Chapter 15: Inside the Fire

We got the bronze door shut.

Ren put his back against it. Min-jun and I dragged the altar bench across the room and wedged it under the bar.

Outside, the fire caught.

They'd built it around the temple. Dry brush, oil, whatever they had. The walls were stone but the roof wasn't.

Smoke came in through the ceiling first. Then flame.

"Move," I said.

We went deeper.

The second room was already filling. We went through it fast, past the walls of circles, and into the third room where the old man had died.

My mother was there. She'd stayed with the grave.

"Up," I said. "We're going further in."

"There's nowhere further."

"There's the inner door."

We stood in front of it.

Three holes in the bronze, ring-sized, set in a triangle.

Min-jun put his hand on the door and pushed. It didn't move.

Then he turned around and looked at the room.

"Where's the altar?" he said.

"Here."

"The real one. Not the bed."

I looked at the far wall.

There was a stone table against it, low, plain, that I'd taken for a bench.

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