Surprise and alarm play over the sea of faces. A few mutters of protest. “Again, I apologize for the disturbance and inconvenience,” I say. I try to imagine what Marcus would say if he were here. “But I know it won’t stop us from having an, um, festive and productive summit to celebrate the unity of the Realms.”
If Marcus said that line, people would cheer, but no one does now. Heat stains my cheeks as I stammer a thank-you and sit down. Maybe people are hungover from the opening celebrations, or tired from being woken up by screaming the night before. I’ll tell myself that.
After breakfast, the five of us from last night—Graylin, Willow, Sal, the Silver Prince, and myself—head back down to the tunnels to try to figure out how to close the door. Everyone is jittery. Graylin is tense, clearly anxious to return to Marcus’s side even though he checked on his husband over breakfast, Willow wrings her hands, and Sal’s jaw is set grimly. My palms are sweaty, my stomach set to a low, constant churn. No daylight reaches down here, and I feel like we’re walking back into last night in all its terror.
Once again, the Silver Prince is the only one who seems calm, and I can’t help but marvel at his easy, unconcerned stride as he walks ahead of me into darkness. A long, slender sword hangs at his side, the jeweled handle catching the lamplight. The rest of us have weapons too: Sal has two pistols holstered in his belt, Graylin and I have daggers, and Willow has her weather magic and knife. Sal’s guards—three guys and one lady, all burly and dressed in black—are stationed at the juncture, but nod at Sal and part to let us through. I wonder what they think about all this. They most likely have never seen a Solarian before—as far as I know, the attack on my family was the only sighting of one on Earth for the last thirty years or so. I wonder if that would be better or worse, not to know what the monsters look like.
We continue past the juncture and into the Solarian tunnel, the stone all around us seeming to swallow the sound of our footsteps. The lamps have been relit, and Sal and Graylin carry flashlights, but it still feels too dark. Like the dark itself is alive, shifting and growing around us. Too soon we come to the end and are faced with the Solarian door, the crack in the stone with shadows swarming inside.
Is it just me, or has it gotten wider? Trying to look brave in the hopes that it’ll make me feel brave, I step up and put my hands to the stone on either side of the opening.
Graylin’s breath catches. “Maddie …” He takes a stride forward, but nothing happens, and he doesn’t pull me away. A moment passes in tense silence. The stone is cold and seems to vibrate very slightly, though it might just be my imagination.
“Can we just push the stone shut?” Willow asks, her voice hesitant. “It seems almost too simple, but …” She trails off, looking to me. I shrug and step back. I have no idea where to start, and Willow’s idea seems as good as any other.
“Okay.” Now she approaches the doorway, eyes flickering over it like it’s a jigsaw puzzle or sudoku board. She glances at the Prince and addresses him politely. “What is your gift, Your Highness?”
I blink and make a mental note to ask Willow later—have I been meant to address him like that all along?
He glides toward the door. “Fire.” He traces long, faintly metallic fingers over the jagged crack.
“Mine is earth,” Willow says. “If I push the stone on either side together, can you melt it and create a seam?”
Graylin and I retreat, exchanging curious glances as Willow and the Silver Prince take their places. The air shimmers around them, gathering magic. Her raised hands are steady as a statue. She closes her eyes and breathes out and something seems to swirl in the tunnel, intangible but raising goose bumps on my arms. There’s an ominous creak from the stone in front of us, but then the cracked wall seems to grow, stretching like a linen cloth being pulled at from both sides. The faint hissing sound coming from the crack to Solaria dies in the grinding of stone against stone, and the shadows disappear from view.
Next, the Silver Prince advances, the air above his palms shimmering with heat, like a highway at noon in the dead of summer. I feel the warmth against my face as he runs his hands down the seam, and where his hands touch, the stone glows orange and sags down. Melting, sealing off the crack. He goes all the way down to the floor, crouching to reach, then straightens and steps back as the stone hardens and cools.
For a moment, I don’t think any of us breathe.
Then there’s a grumbling, cracking, spitting noise, and the floor beneath us trembles as the wall is wrenched back open. Bits of stone, still hot and smoking, tumble to the floor and scatter. One burning pebble glances off my calf, but I scarcely feel the pain underneath the horror.
Because the opening to Solaria is still there, and it’s wider.
After we part—Graylin to sit with Marcus, Willow to the library to find anything that might be helpful, the Silver Prince to I don’t know where—I walk outside, needing to clear my head.
This wasn’t how day two of my summer was supposed to go. On our way out to the hayloft last night, Brekken and I made enough wild plans to carry us through the summit. We’d hike to the very top of the tallest of Haven’s surrounding mountains and go sledding in June. We’d go riding in the wildflower fields outside town. We’d break into the wine cellar and drink on the roof, under the stars.
Instead, I have half an hour between this and the next meeting I need to go to, a negotiation between Lady Mima of Byrn and Saber Cancarnette of Fiordenkill, who will barter for jewels in the observatory. At two, food merchants from all worlds will show their wares in the dining room. At four, weather permitting, clothiers will have an exhibition on the lawn. I go over the schedule like a mantra, using it to keep away all other thoughts about how woefully unprepared I am.
After we left the tunnels, it was all I could do to keep my face neutral, much less contribute. The Silver Prince offered to set up a barrier of Byrnisian weather magic ringing the grounds, and he gave me a bracelet of polished crystal to wear around my wrist that would counteract it, letting me—only me—come and go freely. I don’t like its weight on my wrist, don’t like the feeling that anyone should be stuck here. But for all we know, more Solarians could have gotten out last night. It’s not safe for delegates to be wandering around the woods or into town.
Of course, there’s an even worse possibility—that if more Solarians have escaped, they won’t stay on the grounds at all but slip down the mountain to hunt and destroy human families like mine. But there’s nothing I can do about that possibility, except work to seal the door as soon as possible. There must be a way hinted at somewhere in the massive library, and if anyone can connect the dots, it’s Graylin and Willow. I need to keep everyone calm in the meantime and hope that the beast the Silver Prince killed was the only one that got through.
I head outside and to the stables. It’s the start of a summer day so beautiful it feels treacherous, the sun casting down gentle warmth from a glazed blue sky, the scent of pine drifting on the breeze, one big pretty lie trying to tell me everything is okay. My mind and heart won’t stop racing. I want to run, to burn off some of this jittery excess energy, but even with the bracelet, I can’t leave now. What would that look like to the delegates, that I run at the first sign of trouble?