But we hadn’t won yet. Not completely.
Because standing between us and the final sealed vent — the seventh one, the big one, the one Fizzwick had been guarding like it was his personal birthday present — was the entrance to Magma Queen Mira’s underground lava palace. And from somewhere deep inside it came a sound like thunder mixed with someone who was absolutely certain they were right about everything.
“She knows we’re here,” Biscuit said, sniffing the air carefully. “She smells like volcanic rock and extremely strong opinions.”
“That’s not a smell,” I said.
“It absolutely is,” said Biscuit.
The entrance was genuinely spectacular, and I said so, which made Biscuit look at me like I’d grown a second head. But it was true. The doorway was framed in polished blackstone with lava channels running down either side like glowing waterfalls, and the ceiling inside sparkled with embedded magma blocks that pulsed orange and red in alternating patterns. If someone had put up a sign saying WELCOME, it would have been the most impressive entrance to anything I’d ever seen. Including the Ender Earl’s courtyard, which had admittedly also been very impressive, if you like purple and mild-mannered villainy.
We walked in.
The palace opened up into an enormous cavern. The walls were lined with stolen blocks — rainbow wool from Rainbow Meadows (I recognised it immediately), amethyst clusters that glittered purple, sea lanterns, coloured glass, stacks of diamonds, and what appeared to be an entire collection of decorative banners from about twelve different festivals. The ceiling arched high overhead, and from the very centre of the room hung a chandelier made entirely of magma blocks and gold chains. It was, objectively, very beautiful.
In the middle of it all stood Magma Queen Mira.
She was taller than I expected. Her crown of hardened magma blocks caught the light and threw orange reflections across every wall. Her cape shimmered — genuinely shimmered — in red and amber pixels that moved like a real fire, and her yellow eyes were fixed on me with an expression that said she had absolutely been expecting us and found the whole situation deeply inconvenient.
Her Magma Cube army bounced in formation behind her, dozens of them, big and small, all wobbling with quiet menace.
“Heroes,” she said, in a voice like a volcano clearing its throat. “How tremendously boring.”
I had planned to say something brave and organized. I had actually written a few notes on a bit of paper that morning, which was a new personal record for preparation. But when I opened my mouth, what came out instead was:
“This place is INCREDIBLE.”
Mira blinked. One of the Magma Cubes bumped into another one in confusion.
“I — what?” said Mira.
“The entrance alone!” I said, because once I start talking I have never once successfully stopped myself. “The lava waterfall framing! And then you come in and there’s the chandelier — I didn’t even know you could make a chandelier out of magma blocks, I genuinely didn’t, I thought they’d just drip, but it doesn’t drip at all, does it? And the walls! You’ve got rainbow wool AND amethyst AND I can see at least three different kinds of decorative banner which honestly shows real range, most people just pick one theme but you’ve committed to having all the themes and somehow it works—”
“Stop,” said Mira.
She had gone slightly pink. Not the orange-red of lava. An actual embarrassed pink.
I did not stop.
“And the ceiling! The way the magma blocks pulse in that alternating pattern — did you plan that, or did it just happen? Because if you planned it, that’s genius, and if it just happened, that’s also somehow genius. Biscuit, smell the ceiling and tell me what it smells like because I bet it smells amazing—”
“Warm caramel and volcanic ambition,” Biscuit said automatically, sniffing upward. Then she looked at me with wide eyes. “Ollie. She’s going red.”
She was. Mira was going very, very red. Redder than her cape. Redder than the lava channels. Her crown was practically steaming.
“Nobody,” she said, in a voice that wobbled slightly, “has ever said that about the chandelier.”
“Well, they should have!” I said, and I meant it completely. “You built all of this! By yourself! And nobody visited, and that’s genuinely terrible, because if someone had just come to visit they would have said exactly what I’m saying, which is that this is the most impressive underground lava palace I have ever seen, and yes, I know it’s the only underground lava palace I’ve ever seen, but I’m still confident that statement is correct—”
Mira made a noise like a kettle boiling.
Then she sat down very suddenly on her own throne, which was carved from blackstone and lined with glowstone, and put her face in her hands.
“I just wanted someone to notice,” she said, very quietly.
The Magma Cubes had stopped bouncing. They were all watching Mira with small, worried wobbles.
That was the moment Biscuit clicked the Lucky Button.
She did it deliberately, calmly, and with the expression of someone who had been waiting for exactly the right moment and knew beyond all doubt that this was it. There was a sound like a small bell, and then every single Magma Cube in the room was lifted gently off the ground, sailed through the air in a cheerful arc, and landed with a series of satisfying splashes in the cooling pond at the far end of the cavern. They bobbed there happily, making small contented sounds. None of them seemed to mind even slightly.
Mira looked up.
“That was my army,” she said.
“They look comfortable,” Biscuit said.
Mira looked at the pond. The Magma Cubes were, genuinely, bouncing around in the cool water with what could only be described as delight.
Then she looked at me.
Then, to my complete and total surprise, Magma Queen Mira stood up from her blackstone throne, walked across her spectacular lava palace, and hugged me.
It was warm. Obviously. She was made of magma. But the Sneeze Shield absorbed most of the heat and turned it into a small shower of orange confetti that drifted down around us, which was honestly a nicer effect than I expected.
“You may visit,” she said, in a very dignified voice. “On Tuesdays.”
“I will absolutely visit on Tuesdays,” I said, because I absolutely would.
The seventh vent sealed with a soft, final click. The Champion’s Crown on my head blazed so brightly that it lit up the whole cavern — five villains, five victories, one full legend glow. The Rumbling Ridges, far above us, gave one last deep rumble and went still.
Biscuit was already writing something in her notebook.
“What are you writing?” I asked.
“The visiting schedule,” she said. “We have Tuesdays.”
