We went down and down in a slow, wide spiral. Down and down until I wasn’t sure how long we’d been walking. Lights flickered on intermittently as we passed, but most of the magic that I presumed once coated these walls and steps was diminished. The walls became damp and slimy, and though I attempted not to rub against them, I wasn’t completely successful.
We stepped over three more corpses — Warner pulling a pendant from each — as we descended. Again, these skeletons were better preserved … almost mummified. This state of preservation made me fret about the oxygen levels, though I wasn’t silly enough to say so out loud. The utterly fearless werewolf and dragon would sneer at me for sure. The air didn’t taste stale. But it was oxygen that caused things to decay, right?
Each corpse was placed before what I assumed had been some sort of magic trap along the way.
“Thirteen now,” Kandy said from up ahead as we passed another skeleton. She didn’t sound so gleeful anymore.
Warner grumbled something under his breath. I took it that he wasn’t a fan of the number thirteen, but I’d grown up with witches who didn’t believe in such superstition. In fact, many witches promoted such superstitions to create a powerful aura among the Adepts, which had subsequently leaked out into the human world through centuries of practicing witchcraft.
The perfect number for a coven was thirteen, actually, though given the low birth rate of most Adepts, that wasn’t always possible. The Convocation was traditionally made up of thirteen witches from all over the world. One of those spots had formerly stood empty for years, however, waiting for a witch powerful enough to fill it. Scarlett was the witch who eventually stepped up … a sacrifice of her freedom that my mother had made to protect me.
Most dragons were too impervious to magic to be bothered by it, just as Warner had asserted in my bakery kitchen only a day ago. But ideas penetrated where magic couldn’t. And thirteen corpses spread throughout a fortress that contained something called the ‘instruments of assassination’ created a pretty pervasive impression.
Someone scary powerful had walked these steps before us. Someone who had followers willing to sacrifice themselves to thwart the magic protecting whatever we were currently hunting.
My toes were getting wet. I hated having damp feet. I loved walking in rainstorms, but only when I was wearing proper shoes. I know I was just wearing flip-flops, but it was weird to be surrounded by so much stone and still get wet, wasn’t it? Yeah, I’d gotten my neck broken two days ago and hadn’t given it a second thought, but wet feet bothered me.
“What’s with the damp?” I asked, then flinched as my too loud voice echoed back and around me. I modulated my tone to a whisper. “Where is the water coming from?”
“It was slimy like this in the spike-filled, corpse-riddled hole,” Kandy said.
Warner grunted, but didn’t offer his opinion.
A terrible idea occurred to me. “How far do you think we’ve walked? Far enough to get to the other side of the island? Near the ocean?” The beach we’d swum up on had tapered for hundreds of feet out into the sea, maybe more. And now I was wondering why.
“Could be,” Kandy answered.
“And deep enough to be in an underwater cavern?”
“Jesus, I hope not,” Kandy said. The green of her shapeshifter magic shone so brightly in her eyes it practically obscured her face. “But I guess it would make sense to fortify a powerful artifact that way. And digging through stone with magic would be an insane feat, wouldn’t it?”
“It would,” Warner said. He turned back to look at us. He’d reached some sort of landing at the base of the stone stairs. He lifted his foot and deliberately placed it down again. Water sloshed.
Possible underwater cavern? Check.
I hated being right about all the terrible shit.
A wooden door stood open before the sentinel, half off its hinges as the entrance door had been. The runes that had once decorated its edges were scratched and marred. No corpses were slumped against the walls, though. Whoever had led the siege hadn’t needed to sacrifice a follower to get through this door. Or the main entrance, now that I thought about it. Though maybe any corpses outside the protection of the fortress would have succumbed to the elements.
Golden dragon magic rolled across Warner’s eyes. I’d never seen dragon magic do that, except with Chi Wen. After meeting Rochelle last January, I’d assumed the magic I’d seen in the far seer’s eyes was a manifestation of his oracle power. I guessed all dragons held their magic differently. I didn’t know Jiaotu either; maybe Warner took after his mother.
