The hall was identical to the one before, except there were three levers planted in the stone. Here, once again, Raphael seemingly knew just what to do. He pulled the first and third one.

Nothing happened, but he began to walk forward.

“What was the point of that?” I asked. I wanted to get a closer look at the lever system, to see how it worked, but he’d have a conniption.

“If I didn’t do that, the floor would’ve swallowed us whole as we walked across,” he said tersely.

“Really?” I frowned. I knew objects could be enchanted, but only temporarily. This place likely had been uninhabited for centuries, so how was this magic still working?

“This is the temple of a goddess. The same way the prison swallowed magic, her temple breathes it.”

Greymere drove witches mad by blocking their abilities. How would a witch react to the opposite? They should surely be drawn to magic like this, yet the place was abandoned. The Monastery had taken over the place of most temples, utterly devoid of magic by comparison.

Raphael turned the next corner but didn’t advance. He stopped so abruptly I nearly hit him. Confused, I peered past his arm, trying to see.

There was nothing.

More accurately, from the torchlight, there was nothing directly in front of the archway but a massive dark hole.

“What part of the wall do you have to press now?” I asked.

“None. This isn’t a magical trap.”

I frowned. “Then how do we get by?”

He pointed to the right, and I leaned forward to see what he was looking at. At the very edge, jutting from the wall, was a small lip, maybe three-quarters the length of my foot. It ran as far as I could see.

“We’re not…”

“We are.”

I swallowed. “What happens if we fall?”

“My suggestion is don’t.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. “But if we do?”

“You get impaled on one of the spikes below.”

Wonderful.

I could’ve insisted I stay here and wait for him to come back. Of course, if he took too long, the fire would go out and I’d have no way to find my way back. But there was something about the temple. Something that was drawing me deeper and deeper in.

He turned back to face me. “You can stay here,” he said, reading my hesitation.

I shook my head. “I can manage.”

“I’ll hold the torch for you, then.”

Before I could ask how, Raphael disappeared.

A breeze hit my face.

No, not a breeze. I stared at the spot where Raphael had been standing. In his place, at eye level with me, was a large bat.

He flapped towards my hands, an indication to give him the torch.

I was still staring at the creature in front of me.

“You can turn into a bat?”

He dove at my hands again, more impatient.

I’d never sleep well again. Not if vampires could turn into random animals.

Well… if I impaled myself on a spike in the pit, it wouldn’t matter.

I lifted the torch to him, uncertain if his small, clawed feet could grasp it, but they managed, digging so hard into the wood it dented. Apparently, vampire strength extended to other forms. He moved from the edge to the space over the chasm, lighting the ledge for me. I stepped onto the lip, pressing my weight towards the wall. My heart slammed against my ribs, but I mastered my breathing and slowly moved one foot forward, then the other. Bat-Raphael lit the way, a few paces ahead. I didn’t dare look any farther. I didn’t want to know how far I had to go. The stone was smooth, and the slick sweat of my palms meant I couldn’t even fool myself into thinking I had any kind of grip.

When faced with a terrifying situation, the only thing to do was keep moving. So that was what I did, one slow foot drag at a time. It could’ve been an hour for all I knew. When I eased around another corner, I dared to let myself believe I might actually make it. I was close. So close. Raphael flew closer, the beating of his wings cooling the sweat beading on my neck. The torch seemed to be growing dimmer, but perhaps that was just my nerves. It lit the space immediately in front of me, so I stepped there, then again and again.

I’m going to make it.

Then the dim light sputtered out.

And I was in the dark.

Clinging to the wall.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter Twenty-One

Panic seized me. Any chance of controlling my breathing died as I began to hyperventilate.

I’m going to die here.

I’d thought it would be worth it. That I needed to continue on this journey. Stupid. Survival above all else. Now I would die for my godsdamned curiosity.

“Samara. Slow your heart.”

“Raphael?”

“I’m right here, just a few feet to to your left. You’re nearly there.”

“I-I can’t,” I stammered. It was hard to even speak between breaths.

“You can,” he insisted. “Keep going.”

Hesitantly, I slid my foot forward. Into the dark. But just like in the light, the path was smooth. I moved my other foot, and resumed inching.

“That’s it.” His voice was soothing, like the night sky. “Just a bit more.”

I followed the sound of his voice, my galloping heart slowing to a canter.

“Good. Nearly there. Now just step forward and you’ll make it.”

Just another step. That was all I had to do. My foot slid off as the lip ended. I was there. I tried to hook my leg to catch the opening.

I lost my balance.

I was going to fall. The awareness hit me a second before I began to drop—an immediate, absolute certainty that I was done for. My hands slipped off as I fought to regain my balance, my foot trying to come back but missing, and I was falling, falling, falling—

Strong hands snatched me from the air itself. Raphael threw me back against his body, sending us both tumbling. I landed atop him. There was no light save the faint, unnatural glow of his red eyes.

In the dark, every other sense became more acute. This close, I inhaled his scent with my rapid breaths. Cedar, spice, and something more dangerous than the dark. My fingers gripped the fabric of his shirt, like he was the only thing stopping me from falling into the pit.

“Told you that you’d make it.”

I didn’t have to see his mouth to know it was curved into a smile. Me, I couldn’t smile right now. Not with my heart still slamming in my throat. I couldn’t even force my fingers to unclench from where they were still fists in his shirt. My head told me I should be getting off him, that if I was close enough to feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath me, I was too, too close. But my legs were shaking too much for me to move.

“You caught me.” Three words. The most I could manage in this position.

“I did,” he agreed. Like it was nothing.

Like of course he had saved me from certain death, and how could I even doubt it?

How, indeed.

“As much as I enjoy having a woman on top of me, we should continue.”

His teasing jolted me out of the remnants of panic that had caged me. My chest was flush against his, my legs sprawled over him. Even riding together on Alphonse didn’t compare to this. I scrambled to stand, pressing my hands into his chest to leverage myself up, but in the dark I was moving blindly. His hands rose to my sides, steadying as he guided me up, and I told myself my heart was pounding only because I’d nearly fallen to my death, not because of his touch.

“The torch?” I asked.

Wood brushed my fingers as he offered me the discarded branch. It took a moment to figure out which card I needed, but eventually I managed to relight the flame. It was even smaller than before, as if the magic struggled to stir this deep in the temple. I stuck closer to Raphael as we ventured farther.

Even as the shock faded from the prior trap, I couldn’t let go of one thing. “You can turn into a bat.”