Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Edith stared up into the marble eyes of the statue and imagined that she could see a twinkle of pride, maybe even a little magic staring back at her.
She was so close now, and the anticipation had her fingers trembling as she reached over her shoulder to grab the staff.
This was not a difficult puzzle. She knew right away what needed to be done.
Merlin’s arm was half raised, and his hand was closed around nothing but air.
With a deep breath, she reunited Merlin with his staff. It fit perfectly in his hand and slotted into the notch at the base of the statue, inches from his carved marble shoe. There was a beat of silence, then a dull thunk shuddered through the walls of the tomb.
Edith took a step back as the section of the mural directly behind the statue began to lift from the floor. The wall rose into the ceiling, just like the portcullis had at Arthur’s Stone. Edith liked the symmetry of that. Their first foray into the quest, and now again at the very end.
Thomasin took Edith’s hand. Edith was grateful for the touch.
Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might grow wings and flutter away.
They stepped around the statue and through the newly revealed threshold.
Edith could tell Thomasin was also thinking of that portcullis, because she kept glancing back at the doorway, waiting for it to slam down and trap them inside. But it didn’t.
When Edith turned her gaze away from Thomasin, she gasped.
The walls were made of amethyst. Deep-purple chunks of crystal, with silvery lavender veins woven in.
Edith exhaled roughly, in awe of the sparkling beauty around them.
Her eyes traveled upward to the domed ceiling.
It was earthen, but so perfectly carved out that it was clearly man-made.
At the center of the room was a pedestal.
Upon it was a single lit torch that illuminated the room and cast a glittery glow across the amethyst spikes.
Edith took a step forward, her gaze locked on the only feature of the room beyond the crystal walls and the pedestal. Straight across from them, on the far side of the room, was a door.
“Door” seemed like too simple a word. It was white stone carved into a perfect circle.
The surface of it was a labyrinth of gears nestled among serpentine carvings.
Delicate lines that swirled like a rippling pond, with images and symbols also hiding within the tangled etchings.
There were dragons and swords. Castles and crowns. Cradles and graves.
If there were ever a door to another world, this was it.
Edith stepped up to it, scanning the masterpiece for any clue as to how to open it.
Right at the center, there was an empty space about the size of her palm.
In that circle, the stone had faded to more of a gray, rather than the pure white of the rest of the door.
It was clear that there was something missing, something that was supposed to slot into that space and connect the rest of the gears.
So Edith and Thomasin began their search.
They scoured the amethyst chamber.
And found nothing.
Thomasin tried to help. She joked and quipped and searched wherever Edith directed her to.
But hours passed, and Edith’s frustration simmered into desperation.
The damp chill seeped into her bones, and her stomach grumbled.
But every human need she had felt distant.
Her mind was too loud. The thud of her heart as she spiraled into panic was all she could hear.
This wasn’t like the other clues. All they had left was a sealed door, a missing piece, and a dead end.
There must have been an artifact; a key or a gear, or whatever was supposed to fit in that open space, that Edith had been supposed to collect earlier.
She must have missed something at one of the other sites.
“Edith, you need to take a break.” Thomasin’s voice drifted to her, echoey, as though it was traveling through one of the many tunnels they had traversed in the course of their quest. The meaning of her words was extraneous to Edith. She pretended she hadn’t heard Thomasin speak at all.
“Let’s head back up to the surface, get some fresh air. Seriously, we’re about to be in a reality in which I have to establish a pee corner, and I don’t think either one of us wants to live in that world,” Thomasin said with a grim laugh.
Edith ignored that too. Her focus was needed elsewhere.
She was running her pointer and index fingers along the spindly web of grooves and gears that made up the surface of the wretchedly locked door.
There had to be a pattern to them. A puzzle hidden in the shapes.
A divot, a latch nestled out of sight. Edith had not made it all this way, she had not sacrificed so much, for a dead end.
Sacrifice. Maybe that was the key. More sacrifice.
She whirled on Thomasin, hand outstretched. “Your dagger. Give it to me.”
