"So, how are we going to get through?" I ask.

The wall Finna leads us to stands solid and impenetrable, exactly like all the others. We've been standing here for a good while, just staring at it.

Rworg taps the haft of his sledgehammer. "Just a small nick?"

I'm not sure if he's joking or not, but we're out of options. Yet, there's no way to tell how badly space has been mangled here. We might be hours into the maze, collapsing from every direction onto us. "A small nick," I say, grimacing.

For his credit, Rworg lifts his eyebrows in surprise. He pulls the sledgehammer from the loop and weighs it in his hand. "Watch the corridor."

"If anything starts to rumble or flicker, shout out immediately," I say to Hearn and Finna.

They both look confused, glancing into the corridor. I told Finna the story about the collapsing tunnel, but it was hard to express how frightening it was for real.

"I mean it," I say, for I can't think of what else to say. It should be clear enough if something starts to happen.

Rworg wraps the haft of the hammer in a thick cloth to guard his hands against the recoil. He positions the sledgehammer in his hands, squinting at the wall. "Here?" he asks.

"Yeah, the room should be here, but everything looked different in the dream. It just feels the same, you know?" Finna says.

"I do not," Rworg says. "I have never seen a vision." With that he lifts the hammer. Its head hovers in the air for a moment before he brings it down. It cracks on the wall, the sound like a miniature explosion, a jarring snap that makes me wince. The sound reverberates in the corridors, echoing back from one side and then much later from the other.

"Weird," Finna says, taking a look left and right. "The walls are as far away from each other."

"That's not a good. Stop!" I shout as Rworg lifts the hammer for a second hit.

He lowers the hammer back down and pouts at the wall. It looks unharmed. "I just tapped it."

"Space is not right here," I say. "Remember what a small hole we made in the first wall? If we break a whole wall here, this place will flatten us whole."

Rworg lowers the hammer to the ground, placing both hands to rest on top of its shaft. "How are we to get into her secret room, then?"

Hearn steps closer to the wall to peer at it closely. "If not strength, then how about magic?" He places a hand on the wall and closes his eyes.

Tendrils of blue light spread out from his fingers, swirling across the wall. They form spirals and dissipate, fading into the stone.

Nothing happens.

Hearn shrugs, takes his hand off the wall. "Oh well, it was a wild guess."

He turns around and sees Finna, who is holding her head between her hands, eyes locked on the wall.

"Do it again," she says.

Hearn looks like he's about to ask something, but Rworg puts a hand on his shoulder and turns him gently to face the wall. He pats Hearn on the shoulder, then steps away to get out from between Finna and the wall.

Hearn raises his palm and presses it on the wall again. "If you say so."

'There! See it?" Finna says, pointing a finger at the blue swirls rising from his fingers. "It forms symbols. Do it again!"

Hearn tilts his head, but keeps channeling mana onto the stone wall. The swirls look random to me. They wiggle this way and that, not following the same pattern twice. I'm not dumb enough to say anything out loud, though. Gran always said that the one who thinks doing something is impossible, should never stop the one doing it.

Hearn keeps channeling as Finna steps up to the wall and reaches out a finger. Its tip starts to glow blue. She holds it steady, watching the wall and the swirls. Finna stabs the finger at a swirl, like she's trying to squash a bug. The swirl stops. Finna follows the swirl with her finger to draw a shape on the wall, a half circle curling and wrapping into itself. She lifts her finger, and the symbol hangs on the wall, blue and glowing softly.

She does it again multiple times, each time capturing one of the swirls at a seemingly random time and drawing it on the wall.

"There," she says, lowering her hand. "Try it now."

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"Why won't you try it?" Hearn asks. "It's your spell."

"It's not," Finna says, but lifts her hands, palms out toward the wall. "What should I do?"

"You need to supply all the runes with mana in the right order and direction. Did your vision show you that?"

I sit down to watch them. Rworg does the same. He adjusts his sword and leans his massive back on the wall next to me, towering over me even while sitting.

Hearn explains to Finna what she needs to do. He says he's just repeating things he has seen others do, but he talks her through it. Just like Mandollel was teaching her, I try to mimic what she does. I still can't feel anything in my fingers, no matter how much I squint and imagine the power flowing through me.

"I never got it either," Rworg says. "He explains it well, though. Must be because he is old. I cannot wait to have such perspective."

Hearn explains it like Mandollel. He was even older, even kinder. Perhaps not as patient, though. I swallow as I remember his futile attempt to teach me about weaving bark on arrows or his story about learning magic. "If you want to live long enough for that, better stop rushing into danger so much," I say, mostly to distract myself from the memories.

"Ha!" Rworg barks but grimaces and closes his mouth as Hearn shushes him.

