Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities #8) - Shannon Messenger Page 0,153

place in our world!” King Enki shouted over to him.

“This will only take a second,” Wylie called back before turning to Nubiti. “Onyx will shimmer when the light hits it. Magsidian will do… who knows?”

Nubiti sighed. “You’re wasting your time.”

“Maybe,” Wylie agreed. “I guess we’ll find out.”

And for all of her stubbornness, Nubiti looked mildly curious as Wylie flicked his wrist and sent the glowing white sphere to the base of the wall, guiding it in wide, slow circles around the room and climbing higher with each rotation.

Sophie was pretty sure everyone was watching the way he lingered at each black stone, waiting for the telltale onyx shimmer. And with each confirmation, Nubiti grew smugger and smugger.

“I told you, there’s no magsi—”

Her word was drowned out by a crackling buzz as the white sphere disappeared with a shower of sparks into the stone that Wylie had been testing.

“Uh, what was—”

It was all Sophie managed to say before the light blasted back out like a bolt of white lightning, aimed at a stone directly across the room, which absorbed the light the same way—crackling and sparking before the light blasted toward a third stone that ricocheted it toward the ceiling, aimed right for—

“TAKE COVER!” Nubiti screamed, dragging Sophie and Wylie to the floor as the bolt hit the chandelier and made every jar of flame explode.

TWENTY-SIX

HOW DO WE STOP THIS?”

That was the first question everyone shouted as the shower of flames and jagged glass turned into full-fledged blazes—tearing across the Grand Hall’s floor, fueled by the spilled chandelier oil.

And there seemed to be no answer—except to evacuate immediately—until the fires drew close to King Enki’s throne and…

The flames vanished.

Sophie had never seen anything like it.

One second there was choking smoke and searing heat and her brain was screaming, NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN!

And then…

Nothing.

Not a spark.

Or a wisp of smoke.

Or even a scorch mark to prove the flames had ever been there to begin with.

King Enki seemed just as stunned as they were by the development. He even burned his hand on the magsidian while he inspected his throne—which also miraculously turned out to be the largest injury anybody suffered that day.

Everything else was just cuts and scrapes from the broken glass and tiny blisters from the splattered oil.

And other than the shattered chandelier, the Grand Hall showed little sign of actual damage—though Sophie wondered if they’d find more once the room had better lighting again.

King Enki was understandably reluctant to bring in any more jars of flickering orange flames until he had a better understanding of what had actually happened to the chandelier. So the only illumination came from Sophie’s and her team’s glowing circlets.

Nubiti even had to borrow Sophie’s crown when she crawled up the wall to inspect the stones that Wylie had accidentally triggered. And she was able to confirm that the stones definitely were hidden pieces of magsidian—cut with a pattern of facets she’d never seen before.

But there was no way to tell how long the magsidian had been there.

The stones could’ve been part of some elaborate sabotage planned by the dwarves who’d defected to the Neverseen.

Or, as King Enki immediately reminded them, the stones could just as easily have been a long-forgotten defense from the days of an ancient king.

Or anything in between.

All they knew for certain at the moment was: The stones weren’t going anywhere.

Nubiti tried to pry them out—first with her claws, and then with a special tool—and nothing would loosen them. So she’d had to settle for covering the stones with a cementlike paste to keep any light away.

Which brought Sophie’s group to the much trickier part of the conversation: the part where King Enki took back his offer to let them search other places in Loamnore, convinced their strange elf-y tricks would trigger more unexpected disasters.

Nothing would change his mind.

They tried promising not to use their abilities—or their skills. Not that King Enki understood the difference.

Tried pointing out that if they didn’t find the problem first—and the Neverseen were behind it—they’d now seen exactly how easily their enemies could cause serious damage to Loamnore.

But the best they managed was persuading King Enki to let Nubiti conduct her own investigation without them—which wasn’t a horrible compromise. But it meant Nubiti would need to take at least a few days away from her duties as Sophie’s bodyguard.

Probably longer.

“Take as long as you need,” Sophie told her as Nubiti handed back her circlet. “This is so much more important.” She debated a second before