“Are you, though?” she asked, wholeheartedly.

Were we? All our training had worked through multiple wars and secret intelligence scenarios. None had dealt with insanely powerful Reapers and maniacal elementals. All our antagonists had been creatures like ourselves, gifted in one way or another… but they were living and breathing. They could be killed by our weapons, by our ability to work together and overcome whatever they threw at us.

In many ways, our situation here was different.

“Fundamentally, the challenge is the same. Adapt and survive. Take calculated risks. Prepare for the worst. Do everything that you can in order to get out of this alive,” I said firmly. “I’d rather focus on that.”

And I meant it. I could collapse right here, in the middle of this room, and give up. I could die in here, just by stepping on random tiles and triggering some kind of killer mechanism. I could surrender and just let the end come, sooner rather than later.

But every fiber in my body screamed against it. Regardless of the issues ahead, my mind refused to call it quits. My entire being burned with a powerful desire to survive. To get the heck out of this room. To get to Zetos, then Phyla, and to put an end to this Hermessi debacle.

I’d found something to hold on to, deep in my soul. My love for Raphael throbbed inside my chest, beckoning me to keep going. If I had to carry Eira, Herakles, Varga, Riza, and everybody else in this crew in order to complete this challenge, I was ready to do it. Even if I broke my legs again, or got poisoned over and over… it didn’t matter.

I had to keep going. We all had to keep going.

The Soul Crusher clicked his teeth. “Um, I take it some of you are starting to fizzle out?”

He’d been watching and listening, quietly, for the most part. He only seemed to intervene when things got tough. It sounded as though he was teasing us, but what if he was actually doing the opposite? What if the Soul Crusher was trying to encourage us, in his own twisted way?

Perhaps there was something in this room that we’d yet to see. Something we’d missed. I almost slapped myself when it suddenly hit me, my gaze fixed on the two tiles in front of the glowing door frame.

“That’s the door, right?” I asked aloud.

“Of course. Why’d you think I drew it? To mess with you? I’m not that cold,” the Soul Crusher replied, and a grin slit my face, ear to ear, prompting Raphael to chuckle.

“Uh-oh. Watch out. Amelia’s getting an idea.”

Indeed, I was getting a great idea. An idea I should’ve had much, much sooner than this. Better late than never.

“Raphael, you still have your wings,” I said.

He lit up like an oversized, muscular firefly. “I do.”

“Duh! Okay. Knowing that, over there, is an actual, functioning door,” I replied, revisiting my earlier idea, “and given that, if I were the Soul Crusher, I’d design the two tiles in front of it with pressure plates and horrible traps, I say that our only remaining solution out of here is by flight.”

“Hold on. I mean, yes, that’s doable. But remember, these freezing particles are really doing a number on us. On me. On my wings,” Raphael said. I’d worried about that, too.

“But you can still fly,” Taeral chimed in, mirroring my smile.

“How about you spread your wings now and show us exactly how slow they are?” I asked Raphael.

He smirked and flexed his shoulders. His wings exploded outward, white and beautiful and covered in silky feathers, each spanning about ten feet in length. He moved them, cautiously at first, then flapped them hard enough to lift him off the ground.

He landed back on the same tile, his expression increasingly confident.

“I think you’re on to something, and I think it’s part of the reason why I’m head over heels with you,” he said, his gaze darkening.

I knew I wouldn’t make it to tomorrow without his help. But what would’ve tomorrow been, without him in it? At least, this way, as crazy as my plan sounded, we had a shot at finding out what the future would be like.

We only had three options here, two of which were painful, to put it mildly. We could quit, letting the end come for all of us and for every single living creature out there. We could keep trying the tiles until one or more of us died. Our crew was perfect the way it was, and if not all of us made it out of here alive, then there was a chance that retrieving Thieron might fail. Each of us was important to this quest. And we all had to survive it.

Therefore, the third and likely insane option was for Raphael to fly and force his way through that glowing door line. If that worked, then he could pick us up, one by one, and carry us across the threshold and hopefully out of this godforsaken labyrinth of ancient Reaper madness. I refused to think what would happen if it didn’t work.

Doing that would’ve tainted our odds of success. I hadn’t been superstitious before, but I’d been holding on to every single sliver of hope I came across, regardless of its origin, since I’d first faced the Hermessi. Maybe, just maybe, Raphael was my lucky charm. The luckiest of them all.

Raphael

I could definitely flap my wings. However, my movements slowed each time by a small fraction. I felt as though I had a limited flight time available before I’d take off and go down like a useless boulder, likely triggering one or two tile traps in the process.

Unwilling to risk it, I quickly calculated our odds. Eira, Lumi, and Taeral couldn’t be killed. I had to focus on getting Amelia, Riza, Herakles, Nethissis, Eva, and Varga out first. I had enough strength left in me to carry two of them at a time, but I also needed speed to go through that door.

“There’s no telling what opposition I’ll encounter if I ram through it,” I said, pointing at the glowing outline. “Let me try it on my own first.”

Amelia gave me a soft nod. “I trust you.”

“We all trust you,” Taeral said.

“I hope it’s worth it,” I replied. “I’m planning to get the killable people out first. You three might be left to tackle the rest of the tiles, if the freezing particles slow me down too much.”

Lumi, Eira, and Taeral stilled, their cheeks blooming in shades of pink. It made me laugh.

“But I promise I will try!” I added.

Flapping my wings, I lifted myself off the floor again. Tilting my body backward, I flew back to put more distance between myself and the door. I needed it all in order to attain a favorable speed. I reached the safe tiles at the back of the room and put one foot against the wall, using my leg as a spring.

I took off in full flight, prompting the crew to duck as I shot past them.

Positioning myself into a living battering ram, I let my shoulder take most of the impact force. I broke through the stone door, the bricks crumbling beneath me. I landed with a heavy roll, finding myself in another room.

“You have got to be kidding me!” I growled, noticing the hexagonal shape of the chamber and the absence of doors. “You son of a—”

“Ah-ah! Language!” the Soul Crusher cut me off.

“I’ll deal with you later,” I retorted and shifted focus back to my crew. They were still waiting in the previous room, their eyes wide and their jaws inches from the floor.

I flew back and landed on one of the safe tiles in the middle. I nearly fell over, the freezing particles messing with the center of my weight, but I managed to stay upright this time around.

“First of all, congratulations!” Herakles exclaimed, beaming at me. But the smile faded quickly as he pointed at the room beyond the crumbled door. “Second, what the hell, man?”

“What? I didn’t make this stupid puzzle!” I shot back.

Amelia sighed. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s get out of this one first.”

I put an arm around her and pulled her close, using my other arm to grab Nethissis, who was the closest within my reach. With both of them safely by my side, I flew through the door and left them in the third room.

The flight became more difficult with each turn. I knew this would happen. Herakles could tell, the moment I dropped him and Riza off in the hexagonal room. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and proceeded to get the others before it was too late.

“Deep breaths, Raphael,” Herakles said.