Daisy St. James and the Forge of Fire ✔️

Chapter 14. Pomegranate Seeds

 But before Daisy could ask exactly what that meant, there was an interruption by Thomas.

"Come on, guys, we've got an exit— we can chit-chat later!"

Dr. Gillespie shook her head and started walking. Even Daisy knew that that meant that the conversation was over. She fell into pace beside Phoenix as they exited the chamber of the five rivers.

"What was that?" she asked in a whisper.

"I don't know," Phoenix admitted. "I was given it when I was twelve, and I know it's supposed to be some sort of activator."

"Of what?"

"Magic."

Daisy wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry. She'd never heard of humans wielding their own magic. It was always through artifacts. Of course there were rumors, and the Iliana witches could cast spells— but that was more through what Daisy considered glorified chemistry in their world. Sure, it was magic— but not necessarily from the Ilianas' own powers, but their ability to combine and activate the ingredients to create their liquid spell reactions.

But Dr. Gillespie didn't seem surprised by any of it.

"Oh, come on!" Thomas groaned. "It's a dead end!"

"No," Cassandra said, stepping forward. "We're back at the beginning."

Dr. Rosales looked impressed. "So we are, Cass. So we are."

"But that wasn't there before." Gwen pointed to a new doorway, that Dr. Rowland started to sketch in the cartography notebook.

"Give it here," Dr. Winchester said irritably as she yanked the notebook away from Dr. Rowland. "Like this!"

They heard the door behind them shut, and it was blended into the walls of stone completely.

"I guess we've only got one choice, don't we?" Phoenix's voice was humorless.

"I guess so." Dr. Gillespie agreed.

Daisy was the first to march in, ready to discover her new world.

There was a statue of Nemesis, the Greek goddess of revenge, with the blindfold and scales. There were six ruby pomegranate seeds at the bottom.

Immediately, Phoenix, Thomas, and Dr. Beaumont knelt down to start reading the inscription on the bottom. As Dr. Rosales and Dr. Rowland brought up the rear, the door closed behind them, trapping them in there.

"We're going to have to solve it then," Dr. Winchester muttered. "I love a good sense of urgency."

"Okay, it's a classic puzzle," Phoenix said.

"One of the six pomegranates are heavier than the others, but we cannot sense it," Dr. Beaumont elaborated. "However, the scale will detect it. We only can use the scale two times."

Dr. Gillespie folded her arms over her chest. "What will happen if we need more?"

"Doesn't say," Phoenix said.

Thomas glanced up. "Roof'll probably cave in, or we'll face this statue's divine wrath."

He grinned as if he thought it was funny, but most of the party was completely unamused.

"Wait, I remember how to do this." Daisy held up her hands. "We actually had a logic puzzle about this the last day before summer in sixth grade. The teacher wanted us to shut up, so we did a whole packet of projects like this."

She approached, and picked up all six of the pomegranates. As promised, she could not detect any of the differences in weight. She placed three on one end of the scale, and three on the other end. After a moment, the scale on the right dipped down noticeably.