Explaining everything to her takes a moment. The artifact radiates warmth, now that I’m standing next to it for a bit longer. In the cold and dry hall, it feels surprisingly nice.

  Next time, I can and should do this part faster. Every second counts, even if the Janitors have been banned from the upper floors. I twiddle my extra thumbs and try not to panic over them. She explained that they might go away once I’m out of this Ride, but they also might not.

  “You’ll have to handle that yourself. Janitors are not welcome,” she says as she puts her hands in her pockets. She smirks and raises an eyebrow at me. “You’re not supposed to go up there either, as you’re on a Ride. It’s obviously a rule that can’t be enforced, though.”

  Obviously. Lille once said some rules are made for peace of mind, and nothing else. She also made sure to point out her rules were never like that. My right hand throbs, pulling my attention away from the old memories. Funny how things that happened a couple of days ago feel like old memories.

  The memories from the last Ride replace Lille. Why did my skin smoke? I shake my head to clear it, even if I know I’ll have nightmares about this one. “How can I get up then?”

  “There are badges that are given to visitors of the council. Liam has one. They show you’re allowed to go up and help you get up there at the same time.”

  I start walking toward Liam’s office without another word. She follows me slowly. Her brow is furrowed and her full lips part and close. I stop and wait. She’s not a waiter. Even if I’m in a hurry, I owe her this much.

  “How deep are you, kid? How many times have you been here?” she finally says.

  I blush. “Just once. I met you once and we talked, but I got killed upstairs before getting anywhere.”

  Her eyebrows lift up. “Killed? In here? What the heck were you up to?” She shakes her head and her golden hair comes loose and obscures her face. “I saw you touch the artifact multiple times. Even for me, it’s hard to wrap my head around it and what it means. Now I know how other people feel.”

  She pushes away the hair and tucks it behind her ear. She’s smiling, but I still feel like I should pat her on the shoulder or hug her or something.

  I shake it off. There’s no more time to waste. No more Rides.

  Ever again.

  Liam’s wringing his hands on the other side of the door when we get in.

  “Liam, please give the kid a visitor’s pass,” the Janitor says to him. She has composed herself, there’s no sign of her being shaken anymore.

  “A visitor’s pass, lady Janitor?”

  She gives him a knowing look and pats him on the shoulder. “I know, but let’s just forget about this. No harm done. The kid has something important to do.”

  I keep my face still, letting her handle this.

  “Of course, lady.” Liam bows to the Janitor and walks back toward his desk. He rummages around a drawer, pulling something out from under a pile of papers. “You’ll need to bring this back before you leave. Don’t take it outside of the building. If it stays gone for more than a couple of hours, it’ll cause an alarm and a hassle.” He offers the badge to me. It’s a thick and coarse metal disk with a symbol of a bridge. “You press the button here to release the ambrosia and activate the levitation spell.”

  I have no idea what the explanation means, but take note of the button Liam points to. The disc has a pin on the other side, which I push through my shirt to stick it on my chest. It reminds me of the amulet the Janitors have and I shudder.

  The Janitor is standing back, her arms crossed. She doesn’t look vacant like Lictor, but I guess I have thrown her into new territory. Even if she has already seen this whole day happen, she hasn’t experienced this part of it. This is my own personal cycle, spun out for me alone. Except, wait, if she has seen the whole day, shouldn’t she know what I’m going to do later? She wouldn’t know what made me do it though or what happened in the Rides in between. Or how she herself acted on them?

  “What are you looking at?” she asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Uh, nothing. All of this is making my head hurt.”

  “I know the feeling,” Liam says from the side.

  The Janitor chuckles. I still don’t know her name for sure. I assumed it would be Minerva, but I’m starting to think it’s not. Maybe I’ll ask next time. She keeps calling me kid again, but I guess she hasn’t met me, this time.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  I bow at both of them and turn to leave. I have more time than I thought before Lictor notices I’m missing. It’s still not much. I glance at the thumbs in the center of my palms and shudder once again. I’ll make sure this Ride is worth the cost.

  I run along the corridors as fast as I can without looking like I’m escaping from someone. Still, when I turn a corner, a man in a robe stops me and asks me what I’m doing. I don’t want to risk causing a scene and throwing away a whole Ride, so I smile my best smile and explain that I’m bringing a message from Janitor Lictor for the council. He balks at the mention of Lictor’s name. The badge pinned on my chest seems to be enough confirmation, and he points me toward the right set of stairs.

  Upstairs, the crowd is similar but different. Astaroth is not there yet, but the stocky merchant is already going into the room where we found him the last time. Is he here just to read his book? I wonder where I should be going when a shadow moves in the middle of the hall.

  Someone is hovering in the air high above me, shaking hands with a robed wizard.