Thomasin’s throat bobbed as she swallowed roughly. “No.” Her jaw was tight, mouth pressing into a firm line. “You’ve been at this all day. You—”
“I don’t care!” Edith snapped, advancing on Thomasin.
Edith reached for one of the daggers on Thomasin’s belt, but Thomasin captured Edith’s wrist in a gentle, yet inescapable, hold.
Edith looked up at her through her lashes and laced her voice with desperate pleading.
“Thomasin, please. I’ve solved it. I just need your dagger. ”
Thomasin cocked her head, jaw working as she studied Edith.
Without letting go of Edith’s wrist, Thomasin unsheathed a dagger.
Edith’s free hand shot out eagerly, but Thomasin pulled back at the last second.
Cutting off Edith’s grumble of frustration, she said, “You try whatever it is you want to try with this, and then you take a break. Deal?”
“Yes, fine.” The words escaped her mouth before she could think about their meaning. She didn’t need to. Edith would agree to anything if it meant she could finally solve this puzzle.
Thomasin flipped the dagger and gave it to Edith, who immediately stormed back over to the door. Edith could feel Thomasin at her heels. Without preamble, Edith sliced the dagger across her palm.
“Edith!” Thomasin scolded, snatching the blade away from her.
That was fine. She had gotten what she needed.
A steady trickle of blood seeped from the deep gash.
She pressed her hand against the white stone, right at the center, where there looked to be a missing piece.
Edith’s hand ached. She watched as droplets of blood slid down the door.
Nothing happened. She pressed her hand harder against the smooth surface.
The smallest grunt of pain slipped past her lips.
She felt Thomasin’s hands on her shoulders, insistent.
“Enough. Nothing’s happening,” Thomasin said.
Edith pressed harder, fingernails scraping. Her wounded skin split open further. Blood coated her palm and snaked down her arm. The room spun just a little. It had been at least fourteen hours since she last ate. Edith just gritted her teeth against the wooziness.
“I’m done,” Thomasin said.
Edith ignored her again. But then arms were banding around her middle and hauling her up.
Edith fought to keep her bloody hand against the door, but Thomasin was so much stronger.
Edith was carried out of the amethyst room and back into Merlin’s tomb, where she was deposited gently on the ground beside the sarcophagus.
Edith stared at the door in the distance, and her failure stared right back at her.
The blood had done nothing. Her sacrifice was nothing.
There was no way forward. She knew it in her bones somehow that it was over.
They had traveled all this way, and she had not proven herself worthy enough to enter Avalon.
She would not vindicate her grandmother’s memory.
She would not prove to the world that Excalibur was real.
She would not be the successful adventurer Thomasin deserved.
Edith would go back to being nothing. She should have known it was going to end like this.
Why had she allowed herself to hope? This quest was doomed from the very beginning for one simple reason: Her grandmother wasn’t with her, and it was all Edith’s fault.
Slumping against the sarcophagus, Edith mumbled, “I didn’t get here fast enough. ”
“I don’t think the clue has anything to do with speed.” Thomasin slid down to sit next to her. She drew her legs up and rested her forearms on her knees.
“No, that’s not—” Edith pushed up from the ground, dragging her uninjured hand through her hair.
“I should’ve been ready sooner. I should’ve gone on this quest faster.
” She paced the length of the tomb. Thomasin stood up with that devastating, lanky grace.
She reached out to take Edith’s hand, but Edith couldn’t handle it.
She batted her away, heart clenching at the flash of hurt in Thomasin’s eyes.
“If I’d gotten here quicker, if I hadn’t waited so long, then my grandmother would be here with me.
Whatever I missed, she could have solved it.
But it’s not just that! She deserved to be here, to see all the clues, and the Round Table, Merlin’s staff! She missed all of it because of me.”
Edith came to a stop in front of the sealed door once again, shaking her head. She looked at Thomasin over her shoulder. “I failed her.”
“You did not.” Thomasin strode over to her and took her shoulders.