41. Chapter 40
Thanks to Rhea’s cloaking spell, they were able to sneak into the exam hall undetected. However, they had to break the lock on the door since any spell the rest of them tried failed.
“Maybe we should’ve gone for a window,” Liam muttered.
Maeve sighed. “And where would that have brought us? There are windows on the outside of the building, but none in the exam rooms. We should try to find a different way out in case security does a sweep past the building.”
They moved quietly through the building to the same room they had been in during the last exam.
The door Ivy had found last time didn’t reveal itself right away, but she remembered its general location.
She knocked a few times along the wall, trying to spot the difference in thickness.
When the sound came back solid, the four of them pressed their weight against it.
The door fell open, causing them to tumble inside.
Like last month, the hallway was dark, narrow, and musty. When Ivy called to her light, an old outline of a mix of footprints beneath a layer of dust was revealed. She led the group down the stairs until they reached the wooden door at the bottom.
“Ready?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Maeve said, taking a deep breath as she stepped next to her. Liam, Ezra, and Rhea all stood behind them and nodded once. She opened the door slowly, and it creaked loudly on its hinges.
Like before, when they stepped in, whispers of ghosts surrounded them. Maeve clutched to her side and linked their arms, while Ezra’s magic wrapped around her protectively. Unlike last time, the voices were garbled and speaking over each other, and they couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“This is…” Liam said, his voice full of wonder.
“Creepy?” Rhea filled in.
“Haunted?” Maeve added.
“No,” he said. “Well, yes, obviously haunted. It’s like stepping back into a dark time. The energy in here is heavy.” He slipped to the front and went over to a painting coated in dust. He grabbed his jacket sleeve and wiped away some of it to reveal a portrait of an older man.
Ivy brought her light closer to the painting, and her eyes widened in recognition. “That’s the man we saw here last time. The ghost.”
Liam wiped the bottom of the frame and a small, faded silver placard.
Evera— —rson
GATEK—
“I can’t read what it says,” Ivy said.
“I know it,” Liam said. “Everard Grayson. He was one of the first gatekeepers.”
Ivy stumbled back. “If he’s here, that must mean…” There was a gate to the Nether somewhere beneath Arcania. It couldn’t be true, could it? A cold sweat coated her body, and she leaned back against Maeve and Ezra.
As if saying the name out loud had summoned him. Chains dragged against the old hardwood floor, and the ghost of Everard Grayson glided down the hallway toward them.
“Must protect it…must protect…protect the door….protect the gate.”
Ivy prepared to be blown out of the room again, but Liam stepped forward. “Everard Grayson, most revered gatekeeper of our world. I ask you to grant us passage through these halls.”
The ghost stopped and stared at him curiously. “Who are you and why do you come to these fine halls of Arcania?”
“My name is Liam Price.” He placed his hand on his chest before gesturing to the rest of them. “Behind me are Ivy Heartwell, Ezra Thaler, Rhea Li, and Maeve Amerie-Scott. We’re all students here.”
“You cannot be here. Too dangerous. Must protect the door.”
“And you are protecting the door,” Liam reassured. “All we are looking for is Ivy’s friend. We believe she may have gotten lost here.”
“Many are lost down here. Many have not made it out.”
The ghosts they couldn’t see chatted around them again, as if to solidify Everard’s point.
“And we are trying to make sure they make it out,” Liam said, taking a step forward. He reached his hand out toward Everard. “Please, I beg of you to let us pass, and should we come across the gate, we will leave it be.”
Silence stretched between them. Even the other ghosts were quiet, as if waiting for Everard to decide. His pale white eyes shifted between the group as he floated closer.
“I see your intentions,” Everard spoke. “And it is as you say. You shall not disturb the gate today. You may pass.”
“Thank you,” Liam said, his body sagging with relief. They moved closer to Liam as they continued through the hall, passing by Everard, who continued to watch them carefully.
“Be warned. Magic lingers in these walls, and it may not be as welcoming as I.”
They continued through the hall quietly, staying aware of their surroundings, until they reached another set of stairs. When they stepped out onto the top of the landing, Ivy peered over the ledge and swallowed roughly as the stairs descended into total darkness.
“How far do you think these go?” Maeve croaked.
