Sarah and I left the maze, happy to watch the tall stone walls of the labyrinth grow distant as we marched on. But our joy was short-lived once we reached the end wall of the much-too-large, magical room. We met with only a prettily painted mural of fish, ocean, and abstract yellow, swirling sand, but we hadn’t been looking for a mural.

  I dug out my unsolved clue for our group project from my right pocket and held it up to the dim light coming from distant torches adorning the edges of the maze exit. I read the words aloud,

  THE FIFTH AND SIXTH NUMBERS OF THE COMBINATION TO MY SAFE ARE

  CARVED INTO THE WALL BEHIND THE HIDDEN DOOR.

  Sarah, a healthy coloring now returning to her face, glanced at me and shrugged. I sighed, shoving the clue back into one of the pockets of my jumpsuit.

  “Let’s just search everywhere,” I said.

  And search everywhere we did. Both Sarah and I ran fingers all along the nooks and crannies of the painted mural and the empty walls meeting it on either side. Soon, I got to my third time scrutinizing every inch of the stone, Sarah doing the same.

  If the numbers are carved into the wall, surely I’d feel those markings, I thought as I thoughtfully pressed all of my fingers into the rainbow scales painted onto one of the smaller fish swimming at the bottom of the mural.

  “Wait a second,” I breathed aloud, pressing harder into one of the fish’s scales.

  The more I felt along the artistic fish with realistic, glossy eyes, the more I could feel the few impressions in the artwork–like someone had chiseled certain parts of the mural into the stone.

  “Three of this fish’s scales have been carved into the wall!” I called out to Sarah, who stood at the other side of the mural with a thoughtful finger tapping her chin.

  She stopped staring at her corner and turned toward me. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not completely sure yet,” I said, my voice raising an octave in excitement, “but we should try to see if there are any other parts of the mural like it.”

  With more fervor and a whole lot more focus, Sarah and I ran our hands over every single spot of the mural–thankfully, the painting didn’t climb any higher than our arms could reach.

  “Here!” Sarah announced, standing on the tips of her toes and pointing at a section of the blue sky painted at the top of the picture. “The outlines of these four clouds have been carved into the stone, too.”

  “The fifth and sixth numbers of the combination to my safe are carved into the wall behind the hidden door,” I whispered aloud, repeating the words of the clue once again. “Three carved scales, four carved clouds….”

  I grinned at Sarah, who grinned right along with me. She had solved the clue, as well.

  “The answer to the clue is three and four,” I said, pumping a triumphant fist into the air.

  The room somehow knew we’d solved the puzzle because as soon as I uttered the answer, a loud creaking sound accompanied the mural in front of us giving way and falling into the floor, revealing another gray door similar to the one we’d found that’d led us to this hidden room.

  “I think that must be our exit,” I said.

  “Which is which, though?” Sarah asked, completely ignoring the fact that we now had a safe path to leave instead of having to take on the maze again. “In the combination? Is three the fifth number and four the sixth, or is it the other way around?”

  I shrugged. “We can try both once we get to the safe. We should tell the others after we get out of here.”

  I scurried toward the newly appeared door, more than ready to leave, but Sarah hadn’t moved even a step.

  “I’m already trying to contact the rest of our group,” Sarah said, pressing two fingers into her left temple.

  I reluctantly turned away from the door to face her. I cocked my head to the side and said, “How? Are… Are you using your neural implant to contact the others?”

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  I didn’t know we could do that.

  Sarah held up a finger on her free hand to her lips to shush me. She squeezed her eyes shut and remained still for at least a minute.

  Finally, Sarah’s eyes fluttered open, but it took a second for her to focus back on my face. The use of her neural implant seemed to have brought on a temporary daze.

  “All right, the rest of our group is headed to Professor Bilith’s classroom right now. Let’s go.”

  Sarah took the lead again while I stood frozen in thought.

  “How… You’ll have to teach me how to use my neural implant to contact others.”

  Sarah nodded but waved for me to hurry. I shook myself out of my reverie and hurried behind Sarah. I was happy to see a burst of light once she pushed the door open and pleased to leave yet another maze behind forever.

  I hate mazes.

  ***

  Professor Bilith had informed our entire class that she’d leave the door to her lecture room open for as long as this quest was going on. The five of us in our group–Marianne, Sarah, Mildred, Maxwell, and I–stood in a semi-circle facing the tall safe at the head of the classroom. We were the only group in the dark room, lit only by one hanging orb above the professor’s neat desk, and the metal box still stood before us unopened.

