The trap vanished, but the air stayed thick, like the darkness was sulking about losing. The stone wall trembled, cracked — and slowly split apart to reveal a narrow staircase descending into what I could only assume was further inconvenience.

  Stone steps.

  Because of course.

  Runes flickered along the walls in a faint violet glow — the magical equivalent of being rudely woken from a nap and unsure whether to cooperate or bite.

  “Well, that’s a twist,” Finn drawled. “I’d already composed my tragic st thoughts.”

  Elvira stepped forward — not eagerly, but with a focus that felt almost intimate, looking like someone recognising a familiar signature in a long-lost letter.

  “It’s an ancient dialect,” Elvira said, her voice lower than before. Her fingers hovered near the runes without touching them. “Very ancient. Deymaric.”

  “You read Deymaric?”

  “I had to learn. Look at the structure of the symbols… This isn’t just a protective weave. It’s a marker.”

  “For what?” I asked, already bracing myself.

  “For a path,” she replied, and the reverence in her voice felt almost personal. “Follow the sequence and it leads down. To older levels. Possibly to the underground city.”

  A brief pause.

  “And to the Interworld Gates.”

  The cat sat by the wall looking like she had absolutely nothing to do with anything, her tail zily swaying — the very same tail responsible for the st fifteen minutes of chaos.

  The runes pulsed faintly.

  “I cannot believe I’m saying this,” Elvira muttered. “But thank you, Moorka.”

  “For what, exactly?”?” I frowned.

  “Her demonic aura triggered the system. The passage opened for her. The city was built by Deymars — technically lesser demons, but engineering geniuses. The security likely recognised her as authorised. We, unfortunately, were simply too close during activation — so the trap triggered on us..”

  Moorka licked her paw in smug silence.

  “So let me crify,” I said carefully. “the trap wouldn’t have harmed Moorka at all? And the passage would have politely opened for her? And we would have remained outside, aging gracefully and licking stone walls, trying to find the entrance?”

  “Precisely.”

  Finn cleared his throat and addressed the cat.

  “I retract my earlier statement. You are not a random catastrophe. You are a highly specialised catastrophe. And apparently we’ve just accidentally made a historical discovery?”

  “Not accidental,” Elvira corrected. “I’ve been looking for this entrance for six months.” Her eyes gleamed — not just with excitement. With something tighter. Personal. “Do you understand? We’re already here. Passages like this have been sealed for centuries, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  That sentence alone filled me with dread.

  Drake said nothing: he wasn’t just gncing at the runes, he was analysing them.

  Too carefully.

  He stepped forward first. His fingers hovered near the symbols — almost touching — before withdrawing.

  “Was the trap not enough?” he said evenly. “Ancient cities rarely come without complications.”

  “I know. Unmapped levels. Sealed structures. Gates.”

  “It’s lethal,” he corrected.

  Finn leaned closer to the runes.

  “If there’s treasure, I saw it first,” he muttered, though significantly less enthusiastically than before.

  “I’ll go first,” Drake said. “I’ll check whether it’s worth entering.”

  Elvira whipped around.

  “First? I’ve practically lived in the sealed wing searching for this. If the ruins are real, I need to be there…”

  “And die,” Drake replied dryly.

  I looked at him instinctively — and for the first time realised he wasn’t just assessing risk.

  His gaze lingered on the runes too long. His pupils widened slightly. His jaw tightened. His throat moved in a brief, involuntary swallow.

  Something flickered in his gaze — interest, almost tension. Far too much attention for someone who’d been advocating we leave.