Mirae’s puppet slammed into the restrained golem from the side.

  The construct had sprinted over so fast she’d barely noticed. It drove a luminous fist into the golem’s face. Once. Twice. The golem’s face cracked, and the puppet grabbed the sides of its stone head with both hands and twisted. Stone screeched, and Mirae’s teeth ached. The head came free with a dull pop. The golem’s body went slack, vines still wrapped around its limbs.

  Catching movement behind them, Mirae’s head whipped around.

  More golems dropped from the walls—three, four, five of them landing with thunderous impacts that sent mist swirling. Stone legs straightened. Green eyes ignited.

  “Run!” Mirae shouted. They were taking a beating already, and she couldn’t waste her mana on a long and drawn-out fight.

  She reached for her Talent [Moonlight Marionette]. It churned, responding to her will. At her side, light coalesced, particles gathering and condensing until they formed another luminescent figure. The fourth puppet solidified, its pale glow washing across the passage.

  She sent it forward as her friends ran past her.

  The newly formed puppet charged alongside another that had joined the first. And the three hit the advancing golems like battering rams. Stone cracked. One golem staggered. The puppets grappled it, the two grabbing its arms and wrenching in opposite directions. The golem’s torso split with a grinding crack.

  Another golem lunged. The third puppet met it head-on, fists flying in rapid succession. Each impact sent fragments scattering.

  Mirae turned, boots pounding against stone as she rushed past the last puppets who stood at sentry, waiting to intercept any threats. The golems, it and the other puppets had been fighting earlier, lay crumpled at its feet in piles of broken stone.

  More stone began grinding behind her, more golems pursuing, their heavy footfalls shaking the passage as they landed.

  “There!” Pippa screamed from a few steps ahead, arm outstretched, finger pointing.

  Mirae’s focus snapped in the direction her friend was gesturing. A turn in the maze, maybe thirty paces ahead. “What is it? Is that another turn we have to take?”

  “No, I’m sensing a powerful pull from over there!” she screamed, breath tight.

  The walk alone had been exhausting, and this extra run was no doubt only being fueled by the fading adrenaline. The chance that they would collapse as soon as they found safety was a sure thing. Mirae could only hope that none of them collapsed before then.

  They rounded the corner.

  A door.

  Plain wood bound with iron, set into an archway, identical to the entrance they’d used to enter the maze. It stood maybe twenty paces down the new passage, closed but promising escape.

  Mirae’s legs burned. Her lungs ached. Behind them, the grinding grew louder—

  Screams echoed in the distance.

  Faint. Far off. But unmistakable. Metal clashing against stone. Shouts that carried through the maze’s passages, distorted by the length they had to travel. Mirae couldn’t make out words, couldn’t identify voices. It was only thanks to her enhanced senses—courtesy of being Gravity Forging-Three—that she picked up what the others probably couldn’t hear at all.

  Others were fighting golems. Had to be. The maze was bound to be choked full of them.

  A flash of thought cut through her mind. Emela. Was she fighting them, too? Were she and Nyx doing alright?

  Mirae shoved the thought down. She couldn’t help. Not from here. Not when her own group was barely staying ahead of the stone monsters at their heels.

  They came to a stop in front of the door, Mirae’s eyes widening as she saw its surface. She’d been expecting another puzzle—that had been what the trial realm and this specific realm, perhaps made by Kar, seemed to want to throw at them at every other turn—but it was just a plain door. She glanced at Pippa, who shrugged.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  “What if it’s trapped?”

  Pippa rolled her eyes, stepping forward. Her hand reached for the handle—

  Screeching echoed through the air, followed by stone grinding against stone, the sound multiplying.

  Mirae’s head snapped to the side. Up ahead, golems dropped from the walls on both sides of the long pathway. Two, three, four, each of their impacts cratering the stone. They straightened in unison, causing her stomach to drop.

  Pippa twisted the handle and shoved her weight against the wood. The door flew open. “Inside! Now!” she yelled.

  They rushed through with Pippa in the lead, then Mrs Strongmail, then Harry. Mirae came last, spinning as soon as she cleared the threshold, and slamming the heavy wood shut behind her, pressing her back against it, leaning all her weight in. The wood was solid beneath her shoulders, blessedly thick. She could feel vibrations through it. Distant impacts, the golems still moving in the passage beyond.

  As a tense silence passed, the group all collapsed onto the cold stone, taking a moment to catch their breath. Before eventually getting to their feet.

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  Mirae then reached into the back of her mind, pulling on [Moonlight Marionette]. Light began gathering in the room, three humanoids taking shape beside her. Thankfully, her Talent allowed her to summon them frequently and didn’t exactly have a rest period, like she’d seen some of Hector’s other Talents had.

  The only true limit was her ability to manage them, as it took considerable mental strain to operate three at a time, and four was just about pushing the limits of her thought. Simple instructions became far more challenging. She didn’t want to imagine what would happen once the Talent got upgraded further.

  “Are you all right, Mirae?” Pippa asked, as her hand, which rested against her hip, tightened, fingers digging into the fabric of her tunic.

  Mirae nodded at the girl, raising a hand. “I’m fine, just need to—” Her breath caught, and then she let out a sigh “—catch my breath is all.”

  She blinked, forcing her vision to focus past the spots dancing at the edges.

  They had found themselves in quite a room.

  A large table dominated the centre, maybe eight feet across, carved from the same pale stone as everything else in the space. On the table sat a collection of blocks. Geometric shapes, each one inscribed with symbols that caught the dim light that came from mana stones lined along the walls. One block floated just above the table’s surface, rotating slowly.

