“Oh! Guys! There’s another door over he—”

Ceres squealed as the wall rumbled to life in front of her, stone scraping against stone with a high-pitched grating sound that echoed around the underground.

“I think I pushed a brick!” she explained, “It just started movin’ on its own!”

A warm breeze howled through the study, buffeting pages around as if they were caught in a violent storm. Phantasia felt a momentary dread as Ceres leaned into the unknown – this door had eluded her faerie senses, just as the book she’d given Ms Anderson had concealed its secrets! If they were connected then this new passageway must surely lead down to…

The others gathered around the mysterious new opening. A rejuvenated Hermia pushed her way to the front and swung her torch into the depths. The stairway curved round as it descended. Without a word of explanation, Horatio pulled a cricket ball from his bag and tossed it into the darkness. He motioned the girls for silence as the thuds echoed into the distance.

“Goes on forever,” he said.

“Let’s go!” said Ceres, slipping through the others and skipping her way down the passageway. Korrigan followed, while Phantasia waited for Hermia and Horatio. Would they follow or would they be beaten by their pasts and flee?

“We can’t let them go down there alone,” said Hermia, “I hate the idea as much as you but…”

“But it looks scary!” said Horatio, “We might get lost and end up at the centre of the earth!”

Hermia’s mouth curled into a slight smile at his cowardice. “Let’s go, Horatio!”

“B-but it’s–”

Hermia pulled him with her, his coordination kicking in just before he stumbled over and sent them flailing down the stairway like the ball Horatio had tossed in before them.

“Good job I don’t need light,” whispered Phantasia before skipping after them. It didn’t take long for to see things from Horatio’s point of view: they weren’t just descending a stairway into the earth, they were moving further and further away from the stable reality of the Outerworld and sinking into its very fringes. The first physical sign – which she could hear the others gossiping about – were the walls. In the chambers above they were carved from the earth but here they were built from dark, crimson bricks with a faultless surface. Phantasia also noticed something else – something on the ethereal plane her human friends wouldn’t see: the flow of mana thickening, turning from streams and rivers into forceful currents. When she was sure no one was looking, she phased her way through the wall.

It wasn’t just a stairway they were descending, it was a tower. Phantasia found herself in a huge cavern, lit by an eerie red glow, looking down on a castle floating above a black abyss. The blood-coloured walls formed perfect geometric shapes, connecting tall shrines at the four cardinal points to a large dome in the centre. It looked like a giant magic circle – one sitting on the very fringes of the physical world, at a point where the currents of ethereal power crossed and where the walls between worlds were weakest.

This wasn’t good at all.

Chapter 29
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