Ivy let the ball of light fall from her hand and over the edge of the railing.
She watched it fall quickly past at least eight floors until it finally stopped.
Eight floors wasn’t bad…above ground. Below?
She swallowed roughly as she tried to avoid the thought of being crushed under a mountain of rock and dirt.
“Far,” she said.
“We don’t have to go all the way down,” Rhea said. “If we’re trying to find Briar, we have no idea where she could be in here, and this could stretch on for miles.”
Her heart sank into her stomach. They should’ve tried harder to find information about this place before coming.
Maybe they should’ve broken into the dean’s office again, or the archives, or literally anywhere else other than a secret underground building that could trap them for who knows how long.
“When you got lost during one of the exams last year, did you recall anything like this?” Ivy asked her, pushing back from the railing.
Rhea shook her head. “No, I definitely would’ve remembered this place if I did.”
“We should go into the first door we come across,” Ezra said definitively. “Search what’s inside, move on and get through as many as we can. If we find a different way out, we can come back that way another night.”
“Better than going all the way to the bottom,” Maeve said, wrapping her arms around her torso.
They went down two flights of stairs before coming across the first door. It was a simple wooden door, like the one leading to the hall above. Ezra reached for the handle, opening it to reveal a large, plain room. Similar to one of the exam rooms in the building above ground.
As they entered, the door shut behind them with a soft thud, and the giant draperies on the sides dropped to the floor, revealing large tracery windows with sharp points.
Artificial moonlight filtered into the room, and glass clinked and echoed as mirrors shimmered into existence all around them.
They dangled from the ceiling in various shapes and sizes, reflecting the moonlight across the room and creating pockets of shadow and light.
The walls, the floor, and the windows all transformed into mirrors as well.
Instead of clear reflections, it only showed hazy figures.
Ivy gasped as a giant golden mirror appeared in the center of the room.
And despite them standing about ten feet away from it, none of their reflections showed in the glass.
“Welcome to the Hall of Mirrors,” an ethereal voice echoed in the room.
“You will not face monsters, solve puzzles, or escape death in this room. But something much more dangerous. Each of you must face the worst versions of yourselves that exist in your soul, waiting to be acknowledged, to be known.”
“It’s an anomaly,” Ezra muttered. A clock chimed loudly from somewhere in the room, echoing off the walls and shaking the mirrors.
“Or an impromptu exam.” Ivy swallowed roughly. She couldn’t be sure what the worst part of herself could be. What if it were the night of the ritual? She glanced to where her nails bit into the scar on her hand. How could she face something she had no memory of yet?
“Liam Price, stand before the mirror to acknowledge your true self.”
“You can do it, Liam,” Ivy said as he cautiously approached the mirror, his shoulders rising and falling with a heavy breath.
His reflection showed in every mirror in the room.
Except it wasn’t quite him. A shimmering glow clung to his figure, and his eyes were pitch-black.
Even the whites of them were darker than any shade humanly possible.
But every other detail was exact: his short afro, the stubble along his chin, and the puffy black winter jacket with the bright yellow zipper he wore.
“There you are,” his reflection said. Its voice was identical to Liam’s own, and a shiver rushed down her spine as she watched his shoulders stiffen. “You disgrace.”
“Wh-what?” Liam sputtered.
“You think you can fly over three thousand miles from home to fix what you did?”
His foot fell back, as if he were taken by surprise by the words. “All I can do is try.”
“Your sister is dead,” the reflection spat, anger lining its face in the glass. “And you were there, frozen. You couldn’t even call the emergency line before she stopped breathing.”
“I…I didn’t know what to do. I—”
“She could’ve lived. She could be living the life she wanted if you’d only called the number after the drunk driver sent you off the road.”
“I know!” Liam cried out, his voice sharp as his hands clenched into fists. “It’s my fault. It’s why I’m at this fucking school!”
“Ah, that’s right. You want to search for her soul in the sea of the dead and wrench her back to life, even if it means grasping for a power that nearly broke the world.”
Silence fell upon the room. Liam’s reflection stared at him as it paced from glass to glass, creating a dizzying illusion.
“It wouldn’t,” Liam mumbled. “Necromancers do it all the time.”