  “We did it,” Maxwell breathed, eyes wide and a small smile twitching up the corners of his lips. “I can’t believe we won.”

  “We haven’t won yet,” Marianne snapped, being her typical self. “We still have to see if we all solved our clues correctly. Based on Sarah’s and Rayden’s story about the hidden door, that maze, and the mural, they might be completely wrong.”

  Sarah and I shot looks at one another, rolling our eyes simultaneously but otherwise remaining silent.

  “Well, here goes nothing,” Marianne grumbled, barely glancing at the paper of scrawled numbers that Sarah held out for her to see.

  I wasn’t sure why Marianne refused to express any semblance of excitement–we were so close to winning! Still grumbling, she tapped chubby fingers on the touch screen covering a third of the large safe. It lit up in a blinding white, casting an ironically angelic aura around the grumpy Marianne.

  “6, 8,” she said aloud, typing in the answer to one of Sarah’s clues. Every time she tapped a number, a satisfying “beep” accompanied it. “Another 8, and then a 1…” she continued, the answers to the first clue I’d found: 8 was the number of doors on the floor of the mess hall, then 1 was that same 8 minus the age of the youngest person who’d ever attended the academy as a student–a 7-year old.

  “What was next, Rayden? What you and Sarah just found behind that hidden door?” Marianne said with barely a look over her shoulder.

  “3, then 4,” I replied. “It might be 4 first, but we can try that next if it doesn’t work.”

  Marianne’s audible sigh sent a chorus of annoyed, shaking heads throughout our entire group.

  “3, 4… 7, 9, 2, 5,” Marianne finished.

  Everyone held their breath, including Marianne, who had frozen before the screen in silent anticipation.

  But nothing happened.

  Marianne whirled on me and charged forward. “Some of your numbers must be wrong,” she said through gritted teeth.

  “Hey!” Maxwell said, putting an arm between the two of us and gently pushing Marianne back. “How do you know it’s his fault? Any of our solutions could be incorrect.”

  “Well, first, you should try switching my 3 and 4,” I said calmly, but just as Marianne finally relented and moved to do as I said, a soft click came from the safe.

  All five of us rushed forward, staring at the metal door. It had opened, but only by half an inch.

  “Open it,” Mildred whispered, nudging Marianne in the ribs.

  Eyes wide, Marianne gulped, then wrapped her fingers around the small opening. With a deep breath, she pulled on the heavy safe door. It opened the rest of the way with a whoosh, revealing a large opening. It was dark inside, so we pushed all five of our heads deep into the safe to better see what prize awaited us inside.

  “What are those?” I said, narrowing my eyes at the five flat, oval-shaped discs spread across the bottom of the safe.

  The other four in my group gasped excitedly, wasting no time to snatch up one of the discs and pull them close to their chests.

  “I’ve always wanted one of these!” Marianne exclaimed, cheeks red and a never-before-seen smile spreading across her entire face.

  Sarah seemed just as excited. She bounced up and down with a thrilled squeal on her lips, holding onto her disc as if her life depended on it. In fact, everyone but me clutched their oval prizes with utter delight.

  Shrugging, I scooped up the one remaining disc. I held it to my eyes to further study the object, wishing as I often did that Dex was still in my head to do a scan and inform me of whatever this… thing… was.

  The disc was smooth and cool to the touch and was barely smaller than my palm. It was almost completely transparent, save for the mesmerizing swirls of lines dancing inside it. It almost looked like the disc had trapped streams of essence, but these streams glowed a soft silver instead of blue. I flinched as a sudden streak of gold flashed across the surface like lightning shooting through a stormy sky. Five seconds passed, and another mini-lightning strike occurred. In fact, it seemed to happen every five seconds.

  I turned the object over in my hand about half a dozen times, further studying every inch of it. My best guess was it had to be a magical item of some sort–a magical item worth getting excited about, apparently.

  “Hey, new kid, have you never seen an etherea egg before?”

  Marianne’s tone had no snarkiness to it, and she smiled at me with more kindness than I’d ever expected to receive from her. Winning her new prize must have struck an entirely new personality within her, but I didn’t think this sudden change would last.

  “An etherea egg?” I responded, repeating Marianne’s words back to her. “No, we didn’t have these back home.”

  The other four in my group gathered around me with creepy, knowing smiles.

  “Oh, you’ll like it, Rayden!” Sarah said. “Everyone wants an etherea for a pet.”

  “Pet?!”

  I looked down at the disc in my palm. What have I gotten myself into?