Finna leans both palms on the wall, spreading her fingers as wide as they go to touch each of the runes at the same time. They all glow brighter, light flowing from her fingers to fill each of the symbols. She stands back and turns her head away from the wall.

Hearn glances at her with a smile tinted with confusion. "I think you did it," he says. "Don't you want to look?"

"I don't want to remember the runes. The stupid headaches are enough," she says, looking at us. Her cheeks are flushed, and her eyes gleam. She holds back the smile, but I can see it make its way onto her face.

I smile back at her. She really did it. The light grows brighter and brighter behind her. The symbols spin, spreading out to form a rectangle on the wall.

The rectangle sinks into the stone, leaving a cut-out indentation in the wall. It's only about the width of my palm deep but filled with light and shapes. I can make out shadows and corners of furniture, tilted and flattened, all jumbled up into a mess that makes my eyes hurt to look at.

I lean in to look closer when the indentation swoops in, expanding into a room. A breeze tugs at me as air sucks into the newly formed room.

"Huh," Finna says.

Light shines out of the room. It's a library, filled with books and desks and chairs. Shining balls of light hover near its ceiling, bathing the room in pleasant, warm light.

Rworg grabs Finna's shoulder, holding her back. He peers into the room, sweeping his gaze around it. "It is empty," he says.

Finna scoffs. "How could it not be empty? It's been stuck in the wall. There's lots of crap in there, though."

Hearn stands with his mouth open, jaw hanging low. He puffs out his cheeks, blowing out a breath.

I pat him on the back. "You get used to it."

Finna lifts a book up from its corner and dangles it in the air. "None of these make any sense."

"They are written in a language similar to what the tombs of my people have," Rworg says, holding a book open in his hands, finger tracing the lines.

"Can you read it?" I ask.

"No." Rworg says, placing the book down on the table.

Finna groans, letting the book drop to the floor.

"Visions of the tombs always mean something," Rworg says. "Interpreting them is an art. One must consider them quietly."

Hearn runs his fingers on the spines of the books. The walls of the room are lined with bookshelves on all sides, each shelf filled to the brim. The books look to me like they could be reports of some sort. The text follows similar patterns on most pages, and some symbols look like numbers, repeating in sequences. They remind me of the almanac Gran had about the seasons, in which she wrote about the days rolling by.

"Well, I'm not an artist," Finna says. She hops to sit on a table, letting her legs dangle in the air.

"It might be worth trying," Hearn says. "Your vision led you here. Maybe it will lead you further?"

Finna sighs. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. "Don't peep at me while I do it," she says, opening one eye to glare at us for a moment.

Rworg turns away dutifully. Hearn smiles at me and shrugs.

I shrug back and pull out another book. It's the same as the previous one, filled with meaningless scribble. I push it back to its place and start to walk toward the far end of the room, where a large desk stands near one more black wall.

"And stop shuffling about!" Finna says.

"Ignore distractions," Rworg says. "They say to focus on the core of vision."

"You stop distracting me, or I'll stab you in your core," Finna mutters but keeps her eyes closed.

I tiptoe to the large desk, stepping carefully over a book Finna threw to the ground. The large desk is made of the same black rock as the corridors, growing out of the floor like the buildings in Jonun did. I run my hands over the stone, and my fingers dip into a notch in the middle. On the black stone surface it's almost invisible to the eye. "Huh," I say.

"Haa!" Finna shouts. "I got it!"

"What did you remember?" Rworg asks. He steps to lean over Finna, face eager.

Finna pushes his face away, slapping her hand on his face. "Off, you," she says. "Let me go check it out." She rolls to land on her feet on the opposite side of the desk she was sitting on, leaving Rworg on the other side.

She crosses the room to walk up to me and the large desk, pressing her face near its surface to peer at the notch. "Missed it earlier. Sloppy. Must be rubbing off you guys," she says, rising up with a scoff.

"What is it?" I ask.

She rubs her nose between her fingers, squinting at the table. "They kept putting things in there. Jewels of some kind." She digs out a ring from her pocket, the one she pulled off the Kertharian mage's finger such a long time ago. It's gold, with a big green gem embedded into it. She pouts at it and then pushes it into the notch, gem first.

The notch lights up, shining the gem from below. Nothing else happens, though.

"Hmh," she says, sliding the ring back into her pocket. "The ones they used were larger. Stupid poor Kertharians."

I wonder if I have ever seen an object worth more than the ring when I realize I have. I pull out the pouch from under my shirt. "You think this might work?"

"We can try. I hope the table doesn't explode. That's one hell of a jewel."

Behind us, Hearn steps back a step, face worried. Rworg steps one forward.

Finna takes the pouch from my hand and opens it, pulling out the Time Gem. "Take a step back. You'll get a better view."

"What's going to happen?" I ask.

"You'll see," she says, placing the Gem into the notch.

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