"Crack."
In the brief silence, even the slightest sound drew everyone's attention. They all looked around, trying to find where it had come from.
"What was that?" Dominic asked.
Georgiana did not know whether she should say it aloud, because it sounded very much like an egg hatching.
Then it sounded again.
"Over there!"
An Imperial Guard pointed at a sphinx statue, and everyone's gaze focused on it.
The sphinx had been exquisitely carved. It looked like a crouching male lion with a man's face, but a crack ran from its right cheek to its chest, ruining the overall beauty.
"How did it get a crack?" Saint-Hilaire said.
"It wasn't there before?" Georgiana asked.
Before Saint-Hilaire could answer, another sharp crack rang out. The fissure widened, spiderweb cracks spread across the sphinx's right cheek, and then a small piece of stone fell away. Everyone saw a closed eye.
She felt as though everyone present had stopped breathing.
After two seconds of silence, the closed eye opened. The color of its iris reminded Georgiana of the blue flames in the Goblet of Fire.
Then the crouching sphinx "stood" up. It was as though it had been coated in mud that had dried into "rock"; when it awakened and the male lion shook its mane, those "stones" and dust scattered everywhere.
Then it stood atop the display platform. Already powerfully built and twice the size of an ordinary sphinx, it looked down upon the humans below, its blue eyes sweeping across every person as though searching for something.
"Don't worry!" Saint-Hilaire shouted. "It won't eat people."
"What?" Aston Martin asked.
"You only get eaten if you can't answer a female sphinx's question. This one is male," Saint-Hilaire said. "Female sphinxes represent divine punishment, while male sphinxes represent..."
"Roar~~~~~"
The newly awakened male