CHAPTER HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWOThey didn't move deeper into the clearing right away, and Patrick understood well enough why nobody was eager to test the hollow's patience twice in the same hour, so instead they retreated a short distance to the edge of the tree line where the thin grey light didn't feel quite so heavy, and settled into an uneasy kind of rest that wasn't really rest at all, just bodies sitting still while minds kept working through what had just happened.Heather hadn't said much since Dwayne's admission, which by itself told Patrick more than any amount of talking would have, since silence had never been her natural register when it came to him. She sat a little apart from the group, arms wrapped around her knees, watching Dwayne with an expression that had shifted somewhere between the open hostility she'd carried since the day he'd first attacked them and something more complicated, something Patrick couldn't quite name yet because he suspected she hadn't fully name

Seth stayed close to the front of the group for the first time since Patrick had known him, no longer hanging back the way he usually did when the terrain turned unfamiliar, and there was something about the change that Patrick couldn't quite place, some tension in the centaur's shoulders that had nothing to do with his injuries and everything to do with recognition."You know this path," Patrick said.Seth didn't answer immediately, and that was answer enough to make Patrick look at him more closely."I know something like it," Seth said at last. "Not this exact path. But I've seen places built this way.""Built?""Maybe."Heather glanced over her shoulder. "You just said it wasn't a made path.""I said it wasn't made by the people who live here now."Nobody spoke for a few moments after that, and Patrick found himself wishing Seth had simply kept quiet, because the longer they walked, the more obvious it became that the path wasn't merely worn into the earth but arranged, every bend

Patrick kept the blazing sword in his hand, but its light had changed.Outside, its flame had always burned with a steady orange glow, bright enough to throw shadows across the ground and illuminate the faces of everyone around him, but here the fire seemed reluctant to exist, the light extending only a few feet before dissolving into the darkness as though the tower itself were swallowing it."Nobody move," Patrick said quietly."I wasn't planning to," Lucy whispered.Something brushed against the stone wall to their left.Heather's bow came up.Borius shifted his spear.Dwayne moved instinctively toward Seth, and Patrick heard the centaur's breathing, quick and uneven, before Seth finally spoke."We shouldn't have come inside."Patrick turned toward the sound of his voice."You've said that already.""This time I mean it more."Despite everything, Lucy gave a tiny nervous laugh.It died quickly.Patrick lifted the sword higher, trying to make sense of the room.There wasn't much to

Patrick knew immediately that they weren't alone.The hand beneath the water disappeared before he could react, leaving only a widening circle of ripples around the place where it had surfaced, and for a moment the entire group stood perfectly still, staring down at the black water as though refusing to move might somehow convince whatever lived beneath it that they had never been there.Nobody spoke.Then something touched Patrick's boot.He jerked backward.Lucy grabbed his arm."What was that?""I don't know."The water settled again.Patrick lifted the blazing sword, and the orange light spread farther this time, revealing a chamber far larger than he'd first realized, with a ceiling so high that the silver glow above them seemed to come from another world entirely. The water covered the entire floor, perhaps ankle-deep near the walls and deeper toward the center, where the surface disappeared into a broad black pool.There were pillars everywhere.Not the carved stone pillars fro

Patrick stepped through the door.The first thing he noticed was the silence.Not ordinary silence, not the kind that came when wind stopped moving through trees or when everyone in a room suddenly realized they were afraid to speak, but something deeper, an absence of sound so complete that Patrick could hear his own heartbeat with painful clarity, each slow thud seeming to come from somewhere outside his body rather than inside it.He stopped.Behind him, the door remained open.He could still see the others through it.Lucy stood closest, one hand still raised as though she might reach for him if he decided to turn around, while Heather had her bow lowered but ready, Borius was leaning heavily on his spear, Dwayne watched the doorway with an expression Patrick couldn't read, and Seth stood farther back than all of them, staring at Patrick as though he were looking at someone he'd known a very long time ago.Then Patrick looked ahead.There was no tower.No forest.No water.No fog.