“Shadow scouts ahead,” Warner said.
“Waiting for sunset?” I asked as I joined him on the landing. The water was ankle deep here. I was going to have to work through my wet feet issues whether I wanted to or not.
Kandy bent down to touch the water; then she licked her fingers and spat. “Salty.”
I sighed.
The green-haired werewolf began prowling the perimeter, which was rather tight, so she brushed by Warner and me each time she passed. Her eyes were full-on glowing green. She kept clicking wolf claws in and out of her fingertips. I wondered if it hurt her to do so.
“Alchemist?” Warner asked. “Are we continuing?”
“Why wouldn’t we?” I said, attempting to shake off the sense of doom that seemed to be pressing down between my shoulder blades.
“He thinks old dead things should scare us,” Kandy said as she circled us again.
“He also probably thinks you’re pacing.”
“I’m not pacing,” Kandy snapped at Warner. “I’m securing the area while you stop for tea and crumpets.”
Warner raised an eyebrow at the green-haired werewolf. I wondered where he’d picked up that affectation. Pulou maybe.
“That crumpets line really isn’t working,” I said.
“I know, okay? This place stinks of death. Dry, dusty death.”
I reached out to touch Kandy but managed only to brush my fingers across her hand and bracelet as she passed. She stopped pacing and looked down at me touching the cuff.
The alchemist magic tingled underneath my fingers. I dropped my hand.
“I didn’t think we’d get to the end so quickly,” Kandy murmured. She lifted her wrist to look at the cuff and then locked her gaze to me.
“Chi Wen … the far seer isn’t usually literal,” I said. “Are you worried about what lies ahead through those doors?”
Kandy snorted. “Not for me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m not wearing these for me, am I? The far seer’s gaze isn’t fixed to me.”
“The far seer isn’t known for his understanding of time,” Warner said. I was relieved at his interjection. “You could wear the cuffs for the next fifty years before you know why you were given them.”
Kandy shifted her green gaze from me to Warner. “Yeah?” Her tone was deep and deadly. “You think that’s happening here?”
Warner turned to look at me. He shook his head. “No.”
The green-haired werewolf returned her gaze to me as well.
With their expectant eyes locked on me, I turned to look at the dark doorway looming in front of us. I pulled my knife and twirled my wrist to needlessly loosen it.
“Shall we dance?” I asked Kandy.
Kandy laughed, low and husky.
I stepped through into what appeared to be the main chamber of the fortress without waiting for an answer. Fretful or not, the werewolf was always up for dancing.
Magical sconces flared as I entered the circular room. The vaulted ceiling was supported by impossibly tall pillars … nine plain stone pillars. The similarities to the dragon nexus stopped there, though. There was nothing gilded about this round room, and no immediately apparent doors leading from it. The decor was entirely gray on gray. Slab tiles carved out of stone spread out before us in concentric circles. Those circles radiated inward to a set of stairs that rose, also in a circular pattern, to create a simple stone dais. A statue stood before an altar on top of the dais. But as far as I could see, there were no other statues in the room.
“No magic,” I whispered.
“None?” Warner asked. “See the path?”
Certain stones had been removed from the concentric circles, as they had been outside and on the stairs leading up to the entrance.
“None except for up there.” I pointed to the statue at the altar. “It’s as if it’s been stripped, even more so here than in the halls. Not a drop of residual magic.”
I started to cross the concentric circles, carefully stepping within the edges of the missing stone slabs. I wasn’t terribly concerned about making a misstep, seeing as I couldn’t feel any magic in this area of the chamber. But it was never stupid to be wary. I approached the bottom of the stairs, noting that there were nine steps, not counting the top of the dais. I could feel Warner and Kandy mimicking my movements behind me. I was happy to taste Kandy and her dark-chocolate berry-infused magic behind me. Not that I knew for sure that placed her out of harm’s way, but it felt better to lead right now.
