Page 121 of Boundless

With his hands glowing still, Hil grabbed the handles and pulled the doors open.

They gave.

thirty-seven

Both iron doorsswung open slowly and with a weak screech. Hil let go of the handles, and he looked just as shocked as I was.

Holy shit, it worked. The doors were open.

Maera’s wolf was the first one to go through. I held my breath instinctively as I followed her into the dark room, and Hil was right beside me.

It was daylight outside, but either there were no windows in here, or they were closed off somehow, because no light seeped through anywhere. Only darkness. Only shadows. But by the sound of my sigh alone when I let go of my breath, you could tell that we were in a big room with possibly a very high ceiling.

“Light,” I breathed, as the memories came back to me, rushed through my head fast. “Ask for light, Hil.” Because that’s whatI’ddone when I’d been in the Ice Palace with Vair. I’d asked for light.

“Askfor light?” Hil’s eyes were on me, and I could just see the outline of him from that orange light he’d made outside that was hovering by the door.

“Yes. Ask.” He probably thought I’d lost it or something, but he did as I said anyway.

“Give me light,” he said dramatically, and…

Nothing happened.

“Wow. That worked.” Hil stepped forward and the light behind him came closer, though it didn’t really illuminate anything. “Genius. Thank you for that, Nilah. It was?—”

Light.

Light sprung atop torches and sconces all around us at once, and a scream stuck in my throat as Maera growled and Hil’s hands lit up from within. My own magic reacted, rushing down my arms, fluid, smooth—but there wouldn’t be any need for it. The room was empty. Nobody was there.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered when I took in the large space in front of us. It wasexactlywhat we’d been looking for. This was the throne room of the Fire Palace.

Hil and Maera were already walking ahead, but my feet were glued to the floor still, and I reached for my pocket absentmindedly, wrapped my fingers around the marble cube that used to be Vair. Fuck, I’d have loved for him to be here with me right now. He’d know what to say. He always knew what to do in times like these.

There were a lot of animals here, frozen in place, just like Vair. Just like the rest of the statues we’d seen around the court, except these were in a much better condition.

The room stretched wide and was almost completely empty, covered in dust and cobwebs, even more so than the hallway outside. So much more. Just how long had this place been closed down? There were windows ahead and on the sides of the room, and they were closed with what could have been wooden shutters. No light came through, but the walls were lined with torches, and they were all alive with fire now, which also brought to life the rose-gold foil that decorated the coral-colored walls, shaped like vines and flowers and animal faces. The tiles underneath us were large, a mix of orange-tinted goldand a deep brown that looked almost black. There were four chandeliers made of glass that looked like leaves, but there was no light shining in them. The ceiling was shaped like a triangle, and it was made of the same iron and the same design as the doors to the throne room.

But the dais was unlike any other I’d seen so far.

Above two sets of three stairs stood a rose-gold structure that looked like a mouth at first, but the more I focused, the more I realized it was a helmet with a large crown at the top, which had a star in the very middle that could very well be bigger than my body. The entire thing was covered in dust and cobwebs that reached from the star on that gigantic crown atop the gigantic helmet, and all the way to the floor.

The space below it,insidethe helmet, was empty, the back of it decorated with vines of gold. No chairs, no furniture, no nothing—just that, and the countless animal statues on its sides, like they were half hiding behind the helmet. Foxes crouched on their haunches, wolves frozen mid-snarl, ravens, some watching, some with wings spread wide like they were about to take flight, and antlered stags with their heads bowed. They, too, were covered in dust, and though they had cracks everywhere, they weren’t broken. They looked so real it freaked me out.

“Do you smell that?” Hil whispered, finally pulling me out of my trance. I moved forward, pulled my hand out of my pocket, and sniffed, just as Maera’s wolf did.

“Dust,” I said. “I smell dust.”

“No.” Hil turned to look at me, his eyes wide, his lips parted. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look so…confused. “No, it’s something else.”

Maera gave a whine.

“She doesn’t smell it, either.” I went closer, breathing in as deeply as I could, but the scent didn’t change even when I was standing right next to Hil.

“It’s…like honey.” His eyes fell on every single detail around us slowly, then stopped on the dais, the large helmet and the crown on top. He moved toward it, almost like he was being pulled. “Like honey and fire.”

I smelled no honey or fire, but I followed him, anyway, as Maera went around to search near the walls, the corners, and she didn’t look concerned. For now, I took it.

“This is it,” I told Hil when I stopped beside him in front of the first set of stairs that led to the dais.