training. “You’ve come a long way, Paili. Don’t get discouraged.”
Paili forced out her words as though each one tortured her throat. “I was . . . doing better. Something . . . is wrong.”
“Yes, I know. I’m still trying to figure out what’s holding you back.” She sat on the floor next to Paili’s bed, using her toes to pinch a stale morsel of bread near the “mouse” hole. A dozen or so other morsels lay strewn around the opening.
Paili just sighed and pulled her leg up to her bed.
Sapphira winced. “Oh. Sorry. Yes or no questions.” She kicked one of the morsels toward her hand and swept it into her fingers. “Do we have enough dried fruits and vegetables for another week?”
“No.”
“Another day?”
“Yes.”
“Is Naamah still bringing fruit from the bad tree for you to cook?”
“Yes.”
“Has she said anything about when Morgan might come back?”
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
Sapphira pulled her knees up to her chest. “That means tonight’s my last chance to search her castle. Whenever I’m anywhere near the portal, she doesn’t let me out of her sight.”
Paili grabbed Sapphira’s arm and pulled. “No! Don’t!”
“Paili!” Sapphira jerked her arm away. “I have to find Elam.”
“He is dead!” Paili moaned.
“Maybe not. Just because we don’t need bricks anymore doesn’t mean they killed him.”
Paili spread out three fingers. “Taalah is dead. Qadar is dead. . . . Elam is dead.”
“No!” Sapphira said, wrapping her hand around Paili’s fingers. “We didn’t see Elam get hauled off to the chasm like all the girls.”
Paili scowled. “You . . . never see Elam.”
Sapphira drooped her head and sighed. “I know.” With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the bread back at the hole. Then, reaching under Paili’s bunk, she withdrew a blossom and caressed one of its seven petals, as white and supple as the day she found her living gift centuries ago. “Elam’s not an underborn,” she said, laying the blossom on her bed, “so he probably died of old age a long time ago.”
“Yes. So you . . . stay here tonight.”
“No.” Sapphira rose to her feet and smacked her palm with her fist. “I haven’t looked everywhere, and I can’t ignore the feeling that someone’s being held prisoner in Morgan’s house. Even if it’s not him, I have to keep looking.”
Paili grabbed her forearm. “No!” she cried, squeezing tightly. “If you die . . . I am alone.”
Sapphira jerked free. “I won’t die!”
The lantern’s dim light reflected in Paili’s tears, two long streams running down her cheeks. Sapphira sighed and sat next to her, stroking her hair again. “Paili, everything will be okay. Elohim hasn’t brought me this far to let me die now. Why would he give me my power if he just wanted me to die down here?”
Paili pulled in her bottom lip and frowned.
“This will be the last time. I promise.” Sapphira picked up her lantern and headed for the hovel’s exit, whispering to the flame. “A bit lower, please.”
As the lantern’s glow diminished, she checked for the Ovulum in her pocket and climbed out into the corridor, tiptoeing in front of her own stalking silhouette. So far, so good. Morgan lurked somewhere in the overworld, Naamah was probably sleeping by now, but where might Mardon be? Since he never wanted her to leave the hovel at night, it seemed that he was hiding some terrible secret. Who could tell how late he might be working in the control room . . . or watching from the surrounding shadows?
As she approached the control room, the door swung open, and Mardon bustled out, studying a page of parchment as he strode toward her. She flattened herself against a wall and snuffed her flame with a quick wave. As he passed by, the light from Mardon’s lantern brushed across her eyes, but he never looked up from his work. She waited a few seconds, then continued on, not bothering to summon her fire again. After several centuries, the winding, upward path was all too familiar, even in total darkness.
After hurrying through the old green portal chamber, she felt for the entry to the next corridor and crept through, helped by the glow in the distance from the guard’s lantern and the swirling eddies emanating from the newer portal’s blue column. As she neared the chamber, she tiptoed and called out her usual warning, having learned that it’s never wise to startle a guardian giant. “Anak? It’s Sapphira.”