The Ends of the World (The Conspiracy of Us #3)(37)

Stellan came back, the hem of his shirt pulled up to wipe his face. He dropped it back onto his chest, and the streaks of blood across it looked eerie in the dark. "Legend said the Gordian knot was impossible to untie."

"The oracles prophesied that whoever undid it would be the king of the world," Elodie agreed, with a quick glance at Stellan. He'd spoken directly to her with no animosity in the words. It was a step. "And when Alexander realized that there were no ends to the knot-"

I squeezed my necklace hard. "He undid it by slicing it in half." I remembered this from history class. I had never connected it to my necklace, or this quest. I looked from my necklace to the hole in the wall. The larger tunnel hadn't been a circle. "It's a Gordian knot," I said. "The whole tunnel is. That's why we ended up back where we started. There's no way into the inner chamber-"

"Except to go straight through the wall," Jack finished. He was flexing his fingers, but dropped the hand to his side when I looked his way, like he didn't want me to see that he'd hurt himself on Stellan's face.

"I guess that's our sign." Elodie climbed through, and we set off into the mouth of the tunnel.

This passage was much smaller-just wide enough for us to go single file-and cut roughly out of dirt. It was also descending rapidly. Roots snaked down the walls and across the path, and the farther we went, the wetter it got. My cheap sneakers were caked with mud.

At the front of the line, Jack paused. As we caught up to him, we saw why: a drop-off of at least five feet, with a pool of water at the bottom.

"I feel like I need to mention that these old tunnels were sometimes booby-trapped," Elodie said. It was barely a whisper, but still felt too loud in the confined space.

"Napoleon got through here, and he's the one who must have sealed it back up," Jack said. "I don't think he would have done that."

"Be careful," I whispered.

He glanced back at me and nodded, then swung himself down into the pit with a splash, sinking up to his knees in water. On the other side, he pulled himself out using tree roots as handholds and Elodie followed.

Stellan splashed down into the hole. Jack looked back over his shoulder. "Help Avery," he said.



       
         
       
        

"Obviously." Stellan reached for me. He met my eyes, then quickly looked away again.

"What?" I thought again of what he'd said earlier.

"What do you mean, what?"

"Nothing. Never mind." I let him help me down and boost me up the other side because the hole was deeper than I was tall. I could have sworn his hand lingered longer than necessary on my back on the other side, but when we'd scrambled to standing, he just gave me a nudge down the tunnel and followed close behind.

It was eerily quiet, the only noise the damp squishing of our clothes. I felt my shoulder brush the cool, wet wall, and shuddered when I had to wipe a film of spiderwebs from my face. The tunnel narrowed and shortened, so we had to crawl. It opened into a wider clearing a few minutes later, and we stood up one by one, shaking out our limbs and looking around. And then we saw what was on the other side of the clearing.

Our lights shining ahead seemed to fall off into nothing. The tunnel dead-ended into open air.

We made our way slowly to the edge. It was pitch-black. Jack brought his light up, and drew in a sharp breath.

"It's a pyramid," Elodie said, barely louder than a breath.

The rocky sides of the chamber went straight down. But when I looked more closely, I saw tiny steps carved into the side, starting just below the ledge. On the floor of the chamber, about two stories below us, a small, gleaming white pyramid rose out of a pool of water.

My breath caught in my throat. The tomb of Alexander the Great, and his mother. It had to be.

"It's-" Elodie whispered, then cut off. From below came a sound we never would have expected to hear in the world's most famous lost tomb.

Voices.





CHAPTER 12



There were two people talking down in the cavern. Judging by how muffled they were, they must have been inside that pyramid.

They were the voices of a boy and a girl. Voices we knew.

Lydia and Cole Saxon.

"How the hell did they get here?" Elodie hissed. The chamber must have had other entrances. But that wasn't what she was asking. How did they know how to get here?

I'd been waiting to confront my siblings for so long, but now I was paralyzed.

"We have to get down there before they get what we're looking for," Stellan whispered. "And then put a bullet in their heads and end this whole thing."