“I don’t know,” Bailey said, her voice echoing off the walls. “It’s probably just some story they made up to scare us. I bet Evelyn Waters wasn’t even a Raven.”
“She was,” said Sonali, so quietly Vivi almost didn’t hear it. “My mother knew her. She really did go missing.”
No one responded to that. The only sounds were their uneven breathing and a steady drip-drip somewhere in the distance.
“Are we going to try and find our way out, or are we going to stand here all night?” Ariana asked finally.
“It’d be helpful to see where we’re going,” Vivi said. “I suppose no one has a candle we can try to light.”
“No, sorry, I left my candle collection in my other purse,” Reagan said.
“I might not need a candle,” Bailey said softly. “I’ve been practicing. Hold on.” There was a slight rustling and then she said, “I call to the Queen of Wands. Show me your might by giving us light.”
The last word had barely left her mouth when two glowing orange flames emerged in the darkness, hovering just above Bailey’s upturned palms.
“Nicely done,” Ariana said. “Do you have your cards on you?”
Bailey shook her head carefully, as if she were afraid of jostling the flames. “I guess the practice is paying off.”
“Does it hurt?” Sonali asked.
“No, not at all,” Bailey said, a note of surprise in her voice.
“It takes more than that to burn a witch,” Reagan said with a grin, conjuring a flame in each of her palms too.
The light from the four flames was just enough to form a small wavering circle around the pledges as they continued down the narrow staircase, brushing against the clammy stones that seemed to be closing in on them.
After what felt like ages, they reached the bottom of the stairs and found themselves facing a stone pillar carved with etching that looked like hieroglyphics. Beyond it, three paths branched out in different directions.
“I think it’s a glamour,” Sonali said, running her hand over the carvings. “Look, the symbols aren’t actually carved into the stone. It’s an illusion. These must be the clues Mei mentioned.”
Bailey stepped forward and raised her hands until the light from the flames reached the pillar. “They’re alchemical symbols.” She nodded at an upward-pointing arrow with a line through it. “That’s air. The downward-pointing arrow with the line through it to the left is earth. This bottom arrow is water, and the right-hand one is fire. We learned them in my History of Science class last year.”
“So what does it mean?” Ariana asked. “Are they directions?”
Sonali shook her head. “If this were a compass, then earth should be at the top, pointing north.”
Vivi held up the pendant Scarlett had given her. “Bailey, what’s this symbol?” she asked, pointing at a glyph that looked similar to the symbol for woman but with a crescent moon on top.
“I think that’s Mercury, but I have no idea what it means in this context.”
“What about something to do with Greek mythology?” Reagan suggested. “Maybe—” She stopped talking as a faint hiss filled the air, like distant rain falling. “What the hell is that?”
Vivi spun around to search for the source of the noise and felt her stomach plunge. One of the passageways had suddenly filled with churning water, and it was headed straight toward them. “Oh, shit,” she said, spinning on her heel and shoving her pledge mates forward. “Come on! We have to run. Now!”
The hissing sound grew into a roar as the water drew closer.
“Mercury was the winged messenger god,” Sonali said, panting. “The god of speed. The symbol was . . . telling . . . us . . . to . . . move.”
Bailey’s and Reagan’s flames went out as they sprinted, returning the tunnel to pitch-darkness. Vivi stumbled on the uneven ground and her ankle rolled painfully. But then she felt the spray from the rushing water on the back of her neck, and a jolt of adrenaline surged through her. She kept running, trailing just behind the others, until Ariana’s cry rang out: “It’s blocked. There’s a wall.”
The five of them skidded to a halt. Vivi squeezed her eyes shut and braced for the slam of surging water, but just like that, the roaring noise went quiet, and the water began to recede like hunting dogs called to heel. The damp still hung in the air, but now the tunnels stood silent.
Vivi took slow breaths through her nose, trying to calm her racing heart. There had to be some way back to Kappa that didn’t involve swimming across an underground river. “Does anyone know a locator spell?”
“There’s a spell to find the owner of an object,” Sonali said, also breathing heavily. “We could use it on that necklace to find Scarlett, but it’s a major arcana spell. We’re not supposed to attempt those until we’re full Ravens and have the power of all four suits.”
“I’m for trying it,” Reagan said. “Anything beats standing around in the dark waiting for another sneak attack.”
“We’re doing it,” Ariana said firmly. “Sonali, tell us what we need to do.”
“First we need to join hands.” There was some shuffling as they all stumbled to find one another in the dark. Finally, they linked up. Vivi held Ariana’s and Bailey’s hands. “Vivi, do you have the necklace?”
“I’m wearing it.”
“Okay, everyone, repeat after me: ‘I call to the Hierophant and to the Star. We seek your wisdom to track from afar.’”
Vivi shut her eyes. “I call to the Hierophant and to the Star. We seek your wisdom to track from afar.” Her voice came out shaky, hesitant. But as the other girls took up the chant, she grew louder, surer. Before long, their voices echoed through the tunnels, the sound so rich and resonant, it seemed like the sleeping dead had joined the chorus.
“I call to the Hierophant and to the Star. We seek your wisdom to track from afar.”
At first, all Vivi felt was the tingling in her fingertips, the now-familiar sign of her own magic stirring. But a few seconds later, the pleasant buzz began to swell into something else. Painful jolts of electricity shot through her chest, and her blood pulsed so thick and fast, she thought her veins would explode. The ground began to rumble beneath their feet, shaking loose dust and debris from overhead.
“Vivi,” Ariana shouted. “Pull back. You’re giving the spell too much power.”
Vivi gritted her teeth and tried to imagine her magic receding, but it felt like attempting to restrain a tornado. “I can’t.” She gasped, struggling for air. The rumbling grew more violent, and larger rocks began to fall. Vivi tried to raise her hands to protect herself, but she couldn’t move her arms, not even as something cold and jagged scraped against the side of her face.
“You have to!” Sonali cried as the entire tunnel shook. “We’re going to be buried alive. Everyone else, keep chanting!”
Vivi clutched her friends’ hands tighter and pulled in as hard as she could, straining like she was trying to dead-lift a tanker truck. Just when she thought she was going to burst, the pressure in her limbs began to subside and the rumbling grew fainter.