Chapter 9 #2
Ten minutes later, then twenty, then what felt like approximately six hundred years later, the top hinge finally came loose. Then the middle. Then the bottom. My shoulders burned. Sweat dampened my sweater. My fingers hurt. But finally, very slowly, the heavy iron door shifted.
Then I reached out, and very carefully, I pulled.
Iron groaned. Metal scraped stone. Slow. Painfully slow. But enough. Enough.
A gap.
“I’m going first,” I whispered and Iris gave me an encouraging nod.
I turned sideways. One shoulder. Then another. My sweater caught.
“Damnit,” I hissed. One final shove and suddenly I stumbled forward into the corridor.
Freedom. Cold prison air never smelled so good. Not really, but you get the point.
I spun around. “Okay,” I whispered. “Your turn.”
Iris stared at the opening. “Here I go.” Slowly, awkwardly, and slightly less gracefully than she’d probably prefer admitting, Iris squeezed through, her bag with Doris pulling out last.
We both froze, listening. Nothing. No guards. No footsteps. No giant prison werebear mountain men.
Just silence.
I looked down the corridor stretching toward the front section of Grimway. “Okay, then,” I whispered.
“What now?” asked Iris quietly.
I swallowed. “Now,” I said softly, “we find the front entrance and try very hard not to get caught.”
Because Grimway had already trapped us once. I really didn’t want to give it a second chance.
“This way,” I told her, remembering how the guards led us here.
Together we moved down the dark, slippery corridor. I kept my focus forward and did my best not to peek into the other cells, at the miserable inmates that were all left here to die.
Which naturally meant my eyes betrayed me.
Because apparently survival instincts and curiosity had formed some kind of toxic workplace relationship inside my brain years ago.
A low growl rolled from one of the cells.
I kept walking.
Another sound drifted out farther down—crying, soft and broken.
Cold stone stretched endlessly around us, lanterns burning softly overhead.
The deeper prison smell had faded slightly back here.
Less damp rot. More old stone and ancient magic.
The oppressive feeling still sat heavily on my shoulders, though.
Grimway didn’t just hold prisoners. It swallowed people. Swallowed pieces of them.
Hope. Magic. Time.
“Do you think Marcus felt like this?” I asked quietly.
“When he was here?”
“Yeah.”
Iris was quiet for a second. “Yes.”
That answer sat badly inside my chest because Marcus never talked about Grimway after the breakout. Not really. Just bits and pieces. But not details. Not what it felt like.
A metallic scraping noise echoed somewhere behind us.
Both Iris and I froze instantly.
“Tell me that was prison plumbing,” I whispered.
“Not sure.”
A soft voice drifted from one of the cells. “Help me…”
My entire body locked instantly. I knew horror movies. I knew creepy prisons. I knew magical nonsense.
“Keep walking,” Iris said quietly.
“I’m walking.”
We moved faster after that. Much faster. Eventually the prison corridors started changing. Containment disappeared behind us.
“Where are the guards?” asked Iris next to me.
I glanced around. “No idea.” Was it strange that no guards were here? Maybe. Did I care? Not one bit.
Then… I saw it.
“Wait,” I whispered.
Iris stopped. “What?”
Straight ahead, half hidden behind thick iron support columns, blue runes were glowing softly beneath an entrance arch. Prison wards. And an entrance to…
My pulse jumped. “Over there. Wards.”
Iris followed my gaze. “Yes. I see them too.”
“Let’s go.” I started moving. And then faster when I heard Iris running behind me. Cold air wrapped tighter around us. Ancient magic pulsed stronger.
We slipped inside.
The chamber was enormous, probably stretching the entire length of Grimway. Ancient stone walls carved completely top to bottom in glowing runes. Blue. Silver. White. Thousands. Maybe more. Magic moved through them alive and flowing.
My skin erupted in goosebumps as the energy of this place draped around me. Massive iron mechanisms had been built directly into the stone itself. Thick enchanted chains disappeared upward through the ceiling.
Old instruments. Old magic. The prison systems.
The ward controls.
Iris slowly turned. “They built the wards here.”
“Yeah.” I nodded, moving closer toward the wall.
I spotted levers and mechanisms with glowing magical pressure systems. It all looked complicated. Very complicated. Something Dolores would understand since she excelled in this type of magical patterns and structures.
Me? I was just going to wing it.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Iris asked, looking around, and I could tell by the curious gleam in her eye that she wanted to touch the wall but knew better not to.
“No,” I told her. “But I have a feeling.”
“A feeling?” Iris smiled. “I knew coming with you would be an adventure.”
“Correct.” My fingers wrapped around one of the iron controls as cold bit into my palm. “Here we go.”
I took a breath… and I pulled.
Nothing happened.
“Good start.”
Iris nodded in encouragement. “Quiet.”
I pulled harder.
Still nothing.
“Maybe it pushes,” Iris said.
Right. Putting all my weight into it, and I was a heavy lady, I shoved.
The mechanism groaned. Deep. Stone shifted somewhere overhead. Magic flickered as a current moved around us, lifting my hair and pulling at my clothes. Blue light pulsed.
Then half the runes dimmed.
“Tessa, look,” said Iris, pointing at the wall. “It worked.”
Suddenly, the pressure in the chamber changed. The prison magic pressing down around us weakened. I didn’t turn off all the wards, but hopefully I dimmed enough to be able to get the hell out.
Voices reached me, low and grumpy, guard-like voices.
“Damnit,” I hissed. “That came from outside this chamber. We’ll never make it to the front door. I’ll have to try and tap a ley line from here.”
Iris’s face turned serious, and I could tell she was frightened. “Think it will work?”
“Yes.” No. But I was going to try like hell.
Focused, I reached out and searched for a ley line, any ley line, thin or small, I didn’t care. Just one. I only needed one.
I reached deeper, searching and feeling, past Grimway, past the crushing weight of the prison wards pressing against everything magical inside this place.
Normally ley lines felt alive when I touched them, warm and humming beneath my magic like plucking a taut wire buried under the world itself.
They were ancient, powerful, familiar. Something that recognized me as much as I recognized it.
Nothing.
I pushed harder.
A flicker. Something. Tiny.
There.
My pulse jumped.
I felt it. Just barely. Like fingertips brushing something just out of reach.
I grabbed for it.
And missed.
The feeling slipped away instantly.
Gone.
Damnit.
Magic stirred uselessly beneath my skin, feeling wrong and blocked, like Grimway itself had wrapped both hands around my magic and squeezed.
No. The ley line was there. I knew it. I could feel the edge of it brushing against my Nexari magic. Close enough to touch. Too far to hold.
Panic started creeping higher into my chest, cold and ugly, telling me my super plan was about to fail in a very big way.
The voices were louder, closer.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Tessa…”
“It’s going to work.” I pulled everything I had. Every ounce. Every cell in my being. Every piece. Every scrap of magical mojo I had inside of me… and shoved.
Pain flashed through my chest.
And then, space split, like reality itself had simply opened.
Red and black light twisted into darkness, wind, and ancient magic.
This was not ley line magic, or from the prison.
This was something else.
A circular shimmering opening floated three feet off the ground.
It looked like a Rift but different.
“What is this?” I whispered.
Iris stepped forward. “It’s a portal.” She inspected it and then looked back at me before adding, “You just opened a portal.”
Well, butter my wand and call me confused.