Page 124 of Harnessed in Gold

“Betts!” Avery shouts over the shrieking alarm. “Go!”

I tear my eyes from my traumatized best friend, and with a boost from Avery, clamber up into the coal chute. Urgency overriding my dread of the forge, I launch myself down the hatch and into Rime’s waiting arms. He slows my momentum, bringing my feet gently to the floor mere seconds before Avery drops down, hitting him and the ground with enough force to send them both stumbling.

Rime barely recovers his balance before Leo shouts through the open hatch, “I’m sending Olivia down.”

Liv’s legs flail wildly, knocking Rime in the face several times before he can get a firm enough grip on her to ease her safely to the ground. Once she’s steady, he tries to release her, but she clings to him in blind terror.

Battling a berserker army of emotions, I hardly notice Leo jumping down beside me. An alchemy lab. Hubris. A man, perhaps more than one, tinkering with the laws of the universe. I’m so nauseous and dizzy I can barely stand. I start to harness, because if I don’t, I’ll end up passed out on the floor. Obsession, devastation, horror—I snatch them out of the air and hurl them into my solar plexus.

“The walls are crumbling over there,” Leo says, pointing at the far corner. “We might be able to dig out.”

“On it.” Topaz aims her hands.

More snakes. But if they can get us out of here?—

Leo turns to me, reaching for my head, ready to heal. I must look as sick as I feel.

“I’m okay. I’m harnessing,” I tell him. “Help Topaz.” His roots can do anything the snakes can do.

Stubbornly, he stays by my side as he shifts his attention back to the half-disintegrated wall where at least a dozen black snakes have already congregated.

Topaz tells him, “They say this is the weakest spot.”

“Then let’s see what we can do.”

Together they dig a hole, Topaz’s snakes working from below, burrowing through the cracks and pushing aside stones, and Leo’s roots reaching down from above, loosening and displacing the dirt.

When he fumbles for my hand, I offer it, full to bursting with energy. I feel the pull as his power links with mine, and immediately my nausea ebbs. The roots shovel faster—slithering, slipping, weaving alongside the snakes.

The alarm abruptly stops, blasting us with silence. Shouts reach us from somewhere nearby, along with the screechy grinding of the elevator. No one else knows about this forge, right? Not even security?

“Sound shield,” Leo commands.

I peer over my shoulder to see Rime brush his thumb across the fingers of his upraised hand.

Feeling only slightly more secure, I turn back to the hole we’re digging—and gasp. The roots have formed a tunnel at least three feet wide, with tightly woven walls to hold the loose dirt at bay.

Topaz shoves her head in the opening, then climbs partway up. “I can see the sky!” Her legs and feet disappear, dirt sprinkling out behind her. A second later, she calls down, “I’m out.”

“Avery, go!” Leo orders. As soon as she’s far enough up the tunnel, he sends Aaron.

Rime coaxes a shaking, spaced-out Liv to go next, holding onto her ankle until she climbs out of reach.

Aaron calls down, “We’ve got her.”

“Go, Betts.” Leo releases my hand.

“Don’t you need me?”

“I can hold it until we all get up.”

Figuring rushing is better than arguing, I scramble as fast as I can up the tunnel, planting my toes in the cracks between roots and pulling myself up by the firm handles they provide. After I clear about twice the length of my body, the sky comes into view, the starsurging me on. Once my arms clear the top, Topaz and Aaron yank me out the rest of the way, shoving me aside to make room for Rime, who’s so close behind me his head knocks into my feet.

A horrible creaking splits the air.

No, not the tunnel!

Rime spins on his knees and shoves his arms back into the hole. “Come on, Hawthorn, grab my hands!” The earth trembles underneath us, and dust billows like smoke.