I paused and reached out with my dowser senses to taste the power at the top of the dais again. “I can’t place the magic … sorcerer maybe. Alchemist for sure.” According to Pulou, I was the only alchemist currently practicing anywhere in the world. Whatever was on the altar was at least older than me. But I was betting it was way, way older than that.
I shifted my focus, reaching out to the farthest edges of the round chamber, but I still couldn’t taste any other magic around us. “I thought you sensed shadow demons here?” I asked Warner.
“They’re here. I can feel them,” he answered. “Waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Kandy said. “I thought they wanted the map?”
“Perhaps they just wanted to give us a push,” Warner answered.
I jogged up the nine stairs and stepped in behind the statue, skirting around it to see that it depicted a woman. The detail of the carving was intricate, and in complete contrast with the utilitarian fortress. The woman was wearing a wide skirt, so long that only the tips of her shoes showed at the hem. Her bodice was laced at the back and cut square along her collarbone. Her neck and hands were bare of jewelry, but what appeared to be a circlet rested on her forehead. Her eyes were wide open and staring at her outstretched hand, which hovered a couple of inches away from a rough-hewn wooden box that sat in the very center of the stone altar.
“Hello, Game of Thrones,” I muttered. “Someone wants their costume back.” Then I called out to Kandy and Warner, who were still ascending behind me. “It’s weird, isn’t it? That the statue doesn’t match anything else around here? Look at the detail … her hair falling over her shoulder, the way her feet are placed, as if in midstep. Then look at the altar, the dais, and the box. All of which are just basic. Serviceable.”
“Maybe something used to sit there instead of the box?” Kandy offered. “And whoever came before us took it and left the box?”
“What does the magic tell you, alchemist?” Warner asked. “The runes along the edges of the altar are inert, yes?”
A thick layer of dust practically obscured the carved runes Warner was referencing, but I was way more interested in the wooden box. “The box holds … something … but I taste nothing from the statue or the altar.” I skirted the altar until I was standing opposite the statue. From there, I could see her eyes were fixed on the wooden box. “Does she look surprised to you?”
Something was really bugging me, but I just couldn’t figure out what. I looked up to meet Warner’s gaze. He was staring at me — not the statue or the box. Figuring me out, not the puzzle standing right in front of him. I could feel myself start to blush — yes, like a silly teenager — just as something occurred to me. My stomach bottomed out at the thought.
“What did you just realize?” Warner asked, his tone low and intimate.
“She’s not … I mean, you’ve been concerned about the fortress being broken into and why you weren’t … woken.”
“She’s not.”
“Not what?” Kandy asked.
“A sentinel,” Warner answered.
I looked back at the statue, my stomach rolling uncomfortably at the idea of Warner ‘sleeping’ encased in stone like this. He had screamed when he appeared in front of Kandy and me in the alley. I’d assumed that the magic of whatever transportation spell had sent him there had just overwhelmed him … but … what if …
I looked back at Warner, who offered me a curl of his lips. Not really a smile, but an attempt at one. Then, failing that, he shook his head emphatically.
“She could be a warden of some other kind,” Kandy said. “You know, like a gargoyle or a nondragon guardian. But neutralized or petrified. Another trap that’s already been triggered?”
This pulled my attention back to the present. I couldn’t figure out Warner’s potentially terrible past right now. I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to know the details of what his sentinel duties meant for him when he was ‘sleeping.’
“Not that I can taste,” I answered Kandy.
I reached over to the box and lifted the lid.
Warner hissed harshly, like he was really pissed off all of a sudden. Yeah, I had just touched an unknown magical object without laying down protection spells or anything. I got that reaction a lot, but I wasn’t a protection-spell-laying kind of witch.
Nothing happened.
“Well, that was oddly easy,” I said.
“Oh, fuck,” Kandy snarled. “You had to say that out loud.”
We glanced around the fortress to see what karma was going to rise up to kick our asses.
Nothing happened.
