Page 76 of Hallowed Games

“They’re going to kill us all if we don’t stop him,” I gasped. “He’ll just keep going and going, more trials, more death.”

He’s going to bring Leo here…

From the stone wall, Lydia clapped her hands slowly. “All hail the martyr. So sweet and giving, isn’t she?”

I curled my lip at her before restraining myself. “We’re all about to drown in a toxic mist that will choke us all with terror. We’re going to attack each other. Why don’t we leave the bitter sarcasm for that?”

Sazia stared at the door, wide-eyed. “Did you see how fast the Magister moved? What was that?”

Such touching devotion to his leader…

I breathed in, already smelling the pungent scent of wormwood roiling into the room, along with the musky smell of burning henbane. I coughed as it swelled in my lungs. Belladonna, too, acrid and poisonous.

“You need to be ready for what’s going to happen.” My voice rang off the damp stones. “We are going to see visions. Terrifying visions of the worst things you can imagine. And we’re going to get confused and try to kill each other.”

“But there’s a way to avoid it,” added Percival.

“How, exactly?” asked a woman with long gray hair.

I tried to think clearly through the panic in my thoughts. “We need to work together. All of us, now.” The floor started to feel unsteady beneath my feet. Already, my heart was racing and a cold sweat had broken out on my forehead. I swallowed hard. I wanted to tell them exactly what I meant, but I didn’t have time to form a whole coherent argument. “Take off your boots. Right now, take off your boots.”

“Who put you in charge?” asked Lydia.

“Just do it!” I snapped.

Lydia was grinding down the last shreds of my patience at this point. Or was that the mist bringing out my rage? I leaned down, untying my boots. “If you’re barefoot, you can try to anchor yourself with the floor, yeah? Feel the stone beneath you. Connect to it, feel how solid it is.”

My heart was a drumroll pattering against my ribs.

“Elowen?” Leo’s voice called to me from one of the tunnels, and my blood turned glacial.

Oh, Archon no. The Pater had found him already. I staggered back, dizzy.

There in the tunnels, Leo was calling to me, his voice clear as a bell.

“Do you hear that?” My voice cracked as I shouted.

Percival was staring at one of the tunnels, and he nodded. “My brother is here.”

I grabbed Percival’s arm. “It’s not real. It’s not real! Whatever you’re seeing now, it isn’t real.”

Percival whipped back around to the others, some of them already speaking to their invisible friends. “Look at the shadows!” he shouted. “Your visions won’t have shadows in the torchlight.”

Screams erupted around us.

I stood, barefoot on the stones, feeling the cold spread beneath my soles. When I turned back to the tunnel entrance, I saw Leo shuffling closer, dressed in tattered and mud-spattered rags. “Elowen?”

Where a dark shadow should have spread over the stones behind him, I saw only gray stone.

I closed my eyes, slowing my breathing. I shifted my toes against the cool rock. An agonized cry rang out, and I opened my eyes to see a woman grip the boy, her hands around his throat. His eyes bulged as she pressed him against the wall. I lunged forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her off him. She swatted at me with her free hand, and I twisted her arm behind her back. She struggled against me, still trying to get back to the boy.

A low, growling noise rose from one of the tunnels, sending shivers over my skin. Then a distant, eerie howling followed.

A man with shaggy red hair staggered forward, his eyes wild. I was still gripping the woman by her arm while she screamed at me. I let go of her just as the man reached for me. I punched one of his arms away, but he grabbed me by the face with his other hand.

The effect was instant, his body seizing up with the touch of my bare skin. Just as dark veins shot through his face, his appearance changed, growing younger and sweeter. It was no longer a stranger, but Leo dying on the floor at my feet. Even if I knew it wasn’t real, I felt my stomach plummet all the same.

I closed my eyes, feeling the cold stone beneath my feet. “It’s not real.” Then, louder. “Everyone stay still! Don’t move. Nothing you see happening is real. Just stop moving.”