“That is the beekeeper’s house.”
He opened the door and ushered her in. The inside of the house, except for its shape, looked typical for a rustic dwelling: planked floors, unvarnished furniture, and honey-yellow curtains on the small windows.
He pushed a chest of drawers to the center of the house, set a chair on top of the chest, and climbed onto the chair to place something on a crossbeam.
“What’s that?”
“A piece of paper with the exit password for the Crucible. It will not respond to a summons, but will obey a breeze.”
He leaped down and, with the exstinctio spell, destroyed all the furniture. “The beekeeper keeps his bees in old-fashioned skeps. To get to the honey, he kills the bees each time. The bees have finally had enough.”
“And?” She was beginning to be nervous.
“And I wish we had met under different circumstances.” He pressed his spare wand into her hand. “Good luck.”
He left. She stared at the door for a minute before glancing up at the crossbeam again. It was at least twelve feet in the air, too high for her to jump. He’d left nothing that could give her a lift. And since one couldn’t vault in the Crucible, she’d have to do this either honestly or not at all.
She sighed, raised her face to the ceiling, and closed her eyes to concentrate.
Something wet and sticky splattered onto her face.
“What the—” She leaped back, her lids flying open.
A golden, viscous liquid dripped down from—everywhere. Every inch of the wall was now a honeycomb, each hexagon seeping honey.
Seeping turned into drizzling. Drizzling turned into pouring. Honey flowed down the wall. Thick ropes of it tumbled from the domed ceiling.
The only place that wasn’t directly assaulted was the exact spot where he’d placed the password—the house had an opening at the very center of the roof, which served as a chimney.
Puddles gathered. She stepped around them for the door. But the door had disappeared behind six inches of hard wax. The windows, when she ripped away the curtains, were similarly inaccessible.
If honey continued to inundate the room, she’d be submerged.
She cursed him. Of course he would think of something so nefarious. She cursed some more and implored the air in the room to cooperate. Please. Just this once.
The honey cascaded faster and faster, rising to her ankles, then to her knees, so thick she could barely move her feet. The aroma overwhelmed her, too sweet, too cloying. She stood under the beam for shelter. But still honey slimed her, plastering her hair to her head. She had to wipe it away from her brows so it wouldn’t get into her eyes. Even the wand had become coated, at once gluey and slippery.
She wanted that password. How she wanted it. But air ignored her attempts to control it. Like shouting at the deaf, or waving her hands before the blind.
The honey was now waist-high. Her chest hurt with panic.
Perhaps she ought to move out from directly underneath the crossbeam. She’d be able to see the piece of paper, and perhaps that might help.
But when she tried to do so, she lost her footing avoiding a huge glob of honey falling toward her and listed sideways. Like a fly caught in tree sap, she couldn’t right herself. She was sucked downward—a horrifying sensation.
It occurred to her that she could drown in honey—and that this was precisely the brink toward which he meant to push her.
She flailed and sank deeper into the honey. Her toes hit the floor. She gasped, struggled upright, and dug her wand out of the honey. “I’m going to break your wand hand,” she shouted. “And your skull, too.”
The honey had risen as high as her chest, the pressure heavy against her sternum. She panted. A dribble of honey fell into her mouth. She’d thought she liked honey, but now its taste turned her stomach.
She spat and tried again to concentrate. She had never needed to concentrate for any of the other elements: her dealings with them were as straightforward as breathing. Wrestling with air was like—well, wrestling with air, struggling with an entity that could not be seen, let alone pinned down.
The honey swelled ever higher. Past her lips, creeping toward her nose. She tried to push herself up, to float. But she couldn’t kick her legs high enough to turn herself horizontal. Thrashing about—if her molasses-slow motion could be called thrashing—only pulled her deeper into the mire.
She could no longer breathe. Her lungs burned. Instinct forced her to open her mouth. Honey poured in. She coughed, the raw pain of honey going down her air pipe indescribable.
Only her hand was above the honey now. She waved her wand, livid and desperate. Had she done it? She could not open her eyes. Her lungs imploded.