I turned around. She was a couple of feet behind me, standing inches from where I’d just stepped. “That would be weird, but anything is possible at this point.”

She was staring down as she slowly lifted one foot and then the other.

“You find something?” Roth was heading back to us.

“I don’t know. The ground feels weird here.”

“Like it’s mushy?” When she nodded, I lifted my hands. “You should probably move. That’s what the ground felt like where I fell.”

Layla knelt and placed her hands on the lawn. Without any effort, she lifted clumps of grass. “Yeah, I think the hole totally closed back up.”

“Then you should definitely move,” Zayne advised, coming to stand by me.

“We need to get down there, right?” She lifted her chin. “Unless any of you know a close entrance to the tunnels.”

We looked at Roth.

“I know of no entrances nearby.”

“Then we’ve got to go down this way.” Layla rose.

“What are you going to do?” Zayne asked. “Jump into the ground?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Shortie,” Roth began. “I do not think that would be wise.”

“How far do you think the drop was?” Layla asked, and I told her. “That’s not bad. I mean, I’ll know it’s coming, so I can brace.”

“You’re really just going to jump up and down?” Zayne looked at Roth like he expected the demon to intervene.

Layla did just that. She jumped. “Yeah.”

“Uh...” I wondered what the four of us must look like to passersby as Layla jumped again.

“Oh. Wait. The ground is getting more mushy.” She looked at Roth and jumped again. “I think I—” She disappeared before Roth could intervene, sucked into the Earth.

“Well,” I said. “Not like anyone didn’t say that was a bad idea.”

Roth dropped to his knees by the hole. “Layla? You okay?”

Silence and then came her muffled response. “Totally worked!” A pause. “And that was maybe a couple feet more than you estimated, Trinity.”

I raised my hands.

“It’s cold down here and really dark,” she said. “I can barely see anything, but it’s definitely a tunnel.”

“Move back,” Roth called. “I’m coming down.”

Zayne and I watched him slip into the hole and when we heard the thump of his landing, we looked at each other.

“They’re your friends,” I told him.

He chuckled as he walked forward and stopped at the hole, holding out his hand. “Let me get you down there.”

I shot him a look. “I can make the jump now that I’m prepared for it.”

“I know you normally can,” he said. “But you promised to take it easy, and taking it easy isn’t jumping down ten feet.”

I opened my mouth.

“And you were limping.”

“Was not!”

“You were,” he argued. “A little. I saw you.”