Sapphira looked back. “Yes, but it’s only one of seven different kinds.”
Ashley spotted the strap from her duffle bag and yanked it out of a pile, then stuffed the brick inside. As she unearthed another brick, a miniature landslide from the top of the pile exposed an enormous bare foot. “Hey!” she called. “One of the giants is still here, and it looks like both legs are intact, so I don’t think it’s the one Walter killed.” She leaned closer. “He has six toes on his foot!”
“They all do. Six fingers on each hand, too.” Sapphira continued her march toward the door. “That giant is Yereq, the one Karen replaced in the growth chamber. I’ll have to figure a way to get his body out of here, but that can wait.”
Walter wrapped his arm around Karen’s back and followed Sapphira. “I wouldn’t bring too many bricks in your bag,” he called back to Ashley. “We might have to haul it pretty far.”
“True.” Ashley dropped the second brick on the floor. “They’re probably all pretty much the same.” She hustled to catch up with Walter and took Karen’s hand.
After following Sapphira for about a minute, Walter looked over at Ashley. “What do you think?” he asked. “Does she know what she’s doing?”
Ashley blinked at the strange girl who left a fiery aura in her wake, literally blazing the path ahead of them. “I don’t know what she’s all about, but when she looks at me, I feel like she sees right through me, like I’m standing naked in front of God himself.”
“I think I know what you mean.” Walter laid a palm on his chest. “Whenever I see those bright blue eyes, my heart beats like a bongo on steroids and tries to jump up into my throat.”
Ashley felt a pang deep inside and swallowed back a sigh. “I guess if I were a guy, I’d feel the same way. She really is pretty.”
“Yeah. She is. But that’s not what causes it. I’ve been around pretty girls ever since we left West Virginia, so I’m used to it.”
A surge of warmth flooded Ashley’s soul. She glanced at Walter, but he kept his eyes focused straight ahead. She opened her mouth to reply, but Karen squeezed her hand, making her pause. Ashley squeezed hers back and kept silent. Walter had given them an honest compliment, and they both basked in its soothing tenderness. Nothing more needed to be said.
With only Sapphira’s bodily glow lighting the wide tunnel, they had to pick up their pace to stay in the oracle’s trailing halo. Karen stumbled, but Ashley caught her and braced her back.
“You going to make it?” Ashley asked.
Karen winced and continued her hobbling steps. “Depends on how far it is. I guess I needed a little more healing.”
“Almost there!” Sapphira called. Her sweet voice echoed, rolling past their ears like a lilting melody.
“I guess she heard you,” Ashley whispered. “We have to be quieter if we want to keep any secrets from her.”
“Secrets?” Karen whispered back. “Don’t you trust her?”
“I’m not sure yet, but it’s best to keep our own counsel for now—you and Walter and me.”
Karen focused on the circle of light surrounding their guide. “Maybe, but like you and Walter said before, there’s something really cool about her. She has so much confidence and life, I want to believe her. She reminds me of Bonnie.”
“Bonnie? Why?”
“Even without all that fire, she just kind of … you know … glows.”
Ashley watched Sapphira’s white hair bouncing in the midst of her full-body halo. As they passed through a darker part of the corridor, the aura strengthened, making the tunnel seem like a moonlit path. “I think I know what you mean,” Ashley said. “I’m trying to be cautious, but it feels wrong not to trust her.”
After a few minutes, Sapphira stopped under an archway at the end of the tunnel and pointed into the darkness ahead. “Ignite,” she called. As if in response, a light flickered somewhere in front of her. Still pointing, she called out, “Ignite,” several more times until the chamber beyond the archway filled with an orange glow.
She waited there, her blue eyes shining to match her radiant smile. When Walter, Ashley, and Karen joined her, they entered a huge cavern.
“I called this the museum room.” Sapphira extended her arm toward an enormous building. “And here is the museum, the first floor of the Tower of Babel.”
Ashley gazed at the magnificent structure, following its ancient architecture upward until it disappeared