Buckling the belt on, I straightened my shoulders, took a deep breath, and started forward. “Let’s do this.”
We approached the community hall first. Three of the four walls were in various stages of “crumbling to dust,” and the ceiling had caved in. A small forest sprouted from the rubble, the saplings patiently waiting for spring.
“They probably had gardens and livestock,” Aaron mused, leaning over a broken wall to peer toward the back end of the hall. “Communes like this try to be self-sufficient.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “They wouldn’t want to draw attention with massive grocery orders. Besides, who’d want to make the drive out of here more than once a month?”
We poked around in the ruins for a few minutes, then I shook my head. “Eterran said the rituals were treated like performances. Based on that, I think our destination is there.”
I pointed up the slope to the ruins at the top, and Aaron nodded.
Together, we traipsed up the wide path through the center of the community, our breaths puffing white. Cold, sorrowful weight gathered in my chest with each step, and I steeled my emotions against the sights.
Two children’s bicycles had been abandoned in front of a house, tires deflated and chains rusted. Gardening tools lay in the dirt, long handles snapped. A quad with its front crushed, as though it’d run into something, sat between two houses with a helmet beside it, a dead weed poking through the broken visor.
Signs of lives cut short were everywhere, belongings forgotten and homes empty. One day, the people here had been living in relative peace. Twenty-four hours later, the Keys of Solomon had killed them all.
“These families weren’t criminals,” I said, my voice quiet but the words harsh in my throat. “They were victims. How could the Keys slaughter them and get away with it?”
“I don’t know.” He stepped over a two-foot-deep rut in the earth. “But it doesn’t look like the demon mages went quietly to their deaths.”
He gestured toward another fissure splitting the ground, and I studied my surroundings again. The damage had weathered, the years softening it, but now that I was searching for the signs, I could see deep tears in the soil and rubble thrown twenty, thirty, even fifty feet from the demolished structures.
Ezra alone had blown apart a building. What would it have been like to face ten demon mages working together to protect their home?
Aaron and I continued up the slope to the rubble at the top. Huge chunks of stone lay all around a wide, empty circle made of flat concrete. Untouched snow blanketed the floor, which hadn’t suffered damage despite the rest of the structure being reduced to crumbled rock.
I kicked at a short, cylindrical stump at the circle’s edge. “What was this?”
Crouching, Aaron brushed snow off the top of the stump, revealing broken concrete. “I think … these were pillars. This was a temple, sort of like the ancient temples in Rome.”
I rubbed my cold hands together. “I guess this is the ritual location, then. The hidden room is underneath this, according to Eterran.”
In unison, Aaron and I peered around.
“Well,” he muttered, “this might be difficult.”
“There’s got to be a way in that doesn’t involve digging.” I walked onto the flat, round floor. “Maybe if I step in the right spot, I can trigger a door.”
“Or a booby trap.”
Wishing Eterran had given me better instructions, I wandered across the disc-like platform. Was this where Ezra had been turned into a demon mage at fourteen?
“Tori … look.”
He was pointing at my footprints in the snow. Where my boots had uncovered the floor, dark lines crossed the stone. Using one foot, I swept a larger patch of snow aside, then squatted to touch one of the black markings.
“Silver,” I realized. “It’s tarnished silver inlay.”
I started back toward Aaron, tapping on the pouch at the small of my back. With a rush of pale light, Hoshi uncoiled from the pouch. Her eyes glowed with pink radiance as she swirled around me, sniffing at the crisp mountain air.
“Hoshi, could we get a little wind?” I waved at the snow-covered floor. “Can you blow this clean?”
Her fan-like wings snapped open and closed. Rising above me, she flicked her long tail back and forth.
A breeze stirred my hair—then a tornado-like gust blasted across the stone circle. The snow billowed upward, and as the wind died, it fluttered back to the ground twenty yards away.
Aaron stepped up beside me, and we studied the newly uncovered temple floor. The silver inlay marked three fifteen-foot-wide circles set in a triangle, each one adorned with spiraling lines, geometric shapes, and hundreds of runes. Some I vaguely recognized from glimpses of Arcana, while others were spiky, twisted, and oddly disturbing.
“The circles aren’t quite the same,” Aaron observed, voice hushed. “But they look a lot like summoning circles.”
“They seem completely untouched. Why is this the only place that isn’t damaged?”
“I don’t know, but leaving this intact can’t be a good idea. It—”
Beep beep beep!
Aaron and I whirled around as the noise reverberated through the valley. At the bottom of the hill, the SUV’s alarm blared, its lights flashing. Even from our high vantage point, I could see no sign of whatever had triggered the alarm.
I fumbled the keys out of my pocket and hit a button. As the vehicle went silent, I flicked a glance at Aaron.
Without a word, we both broke into a jog. Hoshi trailed after us as we ran down to level ground, adding another set of footprints to the snow. Ten feet from the SUV, I stopped. Aaron slid to a halt beside me.
“Uh.” I blinked a few times. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
Our SUV, which I distinctly remembered parking on a totally normal, flat patch of ground, was now sitting in a shallow grave. A perfect rectangle of earth had sunk two feet, taking our vehicle with it.
Swearing, Aaron swung Sharpie’s long black case off his shoulder and grabbed the zipper.
“Aaron?” I began. “What—”
The earth trembled, and the ground in front of me erupted.
Chapter Seven
A wall of earth shot upward, spraying me with dirt. I recoiled, arms shielding my face. The ground heaved as a tearing sound deafened me.
“Tori!” Aaron yelled.
I spun unsteadily and saw three more walls of dirt rising around us to form a prison.
With no time to get his sword out of its case, Aaron shoved the weapon into my hands and leaped at a wall as it surged past his head. He caught the top, heaved himself over it, and disappeared on the other side.
“Quick!” he called. “Throw me—”
A crack of breaking rock interrupted him, and he swore.
“Shit shit shit!” I panted, slinging the sword over my shoulder. I ran at the ten-foot wall and sprang upward. I grabbed the dirt top, but it crumbled under my fingers before I could pull myself up.
With a silvery flash, Hoshi appeared behind me. She grabbed my coat and hauled up, her tail lashing. I scrambled over and dropped, landing on my feet—only for the earth to shudder under me. A few yards away, Aaron yelped as the ground threw him.