Behind him, Henry heard what might have been a muffled laugh coming from Coralis. “It’s good to keep him on his toes,” he said directly into Henry’s mind.

Henry wasn’t too sure about that. He liked the old man and wanted to show respect. He cursed the residual moonbeam that would not let go, and swore to himself to fight against it.

They walked a great distance. If there were any twists or turns in the tunnel, they were so gradual that they were imperceptible. Occasionally, Joseph muttered words in a language unfamiliar to Henry.

Time seemed to slow down—their steady pace might have taken them miles before they came to the end. A solid wall blocked their path and Joseph knelt. He began to hum, then chant to a rhythm that sang to the earth. Coralis and Grandma Gailene stood to either side of Henry, each taking a hand and gently squeezing. Joseph’s voice rose in volume, the chant assuming a sense of urgency.

Then it abruptly stopped.

He picked up a twig—an item out of place on the otherwise bare ground. He stood and touched the twig to four points on the stone wall, the outline of a door that silently opened outward.

Despite all that Henry had seen over the past weeks, he gasped.

Joseph beckoned him to enter. “Come and meet our allies, my son.”

The labor was exhausting but Markhor found his rhythm. As did Dai She. By the time he had extracted the next crystal from the chamber, Dai She had transformed the previous one into a perfect glasslike pillar. With great relief, he hauled the final crystal to the mouth of the cave. What appeared to be one last obstacle was quickly overcome when Dai She used a wand to melt a hole through the pavement so the crystal could be mounted into the earth beneath it.

Markhor wiped the sweat from his forehead, so physically spent that he momentarily lost his concentration, revealing his true self. He looked upon Dai She with a mixture of pride and regret. A split second before Dai She looked up, he regained his composure, but Dai She had noticed something.

“What was that?” he snapped.

“What was what?” Markhor asked innocently.

“Your face,” he said suspiciously. “For just a second—”

“We are both exhausted,” Markhor interrupted. “I suggest we get some rest. No point in going through all this work only to make a careless mistake from lack of sleep.”

Dai She continued to stare untrustingly at him.

“If you’re seeing things that aren’t there, perhaps you are already too tired.”