"Resting sounds like a good idea, we're all pretty on edge." Rhyss wasn't sure if it was what she meant, but Bel sounded like she wasn't on edge herself. Rhyss wanted to kick her, but she settled for glaring at the floor. "There has to be a way out, I'm sure if we give it some time we'll figure something out."
Rest didn't help Rhyss come up with a brilliant plan. If anything, it set her more on edge. After a few minutes of sitting, she got up to pace the length of the room, carefully avoiding the stones. As far as she could tell, there was no possible way for them to lift out of the room, which didn't make any sense. The panels must be able to retract, but no matter where she tried knocking the hilt of her knife it didn't seem to matter, it all sounded the same.
Bel leaned against Heln and seemed to doze off. Her illumination bubble was barely brighter than the moss in the cavern. All of the magic meant that the room was a lot warmer than the tunnel and it should have made her drowsy, too, but she just wanted to hit something.
"So, the Rising Stones gather magic, and put it in a teapot." Heln frowned. "That sounds like the start of a bad joke. It feels like that big crystal in that big cave in here, but more potent. Do you think it's feeding it? I don't get the teapot, though, that doesn't make any sense."
"It's an ugly teapot, too."
"I don't think the aesthetics of the teapot actually matter, Bel."
"They matter to me. Maybe we're supposed to make tea, and the tea leaves will show us the way. Y'know, divination. Could be a real thing, why not?"
"That is the stupidest—"
"What if we pick it up?" Rhyss had been too wary to touch it before. Now, she didn't even care. If it caused a thousand spears to come out of the walls, she'd find a way to dodge them and then use them against whoever set up such a stupid room.
Bel and Heln got to their respective feet.
"I don't know if that's—" Bel started to say.
Rhyss ignored her and touched it, but before she could do any more than that, the entire room trembled.
The pale green panels glowed, brilliantly, and a construct stepped out of each one, made of the same stone, dragging threads of it like pulled taffy behind them. They stepped closer in unison, cutting off the only escape route.
Rhyss held up her knife, but she wasn't sure how much good that was going to do. The others had been dirt and rocks and they'd been hard enough to defeat; these were solid stone, glowing eerily in the suddenly dim cavern.
"Maybe they want to make tea." Bel's voice was faint.
"Good idea, Bel, let's just throw the teapot at them." Heln's sarcasm hadn't been at all affected by their current situation.
"Do it." Rhyss told them.
"What?"
"Do it," she repeated. They were getting closer and she was out of options. She glanced back in time to see Heln pick up the teapot. He made a noise and nearly dropped it. Apparently it was much heavier than it looked.
Heavy enough that when he lobbed it at the constructs it landed in front of Rhyss instead of anywhere near where he had been aiming.
It hit the ground and cracked perfectly in half.
Chapter Seventeen
"Nice throw."
Bel knew now was not the time, but she had never seen anyone fail at throwing something quite so spectacularly. If they were going to die then she had to say something witty.
The two halves of the teapot listed away from each other. The liquid inside was splattered on the floor in an arch of droplets, each one glistening like diamonds.
"Shut up, it was heavy." Heln stared uneasily at the constructs. They'd stopped moving when he had thrown the pot, frozen in mid step, staring at them with blank eyes.
"No, really, you throw worse than Dad."
"Shut up, Bel."
Before Rhyss could agree with either of them or tell them to shut up, the liquid congealed into a single, luminous mass between the two halves and slowly rose into the air. The stone of the teapot turned white, the color leaching out of it and into the liquid. It formed into a perfect green orb that glowed virulently. With a grinding noise the pedestal sank into the floor until it was perfectly flush with it. The others were pulled back into the panels like they were made of clay, each panel draining of color the moment it was whole again. The sphere grew larger until it was bigger than the three of them, hanging in the air like a baleful moon.
"Maybe we should go." Rhyss took a step back.
The globe pulsed. Bel had never felt magic before, but she felt this deep in her bones, a resonance that felt like it was going to rattle her teeth out. She barely had the presence of mind to keep Heln from falling over. If this was what Heln felt half the time then she had no idea how he got out of bed every day.
It pulsed again, stronger, and they both ended up on their knees. When she looked up again the globe was hovering in front of the door, cutting off their escape.
The panels were white, now, almost chalky looking. The only light came from the floating stones and the orb. Their own bubbles had been washed away in one of the waves of magic.
And they were gone, the odd limb or face sticking out of the white rock, completely immobile, nothing glowing in their eyes.
Bel shuddered, climbing slowly to her feet and helping Heln to his. "You okay?" she