I leaned forward, placing the lid to one side of the altar as I peered inside the eight-by-six-inch wooden box. Three braids of what appeared to be silk thread were coiled inside.
“Hmmm,” I muttered. “Usually these sorts of things come with velvet cushions and diamonds. Or at least some kind of precious metal. I wasn’t expecting hair ribbons.”
Warner didn’t step any closer, but Kandy lifted up on her toes to look. “Ribbons?”
I reached out with my dowser senses, trying to get a taste of the alchemist magic that coated the braids. Each tiny rope, or ribbon, or whatever they were, was braided with five individually colored silk threads. At least, I assumed the braids were magical in nature. It might just have been the wooden box I was tasting. “Red, orange, yellow, blue, and violet,” I said to Warner and Kandy, both of whom had smartly stayed a step away from the altar.
“Like the key and the doors,” Kandy said.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “We’re here to pick up rainbow-colored braids?”
“Almost a rainbow,” Kandy corrected.
I glanced at Warner, who did not look like a happy camper. His teeth were clenched so tightly I could see the strain across his jaw and cheeks. “Is this what we’re here for?” I asked. “Or is it some weird message from whoever got here before us?”
“You can’t feel the magic?” he asked. His voice was strained.
“Not as much as you seem to.”
He met my gaze intently and then nodded his head.
Okay, weird. But whatever. I picked up the lid, intending to replace it before I took the box off the altar.
“Destroy it,” Warner said.
“What?”
“I think you should destroy it.”
“That’s not what we’re here to do,” I said. “Pulou …”
“We tell the treasure keeper we couldn’t find it.”
I stared at Warner. Even Kandy stopped her pacing to look at him. Then she started laughing.
“What about duty?” she asked him. “Loyalty? And how do you know the fucking thing won’t backlash and kill Jade if she tries to do what you ask? For someone who said he’d hold up the world if it came crashing down, you have a pretty loose understanding of the concept of protection … and friendship.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard Kandy so quietly angry, so utterly affronted.
I placed the lid back on the box.
Warner shook his head as if clearing it. Then he grimaced. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If you could feel it, you would understand. It’s like millions of lightning bugs crawling underneath my skin, digging into my brain, heart, and lungs. I’ve never felt the like.”
“I still wouldn’t have asked Jade to do something so stupid. She does stupid things just fine on her own.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly.
“You know what I mean,” the green-haired werewolf continued. “You already take too many risks too easily.”
Warner focused on me. “I apologize, alchemist,” he said, his words carefully deliberate. “I spoke before I thought. I will bring the matter up with the treasure keeper. Perhaps he will feel the same way as I do. It was an instant reaction.”
“Let’s keep moving,” Kandy said. “The statue is starting to creep me out.”
I totally got what Kandy was talking about, as I nodded to acknowledge Warner’s apology. Then I reached to touch the sides of the wooden box with my fingertips. Runes glowed underneath a layer of dust on the altar that I hadn’t paid much attention to when investigating. I supposed dust just wasn’t pretty enough to draw my attention. I wasn’t going to make any excuses for being a magical magpie — not even to myself. Such things were in my DNA, after all.
I swiped my left hand across the runes nearest to me.
“What is it?” Kandy asked.
“Um,” I answered. “I can’t move my feet.”
“What?”
“Step back,” I said.
Warner and Kandy took a step away from the altar to stand on the second stair of the dais. I stared at the incomprehensible runes, glowing blue before me now. “It’s sorcerer magic, but I can’t read it.”
“Even an expert would need hours to discern the runes, alchemist,” Warner said. “Many are interchangeable. The intent of the use is usually key to the spell.”
Wasn’t that sweet? The sentinel was trying to make me feel better about my ignorance. Yeah, I kind of missed Kett right now. Who knew I’d prefer tough-love mentorship. But then, Warner wasn’t my mentor — he was an equal. Or at least I should be seeing him that way.
