Hearn sighs and peers into the corridor. Inside, it's darker than in the cavern, but our eyes will get accustomed to it soon enough. He has those glinting cat eyes, so he should see better than any of us.

Rworg puts a hand on his shoulder. "It is good for someone from your city to take part. You can take back the story of our adventure."

"We're not sacrificing ourselves or anything," Finna says, walking past Rworg and bumping into his back with her shoulder. "We'll just tell them ourselves."

"It's not like we're in a hurry," I say. "We can go back and spend a month or two in Jonun, and the bear will still be fresh when we finally get out."

"Bear?" Finna asks.

Rworg chuckles. Hearn smiles as well. Maybe we can keep his mind off leaving everyone behind. Who knew that bantering could be an actually useful skill to have?

"Any ideas where we should go?" Rworg asks.

Hearn rubs his palms together, making a scratching sound. "I... could lead you back to the place where we met?"

"Let's think first about what we are trying to do," I say. "The plan is to disturb the flow of mana, so we need to find some place to do that. There's no mana here, right?"

Finna nods. "This place is pretty dull, yeah. But I think we can't just start smashing a hole in some random wall. Remember what I said about the mana earlier?"

I grimace. That's true. I don't want to imagine what would happen if we crack some wall and all the mana would pour out over us, like a dam breaking. Just the ambient mana was enough to split her head and make us two act like idiots. If the condensed mana rushed over us, it would probably boil us alive or turn us into teratomes or who knows what. If I say that out loud, Rworg will try to turn this into a suicide mission again, so I keep my mouth shut.

"I can show you to some more interesting places the corridors have," Hearn says. "They stretch and twist like a labyrinth, but I know the ways. Maybe you can find a good spot to do what you are planning?"

"Interesting places, hmm," Rworg says, scratching at his beard.

"That's the best idea we have for now," I say. "Lead the way."

Hearn takes a left turn, then a right. The black corridors all look the same, but it seems Hearn has memorized the routes, as he walks on without hesitation. We walk for a short while more, and he takes two more rights in quick succession.

When he turns right again, Finna throws her hands up into the air with a scream. "How can we be turning right again! This makes no sense!"

"Ah, you weren't there in the beginning," I say. "Space doesn't work right in these places either. It is a bit weird, yeah."

Finna points a finger ahead into the corridor. "Look, there should be a wall there! I've stumbled around in the dark enough to know how to keep track of places."

"He just said space does not work right," Rworg says. "It is part of the charm of the tombs."

"I don't want to be in stupid space-time tombs!" Finna wails, looking up at the black ceiling.

"Shh, shh, it's fine," Hearn says. "We are nearly there. It's an interesting room. There's nothing there."

I step quickly between him and Finna before she has a chance to stab the old man. "Let's keep moving, shall we? Hearn, which way is it next?"

"Well... right," he says and starts marching ahead, surprisingly fast.

Finna growls.

Rworg chuckles. "The old is quick on the uptake," he says.

Luckily for Hearn, the room really is interesting. It bathes in light, but further into the room, the light cuts out, replaced by solid darkness. The bright light spills out into the corridor, feeling warm even before we step into the room.

I grab on to Hearn's shoulder. "Wait. Is this because of time? Does the light dim once you step in?"

Hearn looks surprised, his eyes widening. It's harder to read his expressions as he has no eyebrows, but this one is pretty obvious. "It does! How did you know?"

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"It's the same as what happened to Jonun, just seen from the outside. This room must be the similar to the vault in Rworg's story!" I say. "...except the other way around? And maybe inside the time changes again because there's that dark area?"

"Can we go in already?" Finna asks.

The light dims immediately as we step in. The change in time feels like a lurch, just as Rworg described it. The corridor behind us plunges into darkness. The air feels easier to breathe. It's thinner, less laced with mana.

Otherwise the room looks exactly like the corridors that we have already seen. Black featureless stone, small lights of mote moving under its surface. The curious thing is the completely black area inside it. Impenetrable darkness cuts off a portion of the room, stretching from the ceiling to the floor. Finna walks around it.

Rworg reaches a hand to touch the darkness but pulls it back before his finger touches it. The mana must be thin enough here that he had time to realize what he was doing or remember Mandollel's warning from long ago.

He beams, nodding at his outstretched finger.

Finna sighs. "You want an award for not touching the deadly pitch-black cube of death?"

"It would be nice," Rworg says, face level.