  There’s a circular hole in the ceiling, much too high for any ladder. Two men are standing over the hole, on thin air, sharing a laugh over something. The ceiling above them is bright white, painting them as silhouettes. One of them is a wizard, judging from the slippers and the robe. He makes a gesture with his hand and the other man starts to descend.

  First, I see the soles of his boots. As he floats lower, his face changes from jovial to annoyed or disgusted, teeth clenched, the corner of his lip pulled up to his nose. His hair has the same striking shade of copper as Rworg, and it’s pulled back into a tight ponytail. He lands softly and glares down at me.

  I’m standing between him and the stairs, but before I can react or move, he pushes me, hard. I stumble backwards with a “Hey!” into someone.

  “Bloody peasants,” the man says without even looking at me.

  The man I bumped into pushes me gently to get me back in balance. His voice is kind and amused. “New here? Be careful around the pad. Lots of important, and self-important, people coming and going.”

  The Ponytail Guy stomps down the stairs, not giving me another glance. His heels clack loudly and his cloak billows behind him. In addition to the Janitors, he’s the only one I’ve seen with a cloak. It doesn’t have runes all over, but as a cloak, it looks even finer than theirs.

  The man still says something, but my focus is on the ceiling and the hole. There’s no time to get to know new people or feel bad about ignoring him. He’s a prop, like Lictor said. Not Astaroth or the stocky merchant or anyone I know. I do make a note to remember him, though. He seems like a nice guy.

  I push the button on the disc. It makes a rattling sound like an unoiled hinge. I shake the disc and try to see if it did anything as the room starts to tilt sideways. I’m weightless, inching up ever so slightly. The circular opening looms above, a perfect dark circle cut into the ceiling. Before I drift too high to reach the ground, I kick off the floor.

  Too hard. I shoot up. Someone shouts a warning from below me, but I’ve already realized I’m not going to hit the circle. My stomach lurches and I make swimming motions with my arms to pull me toward the opening. I hit the ceiling, and the bump spins me around so I’m upside down.

  “Try to grab something!” The voice, now above me, shouts.

  “Use your legs!” someone else shouts.

  I consider throwing up on them out of spite, but I clench my teeth together to fight down the nausea. I extend my legs and hook my heels inside the opening. I pull, too hard.

  I rocket into the upper chamber, straight into the hovering wizard. We spin together, a tangle of robes and limbs. He feels really thin and frail. I feel bad for him. We hit the wall with a soft thud and stay there. I’m pinned upside down, the wizard pressed between me and the wall.

  “Dear me,” he mutters.

  I crawl off from the wizard and we both inch down along the wall, me trying not to look at him while at it. When we’re close to the floor, he makes a gesture and I lurch down. My legs wobble as I’m dropped to stand on them again.

  My cheeks are burning and I bow down low, so I don’t have to meet his gaze. “I’m terribly sorry! It’s my first time here.”

  The floor is white stone, polished like a mirror. The tip of his long beard hangs in my field of view. His blue slippers are velvety and smooth. “Don’t worry about it. Some excitement does me good.” He pats me on my bent head a couple of times.

  I rise up slowly and get my first good look at the wizard. He’s old as dirt. Older than Gran, even. Even bent down by old age, he’s taller than me. His eyebrows are bushy and bright white and his face is a tightly packed map of wrinkles.

  Some extra ones appear around his eyes as he smiles at me. “Well, young man, who are you looking for? I think it’s not me. Though maybe I’ve forgotten. I guess I’m here for some reason?” He gazes around the room, looking lost.

  There are four corridors that branch toward each cardinal direction from the large round room. Everything has been built out of the same speckless marble. There are no visible lights, but it’s so bright I need to squint. It’s completely different from the landing hall below it, which was different from the rest of the building. The hole yawns in the floor. There’s no railing or a cover. Why is this place so weird? “Um, I’m looking for Corum. Representative Corum! I mean.”

  “Oh, my niece? I thought she said she was busy today. I’m afraid I can’t take you to her.” His thick eyebrows droop over his eyes and he looks genuinely disappointed. “It’s still nice you came to visit. It’s fun for me to meet her young friends.”

  The old wizard looks at me kindly. He doesn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry. Who is he? Maybe he can help me instead. Or at least tell me something that I can use to get to meet his niece on the next try. I smile back at him. “Maybe you can help me instead? It’s a shame if we missed each other with her, but I would like to talk about an important matter with someone on the council.”

  His mouth forms an o. “An important matter! Well, of course, young man, of course.”

  The old wizard totters off toward one of the corridors, but turns around as he’s about to reach the exit. “Oh, almost forgot,” he says and makes a quick gesture with his hand. The edges of the circle reach inward and snap shut the hole in the floor. “Can’t have anyone falling in, you know.”

  “You’re more worried about someone falling down than someone coming up?”

  He smiles at me. There’s a grey film over his eyes, but his teeth are remarkably white. “Why would we be worried about anyone coming up? It’s nice when young people come to visit.”