I cleared more dust to reveal more runes. The magic that was binding my feet to the dais crept up my calves.
Kandy moaned. “Is that stone?”
I looked down, assuming that the magic would appear the same way it tasted. But my feet now appeared to be encased in stone.
I glanced back up at the statue that stood with her hand outstretched across the altar from me. “Same stone,” I said. “She tried to touch the box?”
“Trying to move it seems to be the trigger,” Warner said. “It obviously encased whoever she was, but more quickly. From the rate it’s attaching to you, I assume you can break free?”
The stone spell spread up and over my knees. It didn’t hurt, but it was exceedingly distracting. I ran my fingertips along the runes, finding a spot that appeared to be a circle with five grooves.
“Alchemist?” Warner asked again. “You can break the hold of the spell, can’t you?”
“Haven’t tried yet,” I muttered. “Kandy, toss me the key.”
The stone made it up to my waist as I caught the key that Kandy threw.
“To delay seems moot,” Warner said. He sounded like he was attempting to modulate the harshness of his tone.
“Gotcha, sentinel,” I said. “But I’d like to figure it out properly, you know?”
“No,” he growled as the stone climbed up underneath my breasts. “I don’t ‘you know.’ ”
Ignoring him, I pressed the key into the indentation. The dais absorbed it. Something shifted in the magic of the runes, but the stone continued to roll up over my shoulders and started to spread down my arms.
“Well, that didn’t work,” I muttered.
“You disabled the spell from triggering again, Jade. Not from its current manifestation.”
If Warner’s use of my first name wasn’t an indication of how angry he was, his tone certainly conveyed his ire. I couldn’t see his face, because as the stone spell crawled its way up my neck, I was having a difficult time moving my head. As it hit the edge of my jaw, I felt the first pulse of panic.
I closed my eyes to focus, reaching out to the magic of my necklace and knife. Though they were encased in the stone, they still responded to me. I drew what shielding power they offered. Then — painfully, slowly — the upward creeping of the spell stopped, just as it encased my chin.
“Jade?” Kandy asked. She sounded concerned. Scared, even. I didn’t like scaring her.
I stretched my dowser senses out to taste the magic of the stone spell. For the first time since I’d ruined it in Tofino, I wished that I still had the sword my father had commissioned as a vessel for my alchemist powers. But the katana was hidden away now in a treasure trove from which I’d plucked the key to the map and the fortress — filled with and twisted around Sienna’s dark magic.
That was a mystery for another day. Unless I didn’t manage to break out of the stone spell.
So, yeah, it would certainly have been handy to have the sword now.
I focused on the flavors filling my mouth in an attempt to sort through the magic. If I could understand it, I could try to manipulate it.
I tasted rich, fertile earth. “Mushrooms. Moss. And something almost sweet … honeysuckle or …”
“What?” Warner asked.
“The magic,” Kandy answered. “She’s tasting the magic.”
Now that I’d identified the root of the spell, I attempted to channel its magic into my necklace. The stone crept farther around the back of my head, even as it covered my mouth.
“Jade!” Kandy shouted, but her cry was muffled as the stone poured into my ears.
I’m not going to panic. I’m not going to panic. No panicking. Come on, Jade! You’re a freaking alchemist! And a half-dragon. What would a dragon do now?
I visualized the stone everywhere it touched my skin. I visualized my magic coating me like a protective layer. Then, just as the stone flooded over the top of my head, I visualized thousands of spikes of magic shooting out of me.
The stone exploded in a burst of energy that struck Warner to my left. He stumbled down another step, shaking his head as bits of stone rained down around and behind him.
The blast hit Kandy to my right, throwing her clear of the dais altogether.
The blast hit the statue across from me, cracking it in a series of radiating hairline fractures. As I watched, those cracks began to spread, widen, and crumble.
“Kandy?” I called.
“I’m okay.”
I reached for the closed wooden box as the statue crumbled before me, revealing a young girl who looked to be about four years old. Same clothing and everything, but with a younger person inside them.
