But the frigid water already had a taste of his blood, and the lake pulled at him greedily, lapping against him and rocking him away from its shore. Broomstick took a last breath before the milky white clouded his vision, and then he gave in to the water’s embrace.

Chapter Thirty

Sora tumbled through the trap door. She’d meant to swim, but the water stopped abruptly at the threshold, as if held back by an invisible barrier. She scraped her hands and knees on the gravel floor, and she filled her lungs with warm, humid air almost too thick to breathe.

When her lungs had stopped aching from being so close to oxygenless, Sora took in her new surroundings. The tiny room was made of solid mud walls that led nowhere. A dead end.

Sora chewed on her lip. Had Liga been wrong? What if this wasn’t where Zomuri kept his treasure?

But it had to be. The Lake of Nightmares hadn’t been created for no reason.

Maybe this was another defense? It could be another ruse. After the lake, Sora should’ve known better than to believe the first thing she saw.

She walked up to the mud wall opposite the trap door and pushed. It was solid and left a reddish-brown smear on her palms.

“I refuse to believe it,” she said to the room. “You’re just showing me my worst fear, that I’ve come all this way for nothing.”

The walls throbbed, just barely, under her touch.

Aha. This really was more than it first appeared.

She took a few steps back, ran toward the wall, jumped, and kicked.

Her leg smashed through the mud. The facade of the cramped, empty room shriveled away as suddenly as a popped balloon.

Instead, Sora found herself in a vast space where every inch of the walls and ceiling was studded with rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. The ground was over four feet deep in gold coins and other trinkets, like small statues carved of flawless marble, crowns of filigreed platinum, and necklaces spilling out of suede satchels, all of it tossed haphazardly among the gold as if it were inconsequential. Which it probably was to Zomuri. He had enough treasure here to buy the world a million times over, and what did he even need it for? He was a god. He was hoarding for hoarding’s sake.

“How am I supposed to find a single gold pearl in here?” She couldn’t dig through all the treasure in the vault. It would take forever, not to mention the fact that she didn’t have anywhere to put what she’d already sorted through. There were so many riches in here, as soon as she dug a hole, more gold and jewels would cave in to fill the empty space. She wouldn’t be able to separate it to keep it straight.