling pulled back like a massive sheet of metal and lightbulbs. Water came down in tons, gushing and spreading violently throughout the room. I heard Herakles’s yelp as he was the first to get swept away, quickly followed by Eva and the rest of the crew, myself included.

The image before me tilted and spun, the cold water tampering with my internal temperature. The water level rose at an alarmingly fast rate, and we were all thoroughly confused, trying to keep our heads above the foaming water.

“What the hell?!” Amelia croaked.

“None of them got us out!” Raphael said, trying to swim toward her.

The current was powerful, and more water came through. The liquid was in perpetual motion, creating a rough whirlpool in the center of the room. I pointed up. “Maybe that’s our way out!”

As if summoned to prove me wrong, the ceiling slid back into place, but with a series of small circular openings along the middle. The water was pushed through them with jet-like pressure, while the room was once again sealed. There was no way out.

Lumi gasped, glowering at the ceiling.

“What now?!” Eira asked, looking at me for guidance. She didn’t have her Water abilities anymore, and panic was clearly threatening to grip her, judging by the terrified look on her face. I couldn’t blame her. I felt the same, if not worse.

If this was a test of our characters, like the Soul Crusher had said, what would this particular moment prove? Our intelligent ability to drown in a sealed room? The water level continued to rise, leaving only a couple of feet to the ceiling. We had to find a way out of here, and we had to do it fast. I doubted Eirexis would be able to resurrect any of my crew if they drowned. Setting aside my thoughts about whether Widow Maker knew of Eirexis’s healing properties or not, I took a deep breath and held it in.

I went underwater and glanced around, while the rest of the crew managed to spread out. Raphael and Herakles were busy banging on the ceiling. I, on the other hand, figured it wouldn’t help. The answer was somewhere down here, maybe among the levers we’d initially marked as neutral, not connected to any mechanisms.

It was odd how this sudden drowning had been the one trap to be set off. Had the Soul Crusher stopped the others, leaving only this one just to push us to our limits—or our deaths, perhaps? I wouldn’t know until I had him in front of me, to ask him myself. Until then, I needed to make sure we all survived.

A peculiar glow caught my attention. Eirexis was reacting to something, still strapped to my leg. Its symbols shone white, but their intensity fluctuated as I swam through the water. My brain kicked its gears into motion. The pattern was there. I could see it, deep in the fabric of the universe itself.

I took Eirexis out and pointed it around. It glowed most brightly in front of a particular lever. One of the neutral ones, completely unremarkable. I would’ve never noticed it myself as being different in any way, because it wasn’t. It looked like the others, pulled halfway down, without any special markings. Yet it was the one that Eirexis was signaling as… special. It had to be. Eirexis had yet to disappoint. It had excelled at surprising me in the best of ways.

I slipped Thieron’s handle back into the strap on my thigh and made my way toward the lever. Above, Raphael and Herakles had stopped trying to force their way past the ceiling. The water had reached it, and there was no air left to breathe.

Soon enough, we’d all drown—but only three of us would survive.

With not a second left to waste, I reached the lever and pulled it all the way down. My Hail Mary. My last shot at saving us all.

Seconds passed as we all held our breaths and stared at each other.

Seconds that felt like ages. Long and torturous ages.

Movement from below startled me. I looked down and stilled, floating in the water, as the floor was pulled away, much like the ceiling before it.

All the water came down, and we were sucked along with the aqueous mass.

The drop was steep but relatively short. I heard grunts and splashes. My body hit another floor. Every bone and muscle in it ached, but I was able to breathe again. Wheezing and coughing, I saw the rest of my crew down here, with me, equally baffled but thankful to be alive. The water spread to the sides into blackness.

Walls rose, stone brick by stone brick. Without giving it much thought, I scrambled back up and made a run for it. The walls came up too fast. I ended up slapping the one I’d hoped to move past… It was too late.

“I know I say this a lot, but what the hell?” Herakles managed, still flat on the new floor.

Confusion soared as we all tried to make sense of what had just happened. “I got us out of the room,” I said. “Yet here we are.”

“This is weird and annoying and everything that is wrong with this world!” Amelia snarled.

I helped Eira up first, then Lumi and Nethissis. Above us, a ceiling had formed, also covered in white lights. Once more, we were sealed inside a room, from what I could tell. But this one was different.

“Wait,” I began. “This is something else. Look at the shape of the room.”

Indeed, the space was now rectangular and elongated. We had fallen into one end of it, with a smooth and empty space between us and the opposite end. The stone bricks were smooth, and, no matter how hard I pushed them, they wouldn’t budge. There was some type of kinetic energy keeping it all together, sealed and unbreakable. The floor was made up of large, square tiles.

The Soul Crusher laughed. “Congratulations. You passed the first stage of my puzzle. Took you long enough, but hey, it’s the end result that matters, right?”

Raphael straightened his back, keeping Amelia close, unwilling to let go of her. “You mean to tell me we’re not done yet? After all you put us through?”

“Did you really think it would be so easy to get Zetos? Seriously?” the Soul Crusher replied. “You can’t be this naïve.”

What part of what we’d just survived had been easy? What was “easy” to someone like him? Letting a deep sigh roll out of my chest, I braced myself for the worst that was yet to come—that much was obvious.

“He’s not done with us,” I said. “This is another challenge.”

Riza pulled her curly hair back and wrung the water out as best as she could. “I’ve just about had enough of this crap.” She stepped forward across several tiles, until a click made her stop and freeze in that position.

I could see the tile she’d stilled on. It had sunk slightly, just enough to point out the horrible truth. There was a trap beneath it, and Riza had just armed it. Moving away from it without the proper precautions could result in serious injuries or, worse, death.

“Whatever you do, don’t move,” I said to her.

Herakles was ashen, unable to say anything. He just stared at Riza, likely struggling to formulate a coherent thought.

“I kind of figured that one out already,” Riza murmured, staring back at me with wide eyes filled with amethyst-colored horror.

We’d gotten out of one mess, and we’d stumbled into another. This was different. And much worse. None of us dared to move, our gazes fixed on Riza and our minds galloping through multiple scenarios as we tried to figure out a way to survive this next part of the Soul Crusher’s challenge.

We’d come out of that first room stronger together, and all the wiser.

But Zetos was yet to be within our reach. More traps awaited, instead.

Sofia

We reached Pax smoothly, and Kafei was able to perform the second interplanetary spell. Yahwen’s solar system glimmered in the distance, clearly visible in the black night sky. Pax was a barren world which lacked an atmosphere, reminding me mostly of Mars in terms of terrain and overall appearance.

Life had once thrived here, but that was part of a chapter long-since closed. Civilizations had called this place home, but something had happened to destroy it all. Ramin’s guess seemed closest to the truth. “It must’ve died during one of the ritual attempts,” he said, as Kafei was helped back into the shuttle after finishing the interplanetary spell’s pentagram.

Mona, Kiev, Corrine, and Ibrahim had already brought out the serium batteries, connecting them to the shuttle’s pilot system. The control panel had been fitted with two palm-shaped screens linked to the batteries, and Kafei would use it in order to steer the ship and the spell from here to Yahwen.

“Death must’ve annihilated one or more of Pax’s Hermessi,” I said, gazing out into the streaks of red-and-white desert. “It’s sad…”