He shoved the tray aside and all but leapt up out of bed. “The sooner the better,” he said. “How should I dress? Just in case we run into someone unexpected.”

“This one will attend to that.” Star went to the wardrobe.

Soon he stood in front of the Portal, impatiently waiting for Star and the Record Keeper to gain access for them to this oh-so-mysterious place. Evidently not all Dolls were allowed access to it, which only made his curiosity itch the more.

Finally, Star signaled to him to hold up his bracelet to the Portal and say the words, “The Chamber of the Beast.”

The . . . Beast?

Too late now. He stepped through, into blazing red light and heat.

And realized immediately why the Record Keeper had been so reluctant to try to describe what was here.

Just to begin with, there was so much raw magic power in here that it almost scorched him until he shielded from it, and it took him longer than he liked to establish enough shielding that he was able to actually look at what he’d been brought to see.

Then, three more things had to be sorted through before he could make out anything.

The first was an ululating sound, but deep and sonorous, more felt than heard. He couldn’t figure out what it was, so finally he dismissed it to go on to the next thing standing between himself and understanding.

The second was the heat. Whatever was in the center of that room dumped heat like a young sun. In fact, it was probably the heat source that kept the entire Palace warm in the winter, provided the hot water for baths and the like, and provided cooking heat to boot. That was confirmed when he saw what could only be water-filled pipes lining all the walls of this chamber. Pumps powered by magic brought in cold water and took away hot water on a grand scale.

Then, the wards and spells guarding and binding what was in the center of the room created a kind of cage it was difficult to see through. Even with his physical eyes. There was so much power in here, with the spells that contained the mysterious object feeding on the power that the thing gave off, that, like in the cellars of Valdemar Manor, the spell-lines actually glowed physically.

So did the chained rune-plaques that surrounded it. He recognized what they were doing: they were binding something in place, but also hiding it, so that no one who was not physically in this room would be able to scry it, detect it, or see it in any manner.

Why?

But then he finally made it out.

And he couldn’t understand what he was seeing.

“This makes no sense to me,” he said aloud. “What is this thing? It looks like a lump of rock.”