“What the hell?” I murmured, even as I felt Warner step up on the dais behind me.
The child opened her eyes, and for a moment, I could have sworn they glowed with the golden magic of the portals. But then they cleared to light brown orbs that were way too large for her gaunt face.
No child should be that close to starved. The circlet that the woman-sized statue had worn fell down around the girl’s neck. Her long, light brown hair looked as if it had never been cut.
There was nothing childlike about the intensity of her sooty, sweet magic, though.
Not even remotely hampered by the bodice and skirt that were now far too large for her, she lunged across the altar for the box. “Mine!” she declared. Her accent was so heavily English and posh, it was disconcerting to hear it coming out of a child’s mouth.
I lifted the box that contained the five-strand braids, holding it out of her reach. With the box clear of the altar, I could feel the intense magic thrumming within it. It momentarily scrambled my brain, which wasn’t completely clear of the stone spell yet — discombobulating me just long enough for the child to scramble up and across the altar and try to wrestle the wooden box from my grasp.
Warner swore something German-sounding under his breath as he stepped forward, but then paused as if unsure if he should interfere.
“Jesus,” Kandy whispered as she stepped up to my right.
The girl was oddly strong for a four-year-old. But then, by the sooty taste of her magic and the gold that had rolled over her eyes, I could tell she was a fledgling dragon.
“Hey!” I said, unsure of what else to say to the half-starved dragon toddler before me. I’d always been terrible with kids. I usually just ended up feeding them too many cookies, but cookies were something I obviously had no current ability to make.
The girl, who was half-hanging off the altar and half-hanging off the box, chomped down on my wrist. And drew blood.
I shrieked and snapped my wrist to shake her off. The girl tumbled back onto the altar, then sat on her haunches and licked her lips.
“Enough,” Warner said. The dust on the altar rippled from the power of his rebuke, but the girl simply grinned at him.
“Jesus,” Kandy repeated. “What the hell?”
Yeah, the supposedly powerful adults just stood there staring like idiots at the four-year-old on the stone altar. The bite on my wrist had already healed, but it continued to sting as if it was infected.
“She’s dressed like, what?” I whispered. “Eighteen hundreds?”
“Sixteen hundreds,” Warner said. He sounded terribly grim.
“Jesus,” Kandy repeated.
“What’s a four-year-old from your century doing here?” I asked Warner.
The kid started messing with her clothes, yanking the bodice and skirt off, tearing through the fabric until she was free of it. She then tied one side of her chemise in a knot. Her feet were bare. If I looked on the other side of the altar, I’d probably find her too-big shoes abandoned there.
And yes, we were still just standing there staring at her.
“Look closer at her magic,” Warner said.
The child smiled at me. The expression stretched her thin face further, and a pang of pain went through my heart. She was just a little girl —
“Hail, sister,” she said. “I like your blood. Spicy sweet.”
“Dragons don’t consume each other’s blood,” Warner said, instantly going all big brother on the kid.
The child cackled. All the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I finally saw what Warner had picked up before me.
“Her magic is diminished,” he said. “Locked away.”
“Contained.”
“In the form of a toddler.”
“Preschooler,” Kandy corrected. Like that made a difference.
“Hail, sister,” the kid tried again.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t play the sister card,” I said. “I don’t have a great track record with siblings.” I couldn’t figure out if I felt sorry for her or if she scared the crap out of me.
I cracked open my ruined satchel — willfully ignoring the bits of its vegan ‘leather’ that were now crumbling off it — and started to try to wedge the box into it. Frustratingly, it didn’t seem to fit.
Warner thrust his hand past mine to yank out the sacrificial knife, which was still bundled in my wet T-shirt and the tea towel. He ripped the T-shirt and towel off the knife, then shoved them back in the satchel. I stumbled against him as the force of him doing so pulled down on my right shoulder.
I would have sworn the knife started purring contentedly in his hand the second he unwrapped it. You know, if I believed that magical objects could have moods.
