Taking power from this pool disturbed it a little, leaving ripples as she touched it, and she waited, heart in her throat, for retribution, or at least alarm. But nothing came. So, while the little lizard waited (patiently? Impatiently? She couldn’t tell), she followed Aunt Jinny’s instructions for molding the power into a ball between her hands, then sketched the glyph for “light” over it.

It didn’t blaze up—she’d taken care not to have it do that, because the last thing she wanted to do was to blind herself in here. Instead it increased in brightness slowly, hovering in the air just above the lizard, until she could see the area around the critter clearly. Clearly enough not to fall in a hole, or trip over something, anyway.

She waited again, but there was still no sign that anything or anyone cared that she had helped herself to power. With a sigh, she addressed the lizard.

“Can y’all take me t’ the Queen? Or if she ain’t here, t’ Josh? But y’all gotter go slow. I ain’t so spry in th’ dark as y’all are.”

The lizard skittered off, ball of light following along above its head.

She followed, picking her way carefully. It was warmer in here than it was outside, except for the cave floor. In no time at all, her feet, which had warmed up enough buried in Bear’s fur to be comfortable, were aching with cold again.

The walls of this cave were close enough to touch, so she did, steadying herself as she picked her way carefully along the rocky floor. At first, it had been dirt, littered with small rocks, but the deeper they went, the more the floor changed. First came the dirt and rocks, then mud and rocks, then mud, and now she walked on smooth rock, as if it had been polished by water. And then there were little puddles. Everywhere, she heard the sound of dripping water.

Then the walls pulled away from each other. She kept her hand on the left one as long as she could, but the lizard wasn’t obliging her; it kept taking a path that led away from the walls. And far too soon for her liking, she couldn’t even see the walls, nor the ceiling. Not without increasing the brightness of her guide.

“Wait a minnut, please,” she told the lizard, which obligingly paused. She raised the ball of light up above her head and increased the brightness. And gasped.

She found herself somewhere in a vast cavern, with a ceiling and walls and floor that looked as if the stone had liquefied and then become solid again, but not before it had formed pillars and gigantic wax-like drips. Or perhaps the structures were more like stone icicles. She couldn’t make up her mind, and the sight momentarily drove all of her fear and sadness from her. Pa surely had never described anything like this. Perhaps neither he nor the other miners at the Soddy mine had ever seen anything like this.