“One more thing.” Etienne’s voice echoed back out. “I hate to have to simplify what should be obvious, but I must, or none of you will get in. The doors are locked, as you have realized. But the puzzle to solve is this: these doors can only be opened from the inside.”
Huh? Stepping outside this monastery without your keys would be a complete pain in the ass.
“I thought it’d be something a bit more—” Shailene began.
“—impressive.” Fay finished off the sentence.
“How hard can it be to break into this place?” Oliver asked casually.
If you think it’ll be easy, you’ve never been part of a challenge, pal. I didn’t know much about my fellow players’ experience, but I’d broken into a few high-security buildings in my time. The New York Coven took the top spot in my breaking-and-entering Hall of Fame, and that had been a real pain.
“Who says we have to break in?” Melody approached the front door and knocked. Everyone stared at her. Naturally, nothing happened. I liked her outside-the-box thinking, but that was a little too simple.
“What, you thought you could just knock, and they’d answer?” Shailene barked a cold laugh.
Melody reddened. “It was worth a try.”
With knocking a no-go, the Basani twins hit the windows first, using a joint attack of powerful Telekinesis to try to wrench the glass from the frames. Oliver went back to scaling the wall, likely seeking a weak spot on the roof. Melody bombarded the front door with Air, while Luke sent twisting silver tendrils from his hand and grasped for the hinges of the front door. The filling in my back tooth started to tug weirdly, as if it wanted to pop right out.
Huh… interesting. Judging by the odd sensation, I guessed Luke to be a Magneton—a manipulator of metals. He’d be paying my dental bill if this baby came out.
Blanche, meanwhile, crouched in front of the side door on the monastery’s left wall. A torrent of Water arced through the air and filtered into the lock. Her hands pulled outward, feeding in a strand of bright white Chaos alongside the liquid. I noticed a sheen of frost glitter up the wood of the door and realized she’d turned the water to ice.
It was a decent idea. One I wished I’d thought of, though I lacked the Ice abilities to make it work. Or, rather, the Glacier abilities—a sub-section of Water Elementals who could change the state of water. Ice, steam, the whole shebang.
Rodrigo used Melody’s tactic, though he focused his Air powers on the windows, attempting to shatter the glass. I wanted the number of the glazier for this monastery, because those panes proved to be impenetrable.
Lin had scaled the wall alongside Oliver and now tried to take apart the chimney in order to slide down, like some kind of Puerto Rican Santa Claus. Giulia used Earth abilities to shake the foundations of the place—a riskier move, since it could mean breaking the whole building to pieces. Alessandra, on the other hand, used her Earth powers to dig, evidently taking inspiration from The Great Escape. I wondered if she’d still be tunneling by the time the rest of us got inside.
Only Mr. Abara and I hung back. He delved into his pocket and took out a pouch of cloth to reveal a small pile of charcoal. He tipped some into his hand and put the pouch back into his pocket. I tried not to stare, but it was hard not to. He closed his hands over the charcoal, and a blue glow shone beneath his palms. When he uncovered it, the charcoal was gone. In its place sat a brand new, sparkling diamond with one facet sharpened to a glinting point.
He’s a Geode. Flashbacks to the Jubilee cavern rushed through my mind as I remembered the diamond floor Davin had shattered with his Dark magic. Ponce de Léon had been a Geode too, gifted with the ability to turn rocks and minerals into gemstones.
“Are you just going to watch?” Mr. Abara smirked.
“Huh? No, I’m just… uh… thinking through my approach,” I replied hurriedly.
“Good, because nobody likes a slackah.” He chuckled as he walked toward the monastery and stopped in front of the only ground floor window not under assault. I heard the toe-curling scrape of the diamond as it started to carve the glass.
Come on, Finch. Get your ass in gear! I wished I knew what this Etienne guy looked like. Perhaps the door accepted verified members of the monastery. I could’ve fooled the system by Shifting into the Frenchie. Instead, I’d have to rely on a bit of brute force.
Before I could try anything, though, the gemstones atop the monastery screeched again. Light bounced between them, the soft, constant thrum growing until it reached fever pitch. Just as it turned to an unbearable howl, a flood of light spilled across the entirety of the building, sending everyone flying backward. Oliver and Lin hurtled through the air, falling from the roof. The former landed with a thud on the very edge of the cliff, while Lin sailed right over it. The customary splash followed. He was out of the running.
“Lin Garcia and Alessandra Santos are both disqualified.” Etienne’s voice echoed out of nowhere. How he knew our names, I had no clue. Maybe the protective shield scanned us in some way as we entered. Worrying, 1984-level stuff, and that made Etienne the Big Brother, watching our every move.
I hadn’t even noticed the Brazilian woman disappear over the cliff, but since she was nowhere to be seen, I had to believe Etienne. This task looked easy, but it really wasn’t, with those gemstones firing out an expulsion shield every minute or so.
Maybe if we break the gemstones, we’ll be able to get in.
Looking pissed off, the Basani twins used Telekinesis to pull themselves up to the roof. Giulia followed them, no doubt wanting a slice of the Basani glory. As a trio, they hammered the gemstones with powerful waves of Telekinesis, Fire, and Earth, following my train of thought. I waited for the gems to break, but they seemed to be made of the same tough stuff as the windows. With every hit, they shimmered brighter, until that thrumming sound rose to a scream again.
The force of protective energy flung the three of them clean off the monastery as another blast surged over the building. The Basani twins lashed out with lassos of Telekinesis, using the strands to grip spires, stopping their descent toward the churning ocean. Giulia didn’t have that power. The rest of us watched, no time to react, as she tumbled over the cliff and hit the water with a loud splash.
“Giulia D’Amanzo is disqualified,” Etienne announced.
“We have to try to break through, in between those sirens,” I said to the sisters. “When it’s just a vibration, we’re on green. When you hear it shriek, we’re on red.”
The Basani twins shot me a dirty look. “Stating the obvious there—” Shailene began.
“—genius,” Fay added.
How did they do that? Seriously, it was like they had the same brain. The rumors about identical twins sharing powers appeared to be true. They both had a mix of Telekinesis and Fire, and they knew how to use them. I started to feel a bit sorry for the Purge beasts they’d come up against. Poor suckers wouldn’t have stood a chance.
More determined than ever, everyone returned to their stations. Blanche kept trying to ice the side door into submission, Oliver took over the role of Santa Claus, Mr. Abara had gone back to his diamond scraping, the Basani twins took the track of gemstone annihilation, and Luke and Melody tried to force the main door with Magneton powers and blasts of Air.