“Hey!” I cried.
Shadow demons rose out of the ground all around the top stair of the dais.
The child clapped her hands, which shifted her firmly into the scared-the-crap-out-of-me category. God, I hated that clapping-while-diabolically-pleased thing. Sienna used to do that all the time.
In a blur of motion, Warner spun around and slashed the shadow demon nearest to us in half. No ripping necessary. The sacrificial knife, which was deadly enough to kill an ancient vampire, sliced through the creature like butter.
“What is it?” Kandy screamed. She couldn’t see or scent the enemy right in front of her.
“Shadows have come to play, wolf,” the child answered.
“Stay right beside me,” I said to Kandy as Warner slashed through a second shadow. Then he pressed his back to mine. The remainder of the shadow demons stayed back from us, as if waiting for some signal.
“Come,” I said to the kid, who was still perched on the altar like a malevolent vulture. “We’ll get you out of here, get you to the guardians. They’ll figure out what’s wrong with your magic.” I held my hand out to her.
She glowered at me. “I don’t need the help of a half-blood.”
“Well, there goes the sister bond I was so hoping for.”
“Give me the garrote vil.”
“What?”
“The instrument of assassination. Now!”
“This?” I held up the box. “It’s braided threads. They aren’t murdering anyone.”
The kid snarled at me.
“Rabid,” Kandy said.
“Being stripped of magic would make anyone crazy,” I said. “Who’s your mother?”
“Mother?” the child echoed.
“I’m laying money on Suanmi. You’ve got that instant-hate-for-me thing in common.”
“Who’s my mother?” the kid repeated, obviously confused.
I sighed. “Come on. Warner, can you cut us a path?”
“If we move quickly.”
I held my hand out to the kid again. “Don’t bite me,” I said. Then I wiggled my fingers at her like she was a pretty kitty.
She grabbed my hand, yanked me forward, and kicked me in the side of the head.
Yeah, a four-year-old kicked me in the head. I stumbled sideways and knocked Kandy off the dais for the second time.
The shadow demons swarmed the green-haired werewolf. Kandy might not have been able to see them, but by her terrified screams she could feel them.
I shook off the kick to the head — freaking dragon kids — then cradled the box in my left hand as I willed my knife into my right. I spun, stepping out of the kid’s path as she leaped for me from the altar. Then I made a beeline for Kandy.
Warner got to the werewolf before I did. Even as they swarmed and attached themselves to him, he slashed the shadows away from Kandy. I could actually see them sucking the shapeshifter magic out of my friend, like leeches.
Warner freed Kandy and shoved her behind him. Her arms, neck, and face were covered with red hickey-like marks as she pivoted, spotted something behind me, and lunged forward.
I felt the child make a second attempt to jump on my back. Kandy threw a punch over my shoulder and knocked her off.
“Fuck!” Kandy screamed, shaking her fist. “The kid has a hard head.”
I spun to see the kid fly back and tumble down the stairs of the dais. The crazy child was cackling with some sort of evil glee. I lost sight of her in the midst of the shadow leech swarm.
“Jesus, Kandy,” I said. “She’s a preschooler.”
“She kicked you in the head first.”
“Go now!” Warner yelled. The shadows were pressing him as he continued to slash them away. His arm and the sacrificial knife were a blur of motion, the magic of the knife flashing and humming as it cut through the leeches. Cutting through magic was what the knife seemed to be made for, but it was insane that I felt like this made it happy. That was way too far down the crazy road, even for me.
“Behind me,” I said to Kandy as I pressed the wooden box with the five-stranded braids into her hands. She couldn’t see the shadows, so she couldn’t hope to fight them. And I needed my hands free.
I sprinted for the entrance, but got only three stairs down before the shadow leeches pressed against us. Warner shifted along the edge of their mass and moved to block them from me. I thrust my knife into what looked like the head of the nearest leech and felt its magic grab hold of the magic in my blade.
