“It’s … it’s worried,” she said, turning to the others. “About us.”

Hypnos blinked, then threw up his hands. “Am I flattered? Disturbed? Both?”

Slowly, light gleamed across the rocky surface. It was nothing at all like the suffusion of translucence and amber they had glimpsed while they ran from the false sirens of the lake, but more like a vein of unexpected gold shimmering roughly six meters up from the ground.

The light zigged and zagged across the rock, illuminating a string of letters.

Δώρο των θεών

“To dóro ton theón,” translated Enrique aloud. “The … gift … of gods?”

“The gods gifted us a rock wall?” asked Hypnos.

Séverin ignored him. “What did the gods gift humans? Earth, perhaps?”

Enrique knelt, scooping some of the silt into his hands. He flung it onto the rock. Nothing changed.

“Fire?” said Hypnos. “That was Prometheus’s gift to humans, was it not?”

“The wall is fire resistant,” said Zofia. “I’m sure about that.”

“Maybe there’s another clue along the wall?” asked Enrique.

“We can split up and look,” said Séverin. “Our torches don’t carry very far. If you see something, call out. I’ll stay here and see if anything else appears beside the writing.”

Laila nodded. “I’ll take the left side.”

Enrique and Zofia set off to explore the wall on the right, and Hypnos jogged after them, a bright bouncing beam in the dark.

Laila had barely moved six meters when a painful twinge in her ankle made her slip. She flung out her hand, catching herself on one of the jagged rocks and wincing. An ache flared behind her ribs, and Laila dimly recalled Séverin elbowing her out of the way of a grasping, skeletal hand as they fled to the bridge. She hadn’t felt it then, but she did now.

More aches dribbled slowly through her senses, setting her teeth on edge. She took a few more steps before pain shot through her ankle once more. This time when she slipped, it was not the rocks that caught her, but Séverin.

“What aren’t you telling me?” asked Séverin, his voice low and dark.

“God!” yelped Laila in alarm, spinning out of his grip.

Her lantern light caught his smirk. “Not yet.”

“How very charming and blasphemous, now excuse me—”

“What are you hiding from me?”

“It’s nothing—”

Séverin blocked her. “Haven’t we played that game enough times?”

Laila bit her lip, hard. Too hard. At once, the feeling of numbness eased away. Once more, her eyes could pick out the plum and scarlet colors in the dark stones of the cave wall. She could smell the lake water, the cloying earth, taste the metal sweetness of her own blood on her tongue. Slicing through all of it, Séverin’s presence. He smelled of smoke and cloves, and he stood before her, half-haloed in the light, expectant and victorious as a king. It was no different from that night in the mascherari, when his touch had returned her to herself and his smile had been so smug. As if he already knew that only he could have this effect.