Chapter 37: The Return

The crater was still there.

Three weeks had passed since they'd brought the building down, but the ground was still raw, the earth still open, the water that had filled the bottom still dark and still. The ruins of the doors were visible at the edge of the crater, half-buried in mud and stone, the symbols on their surface worn but still recognizable.

They'd come back at dawn, when the light was just beginning to touch the tops of the trees, when the shadows were longest and the world was quiet. Ezra had found the location from the files, coordinates buried deep in the data, marked with a symbol that matched the keys.

Adrian stood at the edge of the crater, looking down at what they'd destroyed. The keys were in his hand, two of them, the third somewhere in the ruins below. He'd need it to open the doors. He'd need all three.

"We need to go down," he said.

Damien was already moving, finding a path along the edge of the crater, testing the ground for stability. Liam followed, his map in his hand, his eyes on the ruins. Ezra stayed close to Adrian, his laptop bag slung across his chest, his face pale but determined.

The descent was slow, the ground treacherous, the mud sucking at their shoes. They reached the doors after twenty minutes, the stones half-buried, the symbols on their surface still visible. The third key was there, half-hidden in the mud, waiting for them.

Adrian picked it up, wiped it clean, added it to the chain around his neck.

Three keys. Three doors.

"They're still sealed," Liam said, examining the doors. "The keys are the only things that can open them."

"And the fourth key?" Ezra asked. "The one Elena gave you?"

Adrian touched it, still warm against his chest. "That's the one that closes them. The one that seals them forever."

"So we have a choice," Damien said. "Open them or seal them."

Adrian looked at the doors, at the symbols that had been waiting for three hundred years. He thought about the Order, about Solomon, about Elena, about all the people who'd died or disappeared or been transformed in the long search for what lay beyond.

He thought about Kara, who'd been running for three years, who couldn't stop running. He thought about Derek, living in a trailer park with a dog and a gun, waiting for the past to catch up. He thought about all the others, scattered across the country, across the world, hiding from something they didn't understand.

He inserted the first key into the first door and turned it.

The door swung open.