The only sounds for a long time were the scuffing of their boots on smooth floors. When Rhyss heard water ahead of them she almost cried from relief. Her entire life had been spent with wind whistling around her old house and leaves whispering to each other, both in her mother's garden and in the Grove. Any noise made the buzzing in her head subside.

The water ended up being a trickle from the wall, sliding down the tunnel through thick moss and tree roots into the dark. She filled up her canteen as best as she could. It had been scripted to keep the water cold, fresh, and pure, no matter the source. Some of the sources she had heard of previous Trainees using were a lot more suspect than the wall of a cave.

"I thought this was more of an in and out sort of deal." Bel said after a few moments of waiting for canteen to fill.

"I would rather be prepared. Besides. I'm thirsty." Rhyss took a swig from the canteen and tried to not make a face. There were Ihalins that would pay quite a bit to drink mineral water that potent. "I'm sure you are, too."

Bel made a noncommittal sound.

"And your brother."

"Half—"

"You already said that." Heln interrupted her. The noise Bel made at that was decidedly less noncommittal.

"Be quiet, we don't know what's down here." Rhyss tried to keep her voice low. It was becoming more and more of a challenge as time went on. She just wanted to shake Bel until she stopped being an idiot. She breathed in, counted to five because she wasn't sure she would make it to ten, and reminded herself that they didn't have the same training that she did. It didn't really help.

"Well, I have an idea," Bel said. "Heln would probably know more."

"I'm keeping my shields up; I'm not stupid," Heln said.

Rhyss straightened, slipping the canteen into her satchel and counting again. This time she made it to seven before speaking. He must have meant his magical sensing abilities, which made her frown. "You should leave them down, in case more of those things show up. You're the only warning system we have."

She couldn't forget how silent the enormous construct had been. She wondered if Heln would have sensed it if he'd had his shields down then.

Heln was staring at her again, and she really wished he would stop; it was unnerving.

"I guess," he said, finally. "But only if you promise to carry me if I do sense anything and it knocks me out."

Rhyss breathed in, looking him up and down. He was taller than her, just barely, but he was skinny. If she had to she could carry him, as long as she didn't need to run. "Fine."

"Seriously?"

"I doubt you're much heavier than a backpack full of rocks, and I carried one of those up a fifty-foot tree, so yes. Seriously."

"You kind of scare me, and I'm not ashamed to admit that." There was no outward indication that he had followed her orders, but at least his eyes weren't noticeably glowing. She adjusted the strap of her satchel and lead the way before Bel could protest.

The trickle of water was joined by others, until a fast-flowing stream ran down the center of the cave floor, glowing moss streamers being pulled by the current. The tunnel floor was dyed rich blues and greens from the mineral deposits.

She would need a new canteen after this.

Bel broke the silence. "Has anyone else realized that since the water is going this way we're actually going down?"

"It did cross my mind." Rhyss hated to admit that it really hadn't. She'd been too focused on finding a place they could stay that would be safe.

"So maybe we should turn back? Or just stay here. Isn't that what you're supposed to do when you're lost?" Bel asked.

"Maybe if we were lost. The tunnel goes straight down so I don't think that's going to happen." Heln didn't sound too concerned about their current predicament. When Rhyss glanced back she saw he was hunched in on himself, his hands in the pockets of his dark green jacket. "It hasn't even been that long. Do you want to go back to the entrance? Because I don't without knowing there's a full rescue team waiting for us."

At least he was backing her up. "Just a little further then we can call it quits no matter what it looks like."

"Now is as good as ten minutes from now. It's just a tunnel." A whine had crept into Bel's voice. She must have been tired, the poor, pampered baby.

Bel was wrong, as it turned out. Not even five minutes later they passed through an archway into a much larger space. The stream led into a pool in the center, glowing aquamarine in the light from Rhyss's bubble and ringed with pale, drooping plants. It wasn't very deep, the water continuing on down another tunnel. She pushed more magic into the script, and it lit up the room.

It was roughly circular, cloaked in moss and interrupted by tree roots. Two tunnels stretched on either side of them, a third across the room continued down. The one on the right was blocked, as far as she could tell, tree roots had grown thickly over its entrance, but she could see the darkness beyond.

Rhyss took a step in. Even the floor was carpeted in moss. "Here looks good, I think. We can set up a barrier. I believe someone bragged for hours about how strong their barriers were in class last year. I wonder who that could have been."

"It was maybe five minutes." Bel grumbled. "Your memory is flawed, clearly, which is alarming considering you think you're leading this little expedition. If you aren't feeling up to the task then I suppose I can take it upon myself to blow you both away with my expertise."

"Good luck with that." Heln was more interested in the pool than in what Bel was doing. He crouched at the edge, his fingers nearly brushing the surface.

"No luck necessary at all, but I do appreciate the sentiment. Your knife, Rhyss?"

"It's a dagger." Rhyss unsheathed her second blade and handed it to her, grip first. Bel took it from her like it was going to bite her. Honestly, Rhyss sort of wanted to stab her with it, so it was probably a good reaction for Bel to have.

Watching Bel scratch magic script into moss was more engaging than she would like and, as much as she hated to admit it, she wasn't bad enough to need supervision. They were constantly competing for top of the class for a reason. Bel knew her script probably better than Rhyss did, if she was being honest. 

Rhyss really didn't feel like being honest or watching Bel's stupid, perfect ponytail sway a little with each motion. The other DoVan sibling was probably the safer one to interact with, anyway. She walked over to crouch next to Heln at the edge of the pool. "See something interesting?"

It was just a pond, but the minerals made the water appear to be a vibrant turquoise. It looked like the hot springs that the Guard Trainees were sometimes taken to after a hard day, but no steam wafted up from it and she wasn't sure if what they were seeing was the bottom, or if it just got too cloudy to tell.

Heln shrugged, not looking up at her. "It's pretty, I guess. I wonder what it was for."

"It's a pond, it's for being pretty."

"It's a perfect circle." He pulled the plants away to show her the edge. It did look almost like it had been cut into the ground instead of formed. "So it was probably used for something."

"And tada!" Bel's exclamation made Rhyss nearly end up in the pond. She gestured to the script with the dagger. It all looked correctly done to her, and she'd made the space big enough for all three of them. "Just a little bit of magic and we are golden for getting some rest."

"Are you waiting for a drum roll?" Rhyss stared at her.

"Maybe." She pressed a hand against the circle and it lit up, the light forming a dome. "There! It will let us in, but nothing else. Perfect as always. Well. I'm starving, so I hope you still have some of those meal bars in your bag, Heln."