images/himg-85-1.jpg

Aleetha moved her parchment next to the map. The large shape on it was a perfect match to the one on the map. She drummed her elf fingers on the paper.

“These numbers under the shape are map coordinates,” she said. “I looked them up on a current map of Slick City. They match the spot where the buildings were torn down to build the stadium.”

“So you came here to see if they matched anything on the older maps,” Tank said.

“Exactly,” Aleetha said. “I made a copy. The original page is still in the Shadow Tower library. Now that I see the same shape on the map, I think they’re connected. But I can’t read the writing. It’s written in an old goblin language.”

Tank and Aleetha both turned to me.

“I can’t help you,” I said. “I can barely read modern goblin writing!”

I took a closer look at the paper with the little stick monster. The letters definitely didn’t make any sense. But I could tell the monster was doing something to the big shape with the little shape in his hands.

“It looks like instructions,” I said. “Like it’s trying to tell you how to do something with the shapes.”

Aleetha nodded. “Whatever it says, this spot was special for your ancestors, Fizz.”

Books crashed to the floor in the shadows on the edge of the map room.

We froze, our questions silenced. My scales stood on end.

“We are being watched.” Aleetha waved her hand and vanished in a cloud of purple sparks, like she was never there.

Now Tank and I were alone in the gloom.

“Where did she go?” I said. “I hate when she does that.”

Tank ignored me and worked at one of the pockets of her tool belt.

“Don’t get your tail in a knot, Fizz. I’m still here.” Aleetha’s voice came from nowhere and everywhere. “I’m just invisible, but it won’t last long.”

Heavy footsteps thumped the library’s old stone floor. Whatever was out there was moving away from us, but that didn’t do much to smooth my scales.

The dusty air of the map room wafted around me. It took me a moment to realize that Aleetha was pushing her way past me. Her voice came from the shadows in a whisper.

“We must follow those footsteps!”

Follow the footsteps?” I exclaimed. “How about we hide from the footsteps?”

But it was no use. Tank was already charging into the shadows. She fumbled with her belt pockets as she ran.

Now I was alone with the goblin-eating, book-smashing whatever-was-out-there.

I raced after Tank as fast as my claws could take me.

I caught sight of her at the far end of a row of shelves. She had one foot through a small window leading outside.

“Hurry, Fizz!” she called when she saw me. “It’s getting away!”

I hopped through the window in time to see Tank scramble up the fire escape and onto the roof of the library.

By the time I pulled myself onto the roof, she had yanked a pair of metallic spring contraptions from her belt and strapped them to her feet.

“Get on my back,” she said. “Aleetha’s already way ahead of us.”

I threw my arms around Tank’s neck.

“How did Aleetha get so far ahead?”

“She’s wearing a pair of my springers.”

“What are springers?”

“Hold on. You’re about to find out.”

images/himg-88-1.jpg