  Pippa’s eyes widened. She began flipping through Kar’s journal, pages rustling frantically. Then she stopped, and her lips pulled into a wide smile. “Oh no, it’s another puzzle.”

  But instead of seeming upset about it, there was excitement radiating from her—that same eager energy she got whenever presented with a challenge. She raced forward, journal clutched to her chest.

  Mirae wanted to sigh at her friend, but it was thanks to this infatuation with problem-solving that she’d even gotten them this far. It was because of that Mirae couldn’t think of anyone more deserving than Pippa for Kar’s inheritance.

  As her chest hammered, she let out another sigh, trying to catch her breath before stepping over. “So what are we dealing with?” She asked Pippa, who seemed utterly enraptured with the puzzle.

  Having moved over to the girl, Mrs Strongmail stood behind her daughter, looking at Mirae with concern. The woman’s lips tightened and her eyebrows raised.

  “Wait,” Harry said, stopping the girl in her tracks.

  She glanced at the boy, and his gaze was fixed on the door they’d just come through. A thin sheen of sweat ran across his brow, tiny droplets rolling off and dropping to the stone below.

  “Don’t you think we should block the doorway? What if they get in?” he asked, voice shaky as his hands fidgeted at his side.

  She glanced back over at the wooden structure and shrugged. “I don’t think they’re going to come in.”

  She didn’t know why, but something told her that this maze, much like everything else, worked on rules, and they were now doing another challenge. She doubted Kar would send a horde of stone golems to attack them whilst completing something as delicate as this, but then again, nothing within the trial realm had always been as it seemed.

  With Harry’s worrying gaze still focused on the door, Mirae gave in to the boy’s concern. She willed one of her puppets over to it and had the construct stand before it, its back pressed against the wood, knees bent. “That should do, don’t you think?”

  Harry bit his lower lip, gnawing on it for a moment before nodding. “I think so. I’ll stand by it just in case.”

  Just in case. Mirae was pretty sure he was standing by not to help with the door, but more so to be the first one to know if things were going sideways. Though he’d probably also be the first one to jump in and try to fight.

  That was an admirable trait, but a slightly annoying one, given the fact that earlier those stone creatures would have killed him had she not got there in time. With him not even being Gravity Forging-One yet, the golem would have broken him the moment its fists landed against his flesh.

  Shaking her head, Mirae turned away from Harry, and two puppets fell in lockstep behind her as she moved over to Pippa and Mrs Strongmail. Worry practically dripped from the woman, equal to the amount of sweat that coated her brow as she stood behind Pippa, who fiddled with the strange blocks.

  Her young friend didn’t look up as Mirae stepped over. Instead, her focus locked onto the blocks she was messing with. She moved them like building toys—connecting them to pieces, frowning, disconnecting them, and then frowning again, seemingly not sure how to put them together.

  Each block clicked into place with a soft sound, then came apart with a gentle scrape of stone on stone. Pippa would hold one up to the soft light of the mana stone, rotate it, squint at the symbols carved into its faces, then try fitting it to another.

  Click.

  She paused.

  Frowned.

  Pulled them apart.

  Tried a different configuration.

  The floating block above continued its slow rotation, casting moving shadows across the table’s surface.

  She eventually took a step back, and Mirae blinked at her. “What is it?”

  Her friend let out a chuckle as if she was well and truly stumped by the structure before her. “You see those doors over there?”

  She raised her hand, gesturing towards the three exits that Mirae had not noticed at all. She’d gotten completely focused on this puzzle and Pippa’s efforts.

  Mirae turned, looking over the three doors that lined the far wall. These too were all identical to the one they’d entered the maze through. Each one, plain wood with iron bindings. Each one closed. She scrutinised them, biting her lip as she did. “We have to pick another one to go through?”

  “I don’t know if we have to pick one,” Pippa said, “or more so solve a puzzle and get the correct answer in order to open the correct door, which we pick by solving the puzzle.”

  Mirae tilted her head to the side, scratching at her neck. That sounded a lot more complicated than it really needed to be. “Why would someone want you to pick a door by solving a puzzle, yet your answer is technically your choice?”

  It was like creating a question where every answer was technically the right answer until you found out it was the wrong one. Almost pointless.

  “It’s a set of principles Kar came up with,” she said, resting the journal upon the smooth stone of the table.

  Mirae raised her brow. “And he has solutions for it in there, I take it?” Mirae raised a finger to the journal resting on the table, within easy reach for her friend.

  Pippa shrugged, rocking her head back and forth. “You could say he has solutions, but you could also say he wants you to figure it out on your own.” She paused, crossing her arms, with a soft pout. “He definitely intended for this journal to be viewed by his successor, though I wish he’d offered a little more help.”

  Mirae noticed the cuteness of the display, but she couldn’t fully appreciate it because a feeling of dread slowly settled in. They were stuck here. In this room. With three doors, and none of them being an obvious choice.

  Pippa let out a huff. “Mom, step back a bit, please?”

  Mrs Strongmail obliged, moving aside.

  Pippa reached in and began sticking the blocks together in a certain pattern—three smaller cubes connecting to form an L-shape, which she then attached to a rectangular piece. She added two more blocks, creating something that looked almost like a key. She then raised it into the air.

  The construction floated from her hands.

  It drifted upward, drawn by some invisible force, until it connected to the larger block floating in the centre. Click. The newly formed structure began orbiting the central block, rotating in a slow, steady circle.

  A grinding sound echoed through the room.

  The leftmost door at the end of the room swung inward, and Mirae raised a brow.

  “Well, I don’t know what will happen on the other side, but I suggest you send your puppet first,” Pippa said, gesturing towards one of the luminescent figures behind her.