“Don’t step on what?” Then Chase yelps, once he sees what I mean.

Hemslock and his men have set up explosives among the branches.

“He’s going to blow up the island if it won’t give him what he wants?” Chase asks shakily. “What’ll happen to the god if he does that?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.”

“I don’t see any other passageways beyond the one we just used. Did we miss something?”

I look past the dead body, into the darkness of the hollow. “No we didn’t.” I take out my machete and cut away the remains of the tree to widen the hole around it. Askal stays close to me, staring into the hole as if expecting something to attack us.

I see disturbed soil there, and something behind the corpse that is darker than the rest of the cave wall.

“What are you doing?” Chase asks worriedly when I step into the hollow, but I already see what I’ve been looking for.

“There’s another passage.” It’s wide enough, tall enough for a grown man to pass, and I have no doubt that this is where Hemslock and his men forced Leo Gries.

Chase pales a little, but squares his shoulders, resolute. “Okay. If that’s where we gotta go, that’s where we gotta go. Let’s find Dad and get out of here.”

The passageway is damp and smells faintly of mold, as if fresh air was a luxury it couldn’t afford. I forge ahead with Chase keeping close behind me, my steps sure despite the slippery stones. The tunnel is much more humid here, and it clings to our clothes.

I spot glows in a soft, subdued greenish light ahead, similar to the splay of lanterns the crew hung to illuminate the path between the cabins. But as we approach, I see that they are made of something else entirely.

The nebulous lights come from the hundreds of balete trees that surround us when we step into the new cavern. From the ends of their wizened branches hang strange cocoons wrapped in thick roots and held together by black sap, the resulting shape only barely human. The dim brightness is concentrated somewhere within those mummy-like forms; whatever they were pulses with quiet energy. Occasionally they rustle, as if there is something alive within.

We are careful to pick our way through the heavy roots, some of which are so massive they’ve broken through the cave rock. And we stare.

Before us lies the wreckage of an airplane, mangled and partly blackened by fire. Trails of smoke are still evident, rising from its remains.

Chase sinks to the ground, in disbelief. “No. How could the whole plane be—?”

There is no sign of Hemslock or his bodyguards, but Leo Gries is there. He digs frantically through the wreckage, heaving broken pieces of metal out of his way. “Elena!” He calls, grief-stricken, too caught up in his nightmare to hear us shouting for him.

Chase runs to his father. A thick trunk bursts up through the ground in front of him, blocking the path.