Birthright (The Technomage Archive, Book 1)

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The lights came on, and Saryn froze. Chuckie dropped to one knee and pressed his back to the wall. He wiggled his fingers, prepared to Conjure something—anything—at the nothing in front of him. He waited a moment and asked, “What did you do?” He never looked at Saryn.

  “Nothing!”

  “Right. Because lights just come on by themselves when you're underground.”

  “These did,” Saryn said. “For all we know, Ceril might have had something to do with it.”

  “Maybe,” Chuckie agreed. “If so, he’d have a lot more luck than we are right now.”

  “Let's hope so. I'm just about tired of walking down this hallway.”

  “Yeah, I’m kind of tired of staring at the same walls, too. It’s been over an hour, and nothing has changed. Not even a little. It’s kind of getting to me. But hey,” Chuckie quipped, “at least it's not purple.”

  “I know,” Saryn said. “But that's one of the things that bothers me about it. Everything was purple since we got there.”

  “The lightning wasn't. I don’t think that acid was in that tree, either.”

  “Details,” Saryn said. “And here we are in a gold and silver bunker or something.”

  “It’s freaking me out a bit.”

  “A bit.”

  Chuckie stood up. “Do we keep going, then, or double back the way we came?”

  “We keep going. If Ceril is the one who turned the lights on, then we could be walking directly at him. We could turn a corner and find him in five minutes.”

  “Or, we could find another set of nasty, purple angels who want us dead.”

  “Well, we know Ceril isn’t behind us. There’s no way we missed him. No doors, turns, corners, nothing on the way here. Unless you saw something I didn’t.”

  Chuckie shook his head.

  “Then forward it is.”

  “You’re the boss, boss.” Chuckie started walking. Saryn looked around at the ceiling and walls before she joined him. She didn't like the place one bit.