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Avera snorted. “You know I won’t.”

“I know,” he sighed. “But I had to at least try.”

To Avera’s surprise, Josslyn kept going on the same path, her step firmer and more certain in her trancelike state. Avera hurried to keep up lest the rope get too taut and Josslyn give it an impatient yank.

“Can you hear what she’s following?” she huffed at Gustav.

“Not while I’m holding on to you.”

“And if you’re not?”

“The melody calls.”

“What if it calls her right into a crevice?” Because as the climb steepened so did the ruts, some deep enough they had to leap across.

“Then better hope we can brace quick enough, so we don’t all fall in,” his dry reply.

“Not reassuring,” she grumbled as she slipped and waved her arms for balance.

Gustav lost his grip and immediately began plodding after his sister despite Avera being the middle part of their tether. She slapped a hand on his back and he shuddered.

“The music is strong here,” he grunted.

“Does that mean we’re close?”

He glanced upwards. “Doesn’t seem like it, but then again, I doubt your mother made it to the peak. She wasn’t gone long enough.”

“How long did she disappear for?”

“Assuming she left not long after she asked for privacy? A day.”

“A day?” she squeaked.

“A day that included her getting there and back.”

Meaning hours of walking.

Avera put her head down and trudged, the cold, moist mist kissing her skin and frosting her hair. It took Gustav muttering, “She’s entering a cave,” for Avera to realize that they’d reached a wide ledge, windswept clean of snow to show the stone.

Carved stone.

Despite Josslyn’s impatient pulling of the rope, Avera stopped to look. “This isn’t natural.”

“Definitely handmade designs,” Gustav agreed. “I think we’re about to see what we came for.”

Were they? Because her mother made it seem as if Avera would be guided, but only once she left her companions. Or had it been the mist that took her mother? Her mother hadn’t told her to bring the amulet. Perhaps she didn’t know it nullified the effects of the mist.

As they entered the cave, warm air collided with Avera’s frigid flesh. Despite the change in temperature, the mist remained. An impatient Josslyn tried to walk further into the cavern, but Gustav and Avera braced and the rope binding them held her back. Gustav pulled a lantern from his pack one-handed. He knelt, keeping a hand on Avera at all times while striking a flint with the other until he lit the wick. By its flickering flame they could see the walls, limned in ice but also carvings.

Avera neared a section and ran her fingers over the ruts. “It’s like a language.”

“Not ours,” he remarked.

“This feels old.” Ancient came to mind. Yet none of the books mentioned the Spire having any construction. Had her motherknown? She’d refused to divulge any information, insisting Avera learn it all on her own.

They began walking again, following Josslyn as she headed down a tall tunnel wide enough Avera could stretch her arms and not touch the sides. It continued to grow warmer. Warm enough she unbuttoned her coat and the frost coating her body began to melt, leaving her damp.

“Is it me or is the mist thicker here?” she asked, the ability to see impeded by the swirling white.