Hearn chuckles. "It is not deadly, but it is unpleasant. If you want to go in, we should go together. Otherwise it will be very boring for those who stay out."

"What's in there?" I ask, trying to peer inside the darkness. I can make out some shapes, but not much.

"Something," Hearn says, raising his hands to wiggle his finger in the air.

Finna kicks him from the side. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him stumble. "A single night and you already got infected by Rworg?"

He really did just blend into the group. It took me much longer to ease up enough to start joking and for Finna to relax enough to start kicking me around. Maybe he just is like that. Finna is going to go absolutely mad with both him and Rworg on the team. "Let's just take a look. Rworg can't resist the temptation much longer."

He chuckles, but I saw him inching toward the darkness already.

We line up next to each other, all facing the dark wall ahead of us.

"Now," Rworg says.

We step inside. It's the weirdest thing I have ever experienced. The dark lights up, inverting into bright white shining down from everywhere. First, I have to push forward against some kind of pressure, but then it's like I'm pushing myself from behind, and I stumble inside the brilliantly lit area, thrown in. I remember being bored and panicked and out of breath, but now my face and fingers tingle and feel cold.

"Uurghgng," Finna says. "That was wei—" Her words cut short as she falls on her knees and grasps her head. Her teeth grind together, and she squeals in pain and surprise.

The air feels like molasses, thick and cloying to breathe in. The stench of ozone fills my nose and burns my eyes.

Rworg rushes to Finna's side, crouching beside her. Hearn looks confused and winces as well, raising a hand to press on his temple. "This wasn't this bad before," he groans through gritted teeth. The light surrounding us from every side is bright enough to blind.

My brain starts sparking. Effect of time on light and magic, ambronite, ambrosia, how it's all connected. Jonun pulled on a torrent of time, carried so fast even light or magic doesn't reach it. This place, mired in time thick as syrup, mana thundering into here like water crashes down a waterfall.

Finna screams.

"Get her out of here!" I shout at Rworg.

His face is flushed, and he looks like he's flexing all over. Muscles on his face are bunched. His gaze flicks to me, to Finna, then back to me, and he starts nodding, his head bopping up and down. He grabs on to Finna's ankle and throws her into the wall of light, out of the square we're standing in.

She doesn't protest. Maybe the headache is too bad, or she's out cold already. She slides along the floor, vanishing into the bright light. Rworg really wrenched hard. I hope he didn't dislocate her leg, but it's still for the best. It would have been bad if she had been caught in the middle of the divide. It's hard to say how much faster time is running here—

My thoughts are cut short as Rworg grabs me under his arm. He doesn't quite lift me into the air, but it's close.

"We too!" Rworg bellows, rushing toward the wall.

Pulled in his grip, I wonder how long we made Finna wait. I try to calculate the difference, even if I'm missing almost all the things I could base the calculation on. The only thing I'm sure of is that she's going to kill us.

I barely have time to finish the thought when Finna jumps in through the wall of light. She wobbles, swinging her arms around, and our eyes meet for a moment. "Oh, you godda—"

I don't hear the rest as we push through the light. We shoot out of the black square, carried by Rworg's last step to fly across the room. We tumble onto the floor, scraping nearly all the way to the entrance.

Rworg jumps up while I'm still putting together what happened. "We must go back!" he shouts.

I kick him behind the knee before he manages to start running. His leg buckles, and he makes a surprised sound, tipping back and swinging his arms around.

I roll out to get further away, in case he falls.

He doesn't, only gives me a confused look. "What? We must..." His voice trails off as his brows come together in thought. The effect of too much mana must be wearing off already. "You think we should wait?"

I stand up, dusting my pants and testing out my limbs. Tumbling on the hard stone floor is not pleasant, but at least he cushioned my fall and not the other way around. If he would have landed on me, I would have gotten a break from all this as they took my squished remains back to the room with the mana beams to be resurrected. I wonder if we can always just go back there if something happens to any of us. Basically only one of us needs to survive a fight, because he or she could take us back, except Finna couldn't move Rworg by herself...

I rub my face with my hands and exhale, trying to force out the excess mana from my system. I could keep it together for a moment, but my brain feels like it's an excited puppy on a leash, my attention snapping this way and that.

"Folke?" Rworg asks.

"Right, right, sorry, um," I say. "We should wait, yes. Otherwise we're just going to be going back and forth until one of us dies of old age."

"Probably Hearn," Rworg says.

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