Jack motioned us all back to the tunnel, where we could whisper without being heard. "You're not going to want to hear this, but we can't kill them." Stellan started to protest, but he went on, "I know some of us might be leaving the Circle, but not all of us are. And I doubt any of us want to give them another reason to hunt us. Right now, the Circle believes the Saxons completely and thinks we're monsters. If we ambush them and kill them without a trial, that'll only confirm it. The only way is to capture them and bring them to the Circle."
I felt my hands curl into fists at my sides. That was so opposite how I'd felt for so long. He was right, though. "Okay," I said.
Reluctantly, Stellan and Elodie nodded, too. We tiptoed back out. Jack pointed his light at the stairs. They couldn't be more than a foot wide and six inches deep, cut right into the rock wall, with no handhold, and certainly no railing.
Elodie pushed to the front and pointed down. Jack lit her way.
"Be careful," I breathed, and she swung off the edge and onto the top step a few feet below, so just her head and shoulders stuck up above the ledge.
Our lights bounced over her, like strobes in a club. Stellan followed her. Trying my best not to think about the sheer drop into darkness inches away, I got on my hands and knees and lowered myself down. Stellan held on to my waist as my toes touched the top step, and, like he knew I wasn't entirely comfortable with it, kept his hand on me while Jack dropped above us until all four of us were in a line again, and down we went, step by narrow step.
Halfway down, Elodie came to a sudden stop. She brought her arm to her mouth, racked by silent coughs. She bent over-and then suddenly she was slipping, her arms pinwheeling in the air.
Stellan grabbed her. I grabbed him. My arm was ripped out of Jack's steadying grasp, but he snagged my waist, leaving the four of us locked together in a precarious chain.
I could feel Jack's heart pounding against my back. Stellan leaned on the wall for a second before he looked up, his face inches from mine, and I realized my fingers were digging into his shoulders, right over his scars.
I jerked them away. "Sorry," I whispered.
He shook his head with a bit of a smirk, as if to say, That is the least of our problems.
Elodie looked back at us. "It's slippery," she mouthed, unnecessarily. Stellan put a finger to his lips and we listened for any sign Lydia and Cole had heard us. They were still talking inside. None of us let go of each other the rest of the way down.
The bottom of the stairs disappeared into water. Jack waded into it as quietly as he could, and where I'd expected to slosh through it at knee height, he sank in all the way to his shoulders, and I could tell it went deeper. He glanced up and shrugged silently. We'd have to swim.
We all deposited our phones in a plastic baggie Elodie had with her, and I held my bag aloft as we waded down the steps into the cold, murky depths.
The pyramid was bigger than it had looked from above. It was sticking out of the water at least twenty feet, and who knew how far it went beneath. It was built of silvery-veined white marble that looked like it hadn't been touched for a very long time. With our flashlights turned on it, it seemed to be glowing in the dark pit.
"This is actually it, isn't it?" Elodie breathed, treading water.
But this wasn't the time to marvel at history. I gestured around the side of the pyramid.
When we reached the back, the first thing we saw was another set of steps just like the ones we'd come down. That must have been how Lydia and Cole had gotten in. And nearly at the top of the pyramid, a dim yellow light shined through what looked like an open door. Stellan raised his arm silently and pointed, and we swam to him to find another set of stairs leading up the pyramid's slanted side.
At the top of the exposed steps we all paused, dripping and shivering, getting our weapons ready. We'd capture Lydia and Cole. We'd figure out what the cure was and give it to Elodie, just in case. Then we'd destroy the rest of whatever it was so Lydia and Cole had no chance of taking it.
"Don't hurt them," Jack whispered, warning. "We take them alive."
He held up a hand, then pointed, and we all burst through the door.
CHAPTER 13
The twins were standing on a raised platform with two boxes on it. They looked up, actual surprise registering on their faces. This was the first time I'd seen them in person since my mom died. My hands knotted into tight fists again.
There were lanterns at their feet, illuminating them and the box they were standing over-which I realized now had to be a casket-in a warm light that shined back from all sides. The entire inside of the pyramid was plated in gold.