“Not for you,” I muttered as I sent a pulse of my power through the knife. The shadow leech exploded.
The others nearby backed off.
“What the hell are they?” Kandy asked. I could feel her frantically looking around behind me.
“Magical leeches of some kind,” I answered as I flew down three more steps. “Sentient, though. They’re scared of my knife.”
“Yeah,” Kandy snarked. “I think it’s the warrior’s daughter who really freaks them out.”
From out of the shadows, the kid appeared before me and kicked out the side of my right knee in the same instant. Bone crunched, fiery pain exploded in my knee, and I stumbled. Then the kid leaped by me and tackled Kandy.
The shadow leeches swarmed over all of us, sucking at any hint of magic they could find. Kandy shrieked, but in frustration rather than fear. She couldn’t get the kid and the leeches off her at the same time, but the kid couldn’t get the box away from the werewolf either.
As I stumbled around, still half upright but with a useless right leg, the leeches tried to attach themselves to me. I pulled magic from my necklace and knife to create a personal shield between them and me. It didn’t stop them from constantly trying to suck on me though, which was seriously creepy.
Warner stepped between Kandy and me. He was attempting to wrestle the kid off the werewolf, even as he kept fighting the leeches. I managed to grab the kid’s legs and half-yank her off Kandy.
The green-haired werewolf tore the box from the kid’s loosened grasp. Then she proceeded to smash it into the tiny, crazy dragon’s face. The wooden box splintered into pieces.
The kid cackled gleefully again. Though I still had her legs pinned, she grabbed for the braided threads as they fell free from the box. She snagged two, but then immediately shrieked when she touched them. I got my arm around her waist, clumsily yanked her off Kandy, and threw her down the remainder of the stairs for the second time. The shadows swarmed her, swallowing her so completely that I couldn’t taste her magic anymore.
My right leg was still a fiery column of pain as I stood to scoop up the three five-stranded braids off Kandy’s chest. They didn’t burn or hurt me in whatever way they’d hurt the kid. But I’d already put two and two together before I touched them. Though they felt benign to me, they — along with the magic of the fortress — were obviously dragon-kryptonite somehow.
Warner stepped almost rhythmically around us, slicing through leeches, though I wasn’t sure he was actually vanquishing any. He might have been weakening them, but he wasn’t reducing their numbers.
Kandy scrambled to her feet, gave me her shoulder, and started half-dragging me down the stairs toward the entrance. She was limping herself, and her other arm — her bad one — didn’t seem to be fully functioning.
“The kid!” I cried.
“Screw the kid,” Kandy snarled.
My right leg was definitely not happy about the quick pace. As we moved, I twisted the three braids together, then knotted them around my left wrist. Their sorcerer-alchemist magic prickled against my skin, but didn’t seem to affect me adversely in any other way.
We stepped off the stairs and the earthquake hit.
The ground suddenly cracked open before Kandy and me. We dove in opposite directions to avoid falling into the fissure that appeared in front of us.
Warner, slightly behind us, tumbled out of my sight. Despite the rolling ground, I could see Kandy gaining her feet to my left. She was close to the exit.
I tried to stand. The ground underneath me continued to roll and crack. The leeches had all disappeared.
“Remember Indiana Jones?” Kandy shouted from the relatively safe entrance archway, which had held against the earthquake so far. She was still having way too much fun.
I laughed. Even with my leg hurting and Warner currently missing in action, I couldn’t help it. “I’ll race you out,” I called.
Kandy lost the smile. “Jade!” she screamed as she pointed up over my head.
I looked up, even as I saw Kandy dive through the stone-framed entranceway.
I had a split second to hope she made it out of the fortress safely. Then the high-vaulted ceiling crashed down over my head.
I ducked, hunkering down next to a portion of the ground that had swelled upward from the earthquake. I wasn’t sure that would offer any protection, but I also wasn’t sure what else I could do at the moment.
I was, however, sure that half-dragon/half-witches didn’t survive being crushed by thousands of pounds of stone.