Chapter Ten #2
I looked behind me to see an army as I'd never seen before, with goblins, witches, and creatures I'd only seen once back at the Academy in the wings for endangered and extinct magical creatures.
Right when one of the goblins spotted me, Keegan pulled me behind the vines with the others as Nova created a blockade.
Nova pressed her hands against the tunnel walls, and she splayed her fingers as she whispered something low and steady.
The stone responded in a way that still caught me off guard, no matter how many times I saw it.
“Go,” she said, not turning back. “Don’t stop.”
We didn’t.
Keegan pulled me forward, and I followed without question, my boots slipping slightly as we hit the damp incline of the tunnel, the air cooler and heavier as we moved back beneath the surface.
Twobble and Skonk darted ahead, their small forms weaving through the narrowing path like they had done this a thousand times before, while Stella stayed close behind us.
Another tremor rolled through the ground that was stronger.
Whatever was out there wasn’t just passing through.
“They’re not slowing down,” Stella said, her voice quieter now, but it carried.
“They won’t,” Nova replied, her pace steady even as she lifted her hand again, brushing it along the wall as we moved. The gold-lined stone shimmered faintly before shifting, another section of tunnel narrowing behind us, not sealing completely, but enough to slow anything trying to follow.
Twobble glanced back just long enough to see it. “That’s going to irritate the goblins.”
“I’ll apologize later,” Nova said.
“You always do,” he muttered, though there was no real complaint behind it.
We pushed deeper, the tunnel curving sharply, then splitting again before narrowing into a stretch that forced us into single file. The sound behind us didn’t fade. If anything, it changed, becoming more focused, more deliberate, like whatever had gathered above had found its way in.
My pulse wouldn’t slow with the image of that army burned into my mind.
“They knew,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
Keegan didn’t slow. “Maybe.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head even as I kept moving. “That wasn’t a guess. They came straight to us.”
Nova’s shoulders tightened slightly ahead of me. “Which means something gave us away.”
“That wall,” Twobble said. “The bats. They were already watching.”
“That doesn’t explain all of it,” Stella added. “That was too fast. Too precise.”
Nova pressed her hand to the wall again, sealing off a smaller side passage as we passed it, her movements efficient and controlled, as if she were counting each step in her head.
I glanced back as we rounded the next bend.
And that was when I saw it.
The space where the bats had been.
Empty.
Completely empty.
The wall had since collapsed.
My steps faltered just enough that Keegan noticed.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The bats,” I said. “They’re gone. Maybe it was them.”
Twobble slowed slightly ahead of us.
“They’re certainly not anywhere obvious,” Stella finished quietly.
Nova didn’t stop moving, but I saw the shift in her posture. “Then they got out.”
“But how?” I asked, my mind already racing through it, trying to piece together something that made sense. “You sealed the tunnel.”
“It was a timed wall,” she said. “It would have dropped after we passed a certain point.”
“Then they went back,” Keegan said.
“Or forward,” Stella added.
Twobble made a small noise that sounded like he very much didn’t like either option. “I preferred it when they were trapped.”
I didn’t respond because something about it felt like there was more to it. Could the bats really have gotten to the Priestess in time, or had it been something…or someone else?
But we couldn’t worry about it now.
We moved through the tunnel widening just slightly before narrowing again, and Nova sealed another section behind us, her magic quieter now, more controlled, like she was conserving it.
“The bats could have reported back,” Keegan said, glancing toward me. “That would explain how fast the Priestess moved.”
“It would,” I said.
But it didn’t feel like enough.
I tightened my grip on his hand as we pushed forward, and Gideon’s words echoed in my mind.
You cannot continue to trust just anyone who shows up in your circle.
I swallowed, the weight of that settling in my chest in a way I couldn’t quite ignore.
“Maeve,” Keegan said softly. “Stay with me.”
“I am,” I replied, though my thoughts were already moving ahead, retracing every step, every choice we had made since we left Stonewick.
The bats.
The wall.
The tunnels.
And Gideon.
The way he had looked past me.
The way he had known.
Another tremor rolled through the tunnel, weaker now, but still there, still present. Was the army above us or behind us?
Nova slowed slightly, her hand brushing the wall one more time as she sealed the last narrow opening behind us, the stone settling into place with a quiet, final sound.
“That should hold them for a while,” she said.
“For a while,” Stella repeated.
Twobble let out a breath. “It will take a while. It will give us enough time to warn everyone in the UnderLoom.”
“Dang bats,” Stella muttered.
But it wasn’t just the bats.
And it wasn’t just the wall.
There had been something else.
Something that we knew exactly where we would be.
And as Gideon’s words lingered in the back of my mind, quiet but insistent, I couldn’t help but wonder—
If the Priestess had found us…
Or